WONDER WOMAN 703
Horror ( Dark Horse Comics , 1988), and Th e Basil Wolverton Reader , volumes one and
two (2003 and 2004, Pure Imagination Publishing).
After 1954, Wolverton began his association with EC Comics, primarily as an
illustrator for Mad , and to a lesser degree their other humor title, Panic. Wolverton had
previously developed an unusual style of cartooning he described as the “spaghetti and
meatballs” style, so named for its distinctive tendency to distort the human form into
drooping, veined, protuberant, and stringy shapes. Perhaps the best examples of this
style are found in “MAD Reader” ( Mad #11, 1954) and “Meet Miss Potgold” ( Mad #17,
1954). Th ese images created by Wolverton were beyond basic gross-out humor:
Wolverton crafted imagery that was psychologically aff ecting and refl ected an almost
Freudian sexual symbolism. Wolverton revisited this style for the covers for PLOP! ,
which was reminiscent of early MAD , crafting covers for the series’ fi rst 19 issues in the
early 1970s.
In his personal life, Wolverton was a conservative, religious, and private person. He
crafted a series of cartoons describing the events of the Bible, largely covering the Old
Testament. Th ese stories were published for Herbert Armstrong’s Radio Church of
God, which would later be known as the Worldwide Church of God. Th ese stories
have since been compiled and published by Fantagraphics Books in 2008. Wolverton
also illustrated scenes from the Christian Apocalypse in his 1959 title 1975 in Prophecy.
Unquestionably some of Wolverton’s fi nest work, these illustrations are meticulously
detailed and utilize Wolverton’s sense of horror and the grotesque to emotionally impact
the viewer.
Wolverton died in 1978, four years after a debilitating stroke. His son, Monte
Wolverton, continues to maintain his father’s legacy, through books and articles about
his father’s life and work. Th anks to such eff orts, Wolverton’s work is being rediscovered
by new generations of artists and readers.
Robert O’Nale
WONDER WOMAN. Created by William Moulton Marston (a well-known psycholo-
gist and the inventor of the systolic blood pressure test, a forerunner of the polygraph)
Wonder Woman debuted in All Star Comics #8 (December 1941). Writing under
the pseudonym Charles Moulton, Marston died in 1947, but stories he had written
continued to appear for two years after his death. Th e early Wonder Woman stories
were drawn by Harry G. Peter in a distinctive, blocky style until his death in 1958. Since
then, she has gone through numerous writers and artists (mostly male) and has become
the most important female superhero in comics history. Long thought of as a sort of
female counterpart to Superman , she has regularly appeared in a variety of DC Comics
titles since her debut, giving her the longest continuous run of any superhero in comics
other than Superman and Batman. She is also a particularly interesting and complex
example of the superhero. Marston infused Wonder Woman with proto- feminist char-
acteristics and themes such as independence, self-worth, and sisterhood. Over the years,
and with the death of her creator, she was subjected to the whims of writers and the
