| S. Clay Wilson | |
|---|---|
| Born | July 25, 1941 Lincoln, Nebraska |
| Occupation | Cartoonist |
S. Clay Wilson (born July 25, 1941) (Steve or Steven) is an American underground cartoonist and central figure in the underground comix movement. Wilson is known for aggressively violent and sexually explicit panoramas of "lowlife," often depicting the wild escapades of pirates and bikers. He was an early contributor to Zap Comix, and Wilson's artistic audacity has been cited by R. Crumb as a liberating source of inspiration for Crumb's own work.
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Wilson was born in Lincoln, Nebraska and later attended the University of Nebraska. He was trained as a medic in the United States Army and held odd jobs before moving to San Francisco in 1968. Wilson lived in Lawrence, KS before moving West. He met up with Charles Plymell, who was publishing Robert Crumb's Zap Comix. Wilson had been drawing since he was 12, and needed little persuasion to contribute to Zap. His work was praised by such counterculture icons as William S. Burroughs and Terry Southern.
Wilson was also featured in The Rip Off Review of Western Culture, in which he contributed to the three issues that were published in 1972. The third issue of November/December 1972 has an extensive interview with Wilson, interviewed by Robert Follett, the editorial director of the magazine/comic book.
According to Charles Plymell (an editor of Grist magazine), Wilson's first published work was in 1966 in Grist #7 magazine (a poetry magazine by John Fowler) and then in Grist #9, also from that same year. The first appearance of the Checkered Demon is said to have been in an ad in a later issue of Grist. His portfolio was printed the following year in 1967 (with subsequent printings later on in comic book form).
A striking feature of S. Clay Wilson's work is the contrast between the literate way in which his characters speak and think and the depraved violence in which they engage.
Wilson's later work became more ghoulish, featuring zombie pirates and visualizations of the Virgin of Guadalupe as a rotting vampire mother. In many respects, however, his work has remained consistent since his emergence in the 1960s. In contrast to the many countercultural figures who have moderated their more extreme tendencies and successfully assimilated into the mainstream of commercial culture, S. Clay Wilson's work has remained troubling to mainstream sensibilities and defiantly ill-mannered.
The main book collection of S. Clay Wilson's comics is the Checkered Demon Anthology Vol. 1 from Last Gasp. The Art of S. Clay Wilson, published in 2006 by Ten Speed Press, covers his prints and paintings as well as his comics work.
On November 8, 2008, Wilson suffered a severe brain injury.[1] After attending the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco and drinking throughout the day, Wilson left the house of a friend and was found by two passersby, face down and unconscious between parked cars. Among his injuries were a fractured neck; it is not known if he was assaulted or passed out.[2]
After a week in intensive care, Wilson was put on an accelerated therapy program, but still showed major difficulty in summoning words, a common form of aphasia following a trauma of this sort.[3] He had recovered enough to write his own signature in the first week of December, but continued to require hospitalization as of the end of December 2008,[4] when a benefit was held to assist with his medical costs.[5] Another benefit was held in Hollywood in March 2009. Wilson returned home in November 2009, able to draw well and speak a little but still requiring special care.[6]
("Tree Frog Beer" is the drink of choice for many of these characters).