S. Clay Wilson R.I.P.

S. Clay Wilson, R.I.P.

July 25, 1941 – February 7, 2021

Steven Clay Wilson died February 7 at the age of 79.

If you are a Baby Boomer, a fan of underground comix, or the counterculture of the 60s and 70s, then you are familiar with Wilson's work. I still have copies of two issues of 'The Checkered Demon' comix, published by Last Gasp, that I picked up in the late 70s at Charms Boutique, my home town's 'head shop'. 

from Belgian Lace from Hell: The Mythology of S. Clay Wilson, Volume 3, by Patrick Rosenkranz, Fantagraphics, 2017

And I remember those outrageous Wilson comics that were reprinted in the legendary High Times Encyclopedia of Recreational Drugs (I owned that book in the early 70s, but somehow lost it in the early 80s, something which saddens me to this day).

Wilson was a zeitgeist for the era of the counterculture and comix. His work was grotesque, offensive, blasphemous, and obscene, but also amazingly comic. In any event, you knew what you were getting into when you began reading a Wilson comic. 

from Belgian Lace from Hell: The Mythology of S. Clay Wilson, Volume 3, by Patrick Rosenkranz, Fantagraphics, 2017 

I was fortunate to get an affordable copy of The Checkered Demon Anthology Volume 1 back when it first was published in 2015 by Last Gasp. I'm guessing copies now will be tripling in price, if not going higher.

I imagine that copies of the three-volume series for Fantagraphics, The Mythology of S. Clay Wilson, written by Patrick Rosenkranz, also will see their value skyrocketing, so if you are a Wilson fan, it might be best to get those sooner, rather than later.

A post featuring an interview with S. Clay Wilson, from the March, 1983 issue of Heavy Metal magazine, is available at this link.  The questions posed to Wilson, by Heavy Metal freelancer Brad Balfour, are lame ('Do you think of yourself as normal ?') but the interview nonetheless provides some insights into the artist and his work.