Gahan Wilson Creature Drawing, ca. 1972
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GUEST:
When I was a student in Boston 50 years ago, I was walking down Newbury Street, and, uh, there was a crowd outside this bookstore. Gahan Wilson was out there with an easel and drawing paper and taking suggestions from people about what to draw.
APPRAISER:
Wow. So you threw out a suggestion?
GUEST:
I know he specialized in a lot of monsters. Everybody knows Frankenstein and Dracula, but I said, "The Gill-man," the, the Creature from the Black Lagoon.
APPRAISER:
(laughs)
GUEST:
And that's what he came up with.
APPRAISER:
So when you saw the crowd and saw what he was doing, did you know who it was as, as soon as you got there?
GUEST:
I think there was a sign.
APPRAISER:
Okay, yeah.
GUEST:
'Cause I didn't know his face, I only knew his work.
APPRAISER:
So you, you had heard of him before?
GUEST:
Oh, definitely.
APPRAISER:
Okay, great, great. First of all, the fact that he did this on the fly from people, from you throwing out suggestion, is amazing, and also reflects what everyone has come to know and love about Gahan Wilson, who was a illustrator, an author, a cartoonist, a humorist. Uh, he also did, uh, reviews, uh, movie reviews, kind of, kind of to pay the bills.
GUEST:
I didn't know that.
APPRAISER:
Yeah, he was a, kind of a jack-of-all-trades. And when he died, uh, 2019, he was hailed as the master of the macabre, the wizard of weird. And his cartoons are often based on fantasy and science fiction and horror in a very kind of, uh, dark-humor kind of way. You've got this unknown character feeding the Creature from the Black Lagoon fish food, and he's kind of in a fishlike bowl, and putting the Creature from the Black Lagoon into a different light. He was out there doing this. Was he, was he charging for these drawings? Or how was it working?
GUEST:
I can't remember, it was long ago.
APPRAISER:
(laughs)
GUEST:
It may have been a couple of bucks or it may have been just, "Here, kid, you can have it."
APPRAISER:
Got it, got it. Actually, bold signature, which is typical of his signature, so it's good that he did that, too, 'cause it also adds to the value. Wilson did cartoons for The New Yorker and for National Lampoon, right? What you'll...
GUEST:
And Playboy.
APPRAISER:
And Playboy. What you will often see are finished cartoons that were used, camera-ready art, that then got put in a file somewhere. And they're all going to be maybe ten by ten, or ten by 15, something like that. What year would you think that would have been?
GUEST:
'72 or '73.
APPRAISER:
'72 or '73, so fairly early. I would say that at auction, we're talking about $1,500 to $2,500.
GUEST:
That's a, that's a surprise.
(both laugh)
GUEST:
The creature looks so cute and adorable there. (laughing)
APPRAISER:
Exactly. Not such a bad monster once you get to know him.
GUEST:
Yeah, that's right.
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