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Late Honesdale resident focus of Marywood exhibit
Many artists in the comic book industry are known for leaving their mark on the era in which they worked, but few are known for representing practically every era of the industry. That’s what made Al Williamson, a former Wayne County resident, stand out amongst the rest. A tribute to Williamson’s legacy will be on display at the Mahady Gallery at Marywood University from October 8 to 11. The art show will be the first gallery of his work displayed since his passing in June.
Born in Manhattan in 1931, Williamson discovered comics at the age of nine, when his mother took him to see a Flash Gordon movie serial. It was then that he decided that he would be a comic book artist, and it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. In 1948, he had his first professional work published, and in the 1950s, he drew science fiction stories for EC Comics. He was also one of the original artists for the “Creepy” and “Eerie” horror comics in the 1960s.
Around that same time, he began drawing the iconic Flash Gordon, a character he became best known for and would continue to draw throughout the rest of his career. He drew the “Secret Agent Corrigan” daily strip throughout the 1970s. In the 1980s, he worked on adaptations of “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi,” along with the “Star Wars” daily and Sunday strip, at the specific request of George Lucas himself.
He went on to ink Superman for DC Comics, and by the 1990s, had also worked on Marvel Comics’ Spider-Man and Daredevil. Even as late as 2009, he drew Namor the Sub-Mariner in a tribute to the late Bill Everett.
His wife of 32 years, Cori Williamson, has collected over 60 pieces of original sketches, posters, trading cards, postcards, and even a “Flash Gordon” record album cover for the Marywood exhibit. Among the items on display will be his “Weird Science” pages from the ‘50s, “Flash Gordon” pages from the ‘60s and ‘90s, an “Eerie Magazine” page done in ‘60s for EC Comics.
While she said that her husband never let his notoriety in the comic industry go to his head, she added that it was “exciting” for her to see how well-recognized he was amongst his fans.
“I went to my first comic convention in New York City shortly after we were married, and it was a different world. People would come up and ask, ‘What’s it like living with the great Al Williamson?’ I knew him as the man I asked to take out the garbage!” Williamson said with a laugh.
While he was the winner of many awards for his penciling and inking throughout his life and was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2000, Williamson said that her husband’s greatest pleasure was inviting people over to his personal studio to talk about comics, art, and music. He also enjoyed sharing his gifts with other young artists in the field.
“He was a sweet man with a good sense of humor, very dedicated to his work. His work was really his whole life,” she said.
Mark Schultz, a fellow comic creator from Clarks Summit and longtime friend of Williamson, said that he met him through a fellow publisher in 1987. Schultz recalled cutting out his “Secret Agent Corrigan” strips from the newspaper as a child. After exchanging numbers, he admitted he was too nervous to call him, but Williamson ended up calling him, and they quickly became friends and collaborators.
“He was a huge fan of the cinema, of the movies, and so were other people like Jack Kirby, Will Eisner, and even Frank Frazetta. All these guys had a remarkable ability to capture that feeling of motion from a motion picture, the actual feeling of movement, and transfer it to a static medium, a medium that doesn’t have movement. Personally, I think Al did it better than any of the others,” Schultz said.
“His figures were the most naturalistic; the proportions were most like real people. He’s going to make the cut and be remembered 100, 200 years from now when a lot of other people that we enjoy as artists will probably be forgotten,” he continued.
Schultz went on to publish a book called “Al Williamson’s Flash Gordon: A Lifelong Vision of the Heroic,” which collected all of Williamson’s Flash Gordon work, much of which had been out of print. He will also be making five collector’s trading cards adorned with Williamson’s work available at the tribute gallery for fans in attendance at the premier on Friday, Oct. 8 from 6 to 9 p.m.
Cori Williamson will attend the premier, as well. Two books of her husband’s work will be on sale with proceeds benefiting the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art, where students are bound to study his work.
From Flash Gordon to Spider-Man to Luke Skywalker, even those who don’t know Al Williamson’s name likely know his distinctive art from some point in their childhoods.
“I think every generation remembers Al for something,” Williamson said.