Celebrate the art and career of Al Williamson at a special exhibit at Marywood University’s Mahady Gallery in Scranton, Pennsylvania from October 8-11, 2010. “Al Williamson: A Tribute” will showcase over 60 original works spanning five decades. More than ten pieces will represent each decade from 1950 to 2000.
Featured will be original art done for comics, posters, trading cards, preliminary sketches, family birthday and Christmas cards, as well as drawings he did for his own pleasure. Comic pieces include finished pages for Flash Gordon, Star Wars pages and covers, Secret Agent Corrigan strips, and comic pages for Eerie magazine (“The Jungle”). Examples of Al’s pages from Weird Science (“Captivity”), Classics Illustrated (The World Around Us: Prehistoric Animals), Blade Runner, Dark Horse Presents (“One Last Job”), his Sub-Mariner story, as well as inked pages completed for Marvel Comics, and more, will be on display.
Al Williamson’s wife, Cori, shares more about the show. “This exhibit is a tribute and celebration of Al Williamson’s life through his art. Al fell in love with comics and drawing at an early age. By the time he was 12 years old he knew he wanted to be a cartoonist. He had the talent and perseverance to achieve that goal. Al loved working in ‘the field’ as he called it but he also enjoyed sharing with others his knowledge of illustrators and cartoonists that influenced and inspired him. His studio and home were always open for friends, young artists and fellow collectors. He liked to pull out originals he had and spend time looking at them with others. All are welcome to join friends and family at the opening reception.”
A set of five different postcards adorned with Al’s art has been produced to coincide with this show. They will be given away free to all those who attend.
The exhibit reception will be held on Friday, October 8 from 6-9 PM. The Mahady Gallery is located on the Marywood Universtiy campus in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Gallery hours and directions can be found here: http://cwis.marywood.edu/galleries/VISIT.html. More details are available on the Mahaday Gallery website: http://cwis.marywood.edu/galleries/future.html
Flesk Publications has donated copies of Al Williamson’s Flash Gordon: A Lifelong Vision of the Heroic and Al Williamson Archives, Vol. 1 for the reception. All proceeds from the sales of these titles will go towards the Al Williamson Scholarship Fund at the The Joe Kubert School. Those unable to make the show and would like to make a donation can send a check to:
The Joe Kubert School
37 Myrtle Avenue
Dover, NJ 07801
Attn: Al Williamson Scholarship Fund
Al Williamson was born in New York City in 1931. Williamson, who first and foremost considered himself a cartoonist, excelled at illustrative science fiction, adventure and western stories, pulling inspiration from both classic comic strips and motion pictures.
Williamson began his professional career in 1948 and achieved popular recognition in the early 1950s as the youngest and one of the most talented contributors to the legendary EC line of comics. Beyond EC, Williamson drew superior work for many comic publishers, including American Comics Group, Atlas/Marvel, Charlton, Classics Illustrated, Dark Horse, Dell, Harvey, King, Prize, Toby and Warren. From 1967 until 1980 he produced the art for the King Features Syndicate’s daily Secret Agent Corrigan newspaper strip, and from 1981 to 1984 drew the daily and Sunday Star Wars newspaper strip.
Beginning in the 1980s Williamson reintroduced himself to a new generation of comics readers as an inker for DC and then Marvel Comics, enjoying memorable stints finishing the work of other artists on Superman, Daredevil and Spidergirl.
Al produced a much beloved series of stories for King Comics’ Flash Gordon comic book in the 1960s. He returned to the character in 1980, drawing a comic’s adaptation of the contemporary Flash Gordon motion picture. In the 1990s, he produced a Flash Gordon mini-series for Marvel Comics and later contributing to the original Sunday strip
Over his career he received numerous professional awards, including multiple Harvey and Eisner Awards and the National Cartoonists Society’s 1967 Award for Best Comic Book Cartoonist, and most recently the 2010 Spectrum Grand Master Award.
Enjoy!
John Fleskes
Flesk Publications