Gahan Wilson’s Out There

Gahan Wilson is probably best known for his macabre Playboy cartoons-filled with charming monsters, goofy mad scientists, and melting victims-and his cutting-edge work in the National Lampoon, but in 1964, he brought his brilliantly controlled wiggly-but-sophisticated pen line to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

Wilson’s freaks and geeks found a home among the stories of the best fantasy and sf writers of the day, offering a welcome, if sometimes macabre or existentially imponderable, graphic break from the magazine’s otherwise straightforward prose. Wilson’s playfully black sense of comedy was on full display in these cartoons, delineated in his trademark roly-poly, sensual, delicately hatched line.

Out There features the over 250 cartoons that Wilson drew during his tenure with the magazines as well as all four covers he rendered-none of which have seen the light of day since their first appearance 50 years ago. Wilson also contributed both short stories and movie and book reviews, which are included as well. Out There resurrects hundreds of virtually unseen cartoons by one of the 20th century’s masters of the form.