Gahan Wilson (1930–2019)

Gahan Wilson's cartoons are edgy, irreverent, macabre, and often deliciously funny. The noun "cartoon" may be misleading, as the humor is not for kids and not what you'd expect to find in the Sunday funny pages. Wilson is an intellectual offspring of Charles Adams and Edward Gorey, updated for the 1970s, 80s, and 90s.

This book is a fine Barnes and Noble compilation of some of Gahan Wilson's best work, art that has appeared in National Lampoon, Playboy, the New Yorker, and elsewhere. It was show more originally published in two volumes, in 2002 and 2003, as Gravedigger's Party, and Monster Party. The downside of this collection, in contrast to the older volumes, is that the drawings are rendered at less than half - size, and in black and white, not the original color.

Nevertheless, fans of Mr Wilson's images will want this collection, as will anyone who wants to appreciate some of the most delightfully demented cartoons of all time. For other readers, there's always Beetle Bailey and Peanuts. show less

I was born the year this book was published: 1965. Man had not yet been to the moon. Sometime in the early or mid 1970s I got this book for Christmas. It was a favorite immediately! I loved science fiction, and I loved humor, and like most any young child, I loved stories where the child-hero holds a position of importance. There is no telling how many times I re-read this light, fun story. Nothing too profound here, just entertainment.
Upon finding a copy in a used bookstore, I was delighted show more to relive a bit of my childhood. And unlike so many things that one relives from their childhood, this one held up! I enjoyed it yet again.
The citizens of the Moon are split. Some want to go to Earth and discover what is there. Others want to just blow it up because it's ugly and in the way.
Matthew Looney, a moonchild of unspecified age is selected to go on a mission to Earth. They land somewhere in the swamps of Florida near Cape Kennedy. I enjoyed once again seeing Matthew's delight and confusion at his first encounter with Earthlings (flamingos) and his commanding officer's more alarming encounter (alligators). I relished their horror when it begins to rain, and they are convinced the Earth people are attacking them with poisonous water-bullets. At this point, the expedition is so terrified, they take off to return to the moon, leaving Matthew behind (rather E.T. like). It is then up to Matthew Looney, moon boy, to save both the Earth and the Moon from annihilating each other. show less

The old National Lampoon magazine had two great strips that I thoroughly enjoyed: Shary Fleniken's "Trots and Bonnie" (which just cries out for a compilation book), and Gahan Wilson's "Nuts". The title is a bit of a take-off and homage to "Peanuts", but Schulz's strip, great as it was, was not really about children. "Nuts", however, is a memoir of childhood, pretty close to my era, and it is dead-on true to life and drop-dead funny (using the word "dead" twice here seems appropriate in show more describing Gahan Wilson's work). Some of these strips, I swear, were drawn by somebody who looked back through time to my own childhood, and others seem so familiar to me that they must be from some collective unconscious of childhood memory. show less

This is the first, and in many ways the finest collection of classic Gahan Wilson. His style may be related both to Charles Addams, who came before him at The New Yorker, or to Edward Gorey, who was more prone to books, or booklets as it were -- but Wilson is a true original. My favourite cartoon in this entire collection is not the title one, but a vignette where an elderly couple is seen aboard a train pulling into a station whose platform sign is "NOWHERE." The old woman nudges her show more partner: "We're here, dear!"

And so we are. show less