Bernie Wrightson

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Bernie Wrightson

At the 2006 Dallas Comic Con.
Photo by Corey Bond.
Born October 27, 1948
Baltimore, Maryland
Nationality
American
Area(s) Penciller; Inker; Painter
Pseudonym(s) Berni Wrightson

Bernie "Berni" Wrightson (born October 27, 1948, Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.) is an American artist known for his horror illustrations and comic books.

He received training in art from reading comics, particularly those of EC, as well as through a correspondence course from the Famous Artists School.

In 1966, Wrightson began working for The Baltimore Sun newspaper as an illustrator. The following year, after meeting artist Frank Frazetta at a comic-book convention in New York City, he was inspired to produce his own stories. In 1968, he showed copies of his sequential art to DC Comics editor Dick Giordano and was given a freelance assignment. Wrightson began spelling his name "Berni" in his professional work to distinguish himself from an Olympic diver named Bernie Wrightson, but later restored the final E to his name.

His first professional comic work appeared in House of Mystery #179 in 1968. He continued to work on a variety of mystery and anthology titles for both DC and its principal rival, Marvel Comics. In 1971, with writer Len Wein, Wrightson co-created the muck creature Swamp Thing for DC. He also co-created Destiny, later to become famous in the work of Neil Gaiman.

By 1974. he had left DC to work at Warren Publishing, for whose black-and-white horror-comics magazines he produced a series of original work as well as adaptations of stories by H. P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe.

In 1975, Wrightson joined with fellow artists Jeff Jones, Michael Kaluta, and Barry Windsor-Smith to form The Studio, a shared loft in Manhattan where the group would pursue creative products outside the constraints of comic book commercialism. Though he continued to produce sequential art, Wrightson at this time began producing artwork for numerous posters, prints, calendars, and even coloring books.

Wrightson spent seven years drawing approximately 50 detailed pen-and-ink illustrations to accompany an edition of Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, which the artist considers among his most personal work.

Wrightson drew the poster for the Stephen King-penned horror film Creepshow, as well as illustrating the comic book adaptation of the film. This led to several other collaborations with King, including illustrations for the novella "Cycle of the Werewolf" and the restored edition of King's apocalyptic horror epic, The Stand.

Wrightson has contributed album covers for a number of bands, including Meat Loaf.

The "Captain Sternn" segment of the animated film Heavy Metal is based on a character created by Wrightson.

He did production design for the characters the Reavers in the 2005 film Serenity [1].

Contents

Berni Wrightson on editing the magazine Web of Horror [2]:

"That was done by a guy named Richard Sproul out in Long Island. His company, Major Magazines, put out Cracked magazine.... A fellow named Terry Bisson tracked down me, Mike Kaluta, and Jeff Jones, and presented us with a proposal to do this black-and-white horror magazine in competition with Creepy. ...Bisson (who was writing blurb copy for romance magazines when I first met him) left after the third issue under very mysterious circumstances — and the running of the whole magazine, for some reason, fell into [writer-artist] Bruce Jones' and my laps (and I can't remember if Terry said, 'Here, you guys take over the editorial', or if we volunteered). Bruce and I put together the whole fourth issue, which had already been assigned. We were working at home! We had to take this incredibly long trip to get [to Major Magazines] — Bruce lived in Flushing at the time and from there we took a train to the end of the line and from there we had to take two buses and then walk about 10 blocks to get to the office! It was an all-day thing and we finally get out to the office.... and the place was empty. All the desks, all the filing cabinets, everything, was gone! ... [W]e never learned where the guy went and what happened to him. We had all this stuff for the fourth issue and we were planning issues five and six — Bruce and I were going to take over the magazine and make it like Creepy or EC Comics — but they just left! ... Whatever had been turned in already, they took with them. I don't think anybody got paid for anything — and Bruce and I took a bath on it".

Wrightson won the Shazam Award for Best Penciller (Dramatic Division) in 1972 and 1973 for Swamp Thing, the Shazam Award for Best Individual Story (Dramatic) in 1972 for Swamp Thing #1 (with Len Wein).

He has received additional nominations, including for the Shazam Award for Best Inker in 1973 for Swamp Thing, as well as that year's Shazam for Best Individual Story, for "A Clockwork Horror" in Swamp Thing #6 (with Len Wein). He won the Shazam Award for Best Penciller (Dramatic Division) in 1974.

Wrightson received the H.P. Lovecraft Award (also known as the "Howie") at the 2007 H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland, Oregon. [3]

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