Wally Wood’s 22 Panels That Always Work: Unlimited Edition
by Eric Millikin
Also tipped off to me by Tom Spurgeon: Joel Johnson has purchased the original of the classic “Wally Wood’s 22 Panels That Always Work” and made it available for free high-res download.
I’ve had a bad laserprint of a bad scan of a bad photocopy of this on one of my bulletin boards in my studio for years. I’m not sure if I’ve ever used it as a anything more than a subliminal guide, but then again I don’t draw the types of lengthy, multi-panel, serialized assembly line comics this was geared for. Although, perhaps I could use this as the guide to a 22-week series of single panel comics …
(Also, as cool as this is as a historical document — you’ve gotta read the history and philosophy behind it — I’m not sure a high-res version of rough thumbnails is going to provide a creative boon to any artists. High-res rough thumbs is sorta ironic.)
August 23rd, 2006 at 12:01 pm
Cool, I’d never seen that before. Thanks for sharing.
August 23rd, 2006 at 12:05 pm
There’ve been a couple of cool parody versions as well — Ivan Brunetti did one that comes to mind. You can probably find it on Google — I’d look , but i’m on my way out the door ….
August 23rd, 2006 at 1:59 pm
4 of Brunetti’s 22 panels are here — http://www.timemachinego.com/linkmachinego/2004_01_01_archive.php#107524149565767835
the other 38 seem to have been lost in a move by Highwater Books …
August 23rd, 2006 at 4:41 pm
I was glad to see this since it really fits the way my comic is organized. I get really tired of talking heads… I would love to see an anthology of comics that use each of those 22 panels to tell a story of some kind. But it’s a bit too open-ended, so it probably wouldn’t catch on. Shame.
August 23rd, 2006 at 5:10 pm
http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2006/08/23/ivan-brunettis-22-panels-that-always-work-sometimes/
August 23rd, 2006 at 7:22 pm
I had a teacher at SVA that handed out Wood’s 22 panels.
I forget his name, but he was the artist on the “Archie” comics.I can’t remember if he was the original guy, or just a later guy that drew in the same style-but he was older, maybe in his 60’s or 70’s?
August 23rd, 2006 at 8:45 pm
The most famous Archie artist was Dan DeCarlo. Was it him?
Joey
August 24th, 2006 at 1:58 am
Joey: Thanks for the Brunetti 22 panels. Now that I have 44 panels that always work I will just use one each week of every year (and then take 8 weeks vacation). I will be unstoppable! (unless you count vacation as stopping)
John & Joey: I’m not sure if Dan De Carlo ever taught at SVA. He also died in 2001 and was about 80. Sal Amendola is a former Archie artist who is almost 60 and currently teaches at SVA. He’s also “a strict vegetarian [who] will go out of his way to move living insects outside his house without harming them. He won’t even use art supplies made from animals” according to http://www.famousveggie.com/biodetail.cfm?&PEOPLEID=275