A Wonderful Weirdness
The offbeat art of cartoonist Gahan Wilson has graced Playboy's pages for six decades
"We've completely taken over Earth's political systems, profoundly altered its ecology in our favor, and—outside of a few nutcases—all its inhabitants refuse to admit we even exist!"
Gahan Wilson’s brilliant collection of creatures— man-eating monsters, angry aliens and murderminded children, to cite just a few—has paraded through Playboy since March 1958, when the magazine published its first full-page color cartoon by the artist. In that piece, a woman is shocked to see she has swept up a portion of her own shadow. Darkly funny, it sits squarely at the intersection of humor and horror where much of Wilson’s work is found.
“As a cartoonist you develop this habit, a kind of observational skill. You’re looking for something you can turn into funny,” says Wilson.
Growing up in Evanston, Illinois, he became fascinated by comic strips and began drawing cartoons when he was just “an itsy-bitsy kid,” he says. Deciding to pursue an artistic career, he graduated from the nearby School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
In 1957, Wilson was a struggling artist. While trying to sell his work to Trump—a short-lived Playboy-owned title—he got a lucky break when art director Arthur Paul diverted him straight to Hugh Hefner’s office. At the time, Wilson had no idea who Hef was but immediately felt he’d found the right home for his work when he overheard Hef on the phone insisting his magazine would remain “pro sin.”
Thus was born not only a fruitful professional relationship—Playboy has published nearly 700 of Wilson’s cartoons, plus fiction and travelogue pieces—but also a friendship. (Wilson even became a long-term guest at the Chicago Mansion.) It helped that Hef, a onetime aspiring cartoonist himself, took the form very seriously. “It was marvelous good luck to work with a guy like that,” Wilson says.
Today, at the age of 88, Wilson still creates nearly every day. “It’s great fun, a big challenge,” he says of cartooning. “It’s like a game, and so satisfying when you get that aha'. If you get a cartoon well finished, it’s a triumph.”
To enjoy some of those triumphs, keep scrolling for a collection of our favorite Gahan Wilson works.
Growing up in Evanston, Illinois, he became fascinated by comic strips and began drawing cartoons when he was just “an itsy-bitsy kid,” he says. Deciding to pursue an artistic career, he graduated from the nearby School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
In 1957, Wilson was a struggling artist. While trying to sell his work to Trump—a short-lived Playboy-owned title—he got a lucky break when art director Arthur Paul diverted him straight to Hugh Hefner’s office. At the time, Wilson had no idea who Hef was but immediately felt he’d found the right home for his work when he overheard Hef on the phone insisting his magazine would remain “pro sin.”
Thus was born not only a fruitful professional relationship—Playboy has published nearly 700 of Wilson’s cartoons, plus fiction and travelogue pieces—but also a friendship. (Wilson even became a long-term guest at the Chicago Mansion.) It helped that Hef, a onetime aspiring cartoonist himself, took the form very seriously. “It was marvelous good luck to work with a guy like that,” Wilson says.
Today, at the age of 88, Wilson still creates nearly every day. “It’s great fun, a big challenge,” he says of cartooning. “It’s like a game, and so satisfying when you get that aha'. If you get a cartoon well finished, it’s a triumph.”
To enjoy some of those triumphs, keep scrolling for a collection of our favorite Gahan Wilson works.
From the March/April 2018 Playboy.
