R.I.P.: Artist Bernie Wrightson has passed away at age 68

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Over the weekend we lost a legend of the horror genre, something that has been happening way too frequently in recent years. As announced on his official website, artist Bernie Wrightson has passed away at age 68 after a long battle with brain cancer.

Wrightson did some absolutely incredible work over the course of his career, bringing wonderful renditions of monsters and heroes to life on the page. The obituary posted by his wife Liz on BernieWrightson.com details some of the work he did for DC, Marvel, and collaborations with Stephen King, among others: 

His first professional comic work appeared in House of Mystery #179 in 1968. He continued to work on a variety of mystery and anthology titles for both DC and its principal rival, Marvel Comics. In 1971, with writer Len Wein, Wrightson co-created the muck creature Swamp Thing for DC. He also co-created Destiny, later to become famous in the work of Neil Gaiman. By 1974 he had left DC to work at Warren Publishing who were publishing black-and-white horror-comics magazines. There he produced a series of original work as well as adaptations of stories by H. P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe. In 1975, Wrightson joined with fellow artists Jeff Jones, Michael Kaluta, and Barry Windsor-Smith to form “The Studio,” a shared loft in Manhattan where the group would pursue creative products outside the constraints of comic book commercialism. Though he continued to produce sequential art, Wrightson at this time began producing artwork for numerous posters, prints, calendars, and coloring books.

Wrightson spent seven years drawing approximately 50 detailed pen-and-ink illustrations to accompany an edition of Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, which the artist considers among his most personal work. Wrightson drew the poster for the Stephen King-penned horror film Creepshow, as well as illustrating the comic book adaptation of the film. This led to several other collaborations with King, including illustrations for the novella “Cycle of the Werewolf,” the restored edition of King’s apocalyptic horror epic, “The Stand,” and art for the hardcover editions of “From a Buick 8” and “Dark Tower V.” Wrightson has contributed album covers for a number of bands, including Meat Loaf. The “Captain Sternn” segment of the animated film Heavy Metal is based on the character created by Wrightson for his award-winning short comic series of the same name.

Characters he worked on included Spiderman, Batman and The Punisher, and he provided painted covers for the DC comics Nevermore and Toe Tags, among many others. Recent works include Frankenstein Alive Alive, Dead She Said , the Ghoul and Doc Macabre (IDW Publishing) all co-created with esteemed horror author Steve Niles, and several print/poster/sketchbooks series produced by Nakatomi.

It's the King works that I'm most familiar with, the stunning art Wrightson produced for the CREEPSHOW comic and the Cycle of the Werewolf novella (which was the basis for the film SILVER BULLET).

Wrightson also worked as a conceptual artist on the King film THE MIST, as well as GHOSTBUSTERS, THE FACULTY, LAND OF THE DEAD, and more.

It's sad to realize that we won't be getting more Wrightson artwork, but he has left behind some amazing imagery that will continue to be admired for generations.