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Swamp Thing and Bernie Wrightson, Bernie’s illustrated pictured at the version of Mary Austin Wizard World Shelley’s Frankenstein Comic Con in late guarantee the artist October, 2012. a place in the annals of comic history. © Getty Images/Gary Miller/FilmMagic

with the illustrations showcasing the magnificent line-work and negative A tribute to artist space that made his name. Following the news of Bernie’s death, friends, artists and colleagues took to social media to share their Bernie Wrightson thoughts. Neil Gaiman, who featured Bernie’s Modern Prometheus Fans mourn the loss of the Swamp Thing and Destiny character in The Frankenstein artist, whose illustrations made the grotesque beautiful Sandman, said on Twitter: “Bernie Wrightson was the Bernie Wrightson, the master of the story, Swamp Thing returned in his first comics artist whose work I loved. macabre adored by comic readers own series and gained a cult following. Oddly, I don’t mourn the artist. I mourn and horror aficionados for his deftly During this time, Bernie also worked the lovely man who told bad jokes.” intricate illustrations for Swamp on numerous horror-comic magazines “Bernie Wrightson was quite simply Thing and Frankenstein, passed away and co-created Weird Mystery Tales one of the finest men I’ve ever known on 18 March, aged 68. The cause of with writer Marv Wolfman. It was in comics,” adds Colleen Doran, who death was brain cancer, which he’d around this point he also started work also worked on The Sandman. “He was been diagnosed with in 2014. on his adaptation of Mary Shelley’s not only supremely Bernie began his career as an 1818 Gothic horror novel, Frankenstein. talented, but also kind and illustrator for The Baltimore Sun Taking seven years to complete, giving. No other modern newspaper. But it was after meeting Bernie’s Frankenstein was a labour of Bernie co-created illustrator could match his Weird Mystery Tales Frank Frazetta in 1967 that he decided love that he created in between paid with Marv Wolfman. incredible ink rendering, to create his own stories. Two years work. The adaptation, published in The comic ran from and we will never see better 1972 to 1975. later, his first illustrated comic book 1983, is seen as Bernie’s masterpiece, Frankenstein illustrations.” story, The Man Who Murdered Himself, Film director Guillermo del Toro

appeared in House of Mystery no. 179 Swamp Thing’s honoured Bernie’s memory by not under the name ‘Berni’. success in House posting on Twitter for 24 of Secrets ensured He then moved to New York and in the character would hours, but before his 1971 co-created with writer Len Wein get his own series, silence he wrote, “As it launched in 1977. his most famous character, Swamp comes to all of us, the end

Thing, for House of Secrets issue 92. cc-by-sa-2.0 - Gage Skidmore came for the greatest that Following the success of the first short ever lived: Bernie Wrightson. My North dark star of youth. A master.” Bernie was Meanwhile, Stephen King, whose novel The Stand was illustrated by quite simply one Bernie, was tellingly straightforward with his message: “RIP of the finest men Bernie Wrightson, a good I’ve ever known friend and a great collaborator. in comics Colleen Doran I will miss him.”

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