R.I.P. Gahan Wilson
November 22, 2019 6:44 PM   Subscribe

Born dead, still weird. Legendary darkly funny cartoonist Gahan Wilson (Wikipedia) died at 89.
Reflections from The New Yorker, CBR, The New York Times, Stephen Colbert, and Neil Gaiman. posted by doctornemo (55 comments total) 21 users marked this as a favorite
 
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posted by Don.Kinsayder at 7:12 PM on November 22, 2019


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posted by Fizz at 7:12 PM on November 22, 2019


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posted by dougfelt at 7:14 PM on November 22, 2019


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posted by pernoctalian at 7:22 PM on November 22, 2019


He and Edward Gorey were my favorites of the sui generis group of cartoonists of the 20th century. I hope he had a peaceful passing - or else carried away triumphantly by those loathsome chimeric god demons he sometimes drew.
posted by King Sky Prawn at 7:23 PM on November 22, 2019 [9 favorites]


I only met him once, at a horror con, and he was both very friendly and funny.

(First saw his work when I was very young, in the Matthew Looney books.)
posted by doctornemo at 7:25 PM on November 22, 2019 [2 favorites]


741 dewey decimal is where you find his work in the library. sometimes i remember things.
posted by wmo at 7:33 PM on November 22, 2019 [7 favorites]


My best friend had the Gahan Wilson haunted house PC game when I was a kid. I loved it. I really love how the best word to describe his cartoons is, in my mind, "ghoulish."
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 7:35 PM on November 22, 2019 [2 favorites]


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The Open Library / Internet Archive has several of his books, including a collection of short stories, and on Twitter there's "The Science Fiction Horror Movie Pocket Computer," a flowchart / story generator published in National Lampoon and selected for the year's best SF of 1971 by Harry Harrison and Brian Aldiss.
posted by Wobbuffet at 7:35 PM on November 22, 2019 [8 favorites]


He had the soul of a creepy little boy... which he naturally kept in an empty snuff box in his desk.

His given name suited his talent because my first reacton to his works was always 'Gah!'

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posted by zaixfeep at 7:45 PM on November 22, 2019 [5 favorites]


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I always loved his cartoons.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 8:01 PM on November 22, 2019


For anybody who hasn't seen this today: the eye exam.

(Edit: crap, never mind, it's down at the bottom of the first link.)

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posted by Sing Or Swim at 8:03 PM on November 22, 2019 [1 favorite]


"Didn't everybody used to have faces?"

"I think we're converging!"

"I always knew that kid had a lot of guts."

"It's no use! I'm here too!"

Wow, he was so so good. Thanks for everything, good job!
posted by Meatbomb at 8:10 PM on November 22, 2019


He was married to author Nancy Winters (née Nancy Dee Midyette) from 1966[2] until her death in 2019.[3]

Aww, he was a part of a nesting pair. Bittersweet, he had a long life of comfort but must have been very alone at the end.
posted by Meatbomb at 8:14 PM on November 22, 2019 [2 favorites]


Sad that he has passed! A great artist.
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posted by Katjusa Roquette at 8:34 PM on November 22, 2019


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posted by vrakatar at 8:38 PM on November 22, 2019


Andy Duncan has a touching funny anecdote on twitter.

I mostly knew him from a collection of Nuts that somehow ended up in my dad's possession when I was maybe 10. Jeet Heer contrasts Wilson with Schutz here, and I gotta say that I never really thought about it that way but child-me identified with the Kid in a way I never identified with Charlie Brown.

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posted by mark k at 8:40 PM on November 22, 2019 [4 favorites]


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posted by blob at 8:44 PM on November 22, 2019


Crap.

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posted by jabo at 9:14 PM on November 22, 2019


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posted by dlugoczaj at 9:54 PM on November 22, 2019


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*



[I'm not going to figure out how to do a bigger inkblot if you know you know].
posted by atoxyl at 10:31 PM on November 22, 2019 [2 favorites]


Lost one creative mind....RIP to Gahan Wilson
posted by nykson at 11:00 PM on November 22, 2019


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posted by Proofs and Refutations at 12:34 AM on November 23, 2019


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posted by tdismukes at 1:07 AM on November 23, 2019


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posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 1:51 AM on November 23, 2019


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posted by TedW at 2:37 AM on November 23, 2019


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I loved Gahan Wilson’s work from a very early age. His cartoons could appeal to young and old alike, and now that I’m in my 40s, I get new chuckles and joy that I didn’t twenty years ago.

I will pretty much always stump for his lesser-known stuff. Eddy Deco’s Last Caper is an illustrated novel set in the Deco-era big city, with Eldritch gods, the titular private eye, and plenty of derring-do. It’s more heavily illustrated than many illustrated books, and it feels like a Gahan Wilson book like nothing else. Everybody’s Favorite Duck is similar in spirit, if not illustrated — a parody of detective/sensation fiction, with a Sherlock-type character, a Fu Manchu, etc.
posted by cupcakeninja at 4:37 AM on November 23, 2019 [4 favorites]


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posted by tommasz at 5:06 AM on November 23, 2019


Damn. I loved his stuff. One of the greats, to be sure.

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posted by Thorzdad at 5:13 AM on November 23, 2019


༼ ༎ຶ ෴ ༎ຶ ༽
posted by louche mustachio at 5:24 AM on November 23, 2019 [6 favorites]


👁
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:20 AM on November 23, 2019


The age of glossy magazines brought us so many great cartoonists. We may never see the like of him again.
💀
posted by Bee'sWing at 6:30 AM on November 23, 2019 [2 favorites]


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posted by Gadgetenvy at 7:24 AM on November 23, 2019


I recognize his work immediately, but never really knew who he was. :-(

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posted by KleenexMakesaVeryGoodHat at 7:26 AM on November 23, 2019 [1 favorite]


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posted by Splunge at 7:35 AM on November 23, 2019


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posted by filtergik at 7:53 AM on November 23, 2019


"Remember how confusing it was, being a little kid? Remember trying to make sense out of the weird rules grownups made you follow, and how you always guessed wrong about which ones they'd figure were really important? Remember your favorite comic book hero, and crossing vacant lots, and eating candy that made your teeth hurt? Remember how sometimes you wondered whether you'd die of some kid disease, or whether you'd live to actuallyt grow up and not have to run dumb errands for your mother and learn boring stuff at school? Remember how small you were and how brave you had to be to get through it all? "----NUTS
I would sneak into my parents' bedroom during the day, when they were at work, and read from the stash of my dads' Playboys in the back of his closet. Before I left home for good, I carefully cut out all the Gahan Wilson cartoons (they never had a naked lady picture on the other side of the page, usually the joke page or an ad) and took them with me. Still have them. To have someone say that a lot of the world, the weird rules, was crap, saved my life.
posted by twentyfeetof tacos at 8:09 AM on November 23, 2019 [8 favorites]


He did the cover for one of my chapbooks. As a fan since childhood, I was so very happy.
posted by jscalzi at 8:59 AM on November 23, 2019 [5 favorites]


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posted by detachd at 9:09 AM on November 23, 2019


🤮
😱
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👻
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posted by Winnie the Proust at 9:40 AM on November 23, 2019


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posted by Nat "King" Cole Porter Wagoner at 10:43 AM on November 23, 2019


🦠
posted by carmicha at 11:48 AM on November 23, 2019 [1 favorite]


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posted by Philofacts at 11:58 AM on November 23, 2019


RIP, great one.
posted by Lynsey at 12:59 PM on November 23, 2019


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posted by Cookiebastard at 3:07 PM on November 23, 2019


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What a great cartoonist. What! A! Great! Cartoonist!
posted by Going To Maine at 4:07 PM on November 23, 2019


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one of my favorites.
posted by evilDoug at 10:38 PM on November 23, 2019


I grew up loving his gag cartoons, books like Gahan Wilson's America, his funny and perceptive movie reviews for Twilight Zone Magazine, just all this terrific stuff he did. My God, he was so good at so many things. This world was lucky to have him.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 3:28 AM on November 24, 2019


🌑
posted by bonobothegreat at 5:12 AM on November 24, 2019


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posted by coppertop at 6:15 AM on November 24, 2019


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(with a note for his illustrations for Roger Zelazny's A Night in the Lonesome October)
posted by Mutant Lobsters from Riverhead at 10:43 AM on November 24, 2019 [1 favorite]



posted by bz at 7:48 AM on November 25, 2019


Of all the strange / inappropriate pop culture around the house when I was a young kid in the permissive 70s – R. Crumb, Zap Comix, early National Lampoon, Playboy—Gahan Wilson has held up best for me, and he’s the one artist I was freaked out by as a kid but also sought out as an adult. Lots of scary and unsettling images—so many men having heart attacks! with such terrifying grimaces, and so many doughy folds welling up around the fist clutching at the chest ! But also some sweet humor, sometimes.

The book of his that made the biggest impression on me is uncharacteristically quiet—Harry the Fat Bear Spy, a goofy chapter book for kids with only a few illustrations. The bears have just terrible tradecraft—the secret entrance to their HQ is poorly disguised as a noodle shop, with one bear at a counter rolling the same noodle out all day long—and part of the password to get into the secret HQ is Bearmania’s national anthem:
You’re better than Pennsylvania, Bearmania.
You’re better than Transylvania, Bearmania.
You’re better than any of those places.
Which I found utterly, pantswettingly hilarious for reasons I couldn’t explain. And my curiosity then about why I found it so funny got me thinking about how language and humor work—it turned on a kind of attention that I haven’t really turned off since. I’m grateful to Wilson for that.
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posted by miles per flower at 8:11 AM on November 25, 2019 [1 favorite]


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posted by Joey Michaels at 8:21 AM on November 25, 2019


"You funnin' me bub?"
posted by WinstonJulia at 5:19 AM on November 26, 2019


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