BILL PEARSON

'Bill Pearson' (born July 27, 1938, in Belle Fourche, South Dakota) is an American novelist, editor, artist, comic book writer and letterer.
During the 1970s and early 1980s, Pearson was an editor at Charlton Comics, and he scripted for numerous publishers, including Tower Comics, King Comics (''Flash Gordon''), Gold Key (''Popeye''), Charlton, Eclipse, Gladstone and Warren Publications. His work as an inker included Ocean's ''Popeye'' and a ''Spider-Man'' spoof. For over two decades he lettered for almost every comics publisher, from 1975 to 1995, and he was the first art director at Another Rainbow.
As a close associate of Wally Wood, he made many contributions to projects at the Wally Wood Studio. When Wood launched his alternative comics magazine, ''witzend'' in 1966, Pearson was an associate editor, and after the fourth issue, Wood turned ''witzend'' over to Pearson with an agreement that at least four more issues would appear. However, Pearson edited and published ''witzend'' for many years, continuing it into the 1980s. One entire issue focused on W.C. Fields, and a special theme issue, ''Good Girls'', filled page after page with Good Girl Art.
It was while he was still an assistant on ''witzend'' in the mid-1960s that he became involved in the creation of Wood's ''T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents'' team for Tower Comics. In addition to scripting a half-dozen ''NoMan'' tales for ''T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents'' and an equal number of ''Undersea Agent'' adventures, he did ghostwriting on Wood's ''Dynamo'' scripts. In 2003-2005, these stories were collected into hardback books as part of DC Comics' five-volume ''T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents Archive'' series.
Pearson has edited several books of Wood's comics for Eros, an imprint of Fantagraphics Books. These include ''Cannon'' (1991), ''Sally Forth'' (1993-1995) and ''Naughty Knotty Wood'' (1998). In 2002, he published his own drawings, inked by Wood, in three portfolios -- ''Fancy Animals'', ''Human Beans'' and ''Naked Aliens''. Each Pearson/Wood portfolio has 12 plates in an illustrated envelope, and each was published in a limited edition of 500 copies.
His mystery novel, ''Drifter's Detour'' (2006), displays an unusual visual concept. The story is highlighted by more than 40 illustrations by 20 artists, including Dan Adkins, Jim Amash, Richard Bassford, Nick Cuti, Steve Fiorilla, Michael T. Gilbert, Dennis Janke, Gary Kato, Russ Miller, Mitch O'Connell, James Romberger, Guy Staats, Joe Staton, Steve Stiles, Jim Steranko, Ronn Sutton, Jim Wheelock and Pearson himself. In the book's concluding acknowledgments page, Pearson explained:
:Yes, it's obvious the characters don't resemble each other from picture to picture, but that's on purpose. I wanted each artist to envision the story and people in it from their own perspective, without a lot of restricting guidelines. Everybody knows Rhett Butler looks exactly like Clark Gable, but every reader of ''Gone with the Wind'' had their own idea about his appearance before the movie was made. Early on, I made a point that my hero, Rance, wasn't handsome at all, but I knew most of the guys would make him so. We all want to enhance ourselves and our heroes in our minds, and artists are only human.

Contents

External links

External links

★ Tower Comics Checklist

★ Wally Wood Studio

★ ''witzend'' art by Bill Pearson

★ ''witzend'' Index by Richard Arndt