The Wooden Leg

by J.T. Dockery

These are some snap shots I took with my phone while reading Wally Wood's "Cannon" in the Schulz library. Wait, did I say read (also, am I really that at ease that phone is a synonym for crappy camera)? I just absorbed it more like taking in an exhibition of paintings; it was not a literary experience. It was a visual experience, but who needs pop art when you got Wood drawing a spy adventure drawing the women naked for no simple reason other than he can? The art is in the comics.

I don't hide away from view in the shadows like some private and weird American my enthusiasm for delineating the female leg and its adornments, so I snapped the rare instances in which Wood chose to clothe the naked leg.

I imagine Wood day drunk knocking out each one of the pin-up poses in which he puts these ridiculous damsels, perhaps using a copy of Rogue or Adam for reference, and pondering how each panel was another shot of blood money, yet despite that still containing the essence of what is instantly recognizable as the artist's. Some people may not think Wallace Wood was cool, but I like him for these things others may find cause for disdain. And I wonder if people that poo-poo Wood ever had to work for a living or considered what it's like to make a living as a freelancer in a work-for-hire world that couldn't give two shits for Art.

Anyway, as usual, I'm not being a critic when it comes to comics; I'm being an enthusiast, an informal pontificator. I hide away theory in my own work. You want me to give that up to you for free?