If you’ve never heard the name Gahan Wilson, then you don’t know macabre cartoons—and you’ve been missing a lot of great ones. For sixty years, Wilson has been drawing creepy one-panel gags for magazines like The Twilight Zone, Playboy, National Lampoon, and The New Yorker. He’s the cartooning soul mate of Charles Addams, whose equally low-key cartoon horrors brought us The Addams Family. And today’s the day he turns 86!
I got to work with Wilson a couple of times, back in my editing days for publishing house ibooks, inc. Ibooks’ publisher, Byron Preiss, was a longtime friend of his, and one day Byron got the idea to put together a small trade paperback collection of Wilson’s cartoons (not the first publisher to do this—there’ve been many Wilson collections). This one would be called Gahan Wilson’s Gravediggers’ Party, and not only would Wilson come to the office to discuss it, but I was going to be the editor working with him to select the cartoons.
Except that’s not how we met. That happened when I stepped out of my office to do something (I forget what) and practically walked into him. And then he uttered his memorable first words to me:
“Excuse me, can you tell me where the men’s room is?”
It took a second to process what he’d said—my mind was too busy thinking, Oh my God, it’s Gahan Wilson! But then I pointed him in the right direction and he hurried off.
From then on—after Byron had formally introduced us—Wilson always remembered me as that guy who showed him where the bathroom was. 😀
Working with him on Gravediggers’ Party, and its follow-up volume, Gahan Wilson’s Monster Party, was a joy, because I got to drool over five decades’ worth of incredible images (don’t worry, my lobster bib kept me from damaging anything). And Wilson agreed with about 85 percent of my choices, which made me even happier.
The last time I crossed paths with him was at the 2011 Boston Comic Con, where he was taking a break from signing copies of another (and massive) collection: Gahan Wilson: Fifty Years of Playboy Cartoons. He stopped by my table in artists’ alley and I reminded him of our collaboration on the two ibooks volumes. He smiled and said:
“I remember you! You’re the one who showed me where the men’s room was.”
For more information on Wilson and his work, check out the 2014 documentary Gahan Wilson: Born Dead, Still Weird. It features appearances from such notables as comedians Stephen Colbert and Lewis Black, director Guillermo del Toro, Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner, writer Neil Gaiman, and even comics legend Stan Lee.
Happy birthday, Mr. Wilson!
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