Vaughn Bodé

Vaughn Bodé
Born	July 22, 1941(1941-07-22) Utica, New York
Died	July 18, 1975(1975-07-18) (aged 33)
Nationality	American
Area(s)	Cartoonist
Notable works	Cheech Wizard
Awards	Hugo Award, Best Fan Artist, 1969 Yellow Kid Award, 1975.
Official website

Vaughn Bodē ( /boʊˈdiː/; July 22, 1941 - July 18, 1975) was an artist involved in underground comics, graphic design and graffiti.^{[citation needed]} He is perhaps best known for his comic strip character Cheech Wizard and artwork depicting voluptuous women. His works are noted for their psychedelic look and feel.^{[citation needed]} He was inducted into the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame for comics artists in 2006.

Early life

Bodē was born in Utica, New York, and started drawing as a way of escaping a less-than-happy childhood.

Career

In the mid 1960's Bodē was living in Syracuse, New York, attending classes at Syracuse University and contributing to The Sword of Damocles, a student-run but not university sanctioned humor magazine similar to The Harvard Lampoon. In 1968, he moved to Manhattan and joined the staff of the underground newspaper the East Village Other. It was here that Bodē met Spain Rodriguez, Robert Crumb and other founders of the quickly expanding underground comics world. At EVO, he introduced Gothic Blimp Works, a comics supplement to the magazine, which ran for eight issues, the first two edited by Bodē.

Bodē’s most famous comic creation is the character Cheech Wizard. Episodes of Cheech Wizard ran in the "Funny Pages" of National Lampoon magazine in almost every issue from 1970 to 1975.

Cheech Wizard is a wizard whose large yellow hat (decorated with black and red stars) covers his entire body except his legs and his big red feet. He is usually depicted without arms. Cheech Wizard is constantly in search of a good party, cold beer, and attractive women. It is never actually revealed what Cheech Wizard looks like under the hat, or exactly what kind of creature he is. Characters pressing the issue generally are rewarded with a swift kick to the groin by Cheech.

In an early comic, Captured by Morton Frog, 1967, Cheech takes off his hat for a police officer, a priest and a political leader. You can clearly see him holding his hat in his hands, away from the rest of his body. The face is hidden by the speech balloon, but you can see glimpses of hair on top. All three persons witnessing his face fall into cataleptic states forever. Cheech walks away from their fortress claiming that "Their primitive minds couldn't accept da truth". In a later comic, Who is C.W.? (1974), one of Cheech's lovers insists on seeing his true face. Cheech claims that she will die instantly, or go insane. After having her sign a waiver freeing him of legal responsibilities, he agrees to take off his hat. The comic ends abruptly at mid-page with Cheech saying "Okay! Here goes, but I bet you go blind!", followed by a blank (white-out) panel.

The post-apocalyptic sci-fi action series Cobalt 60 presented an anti-hero named Cobalt 60 who wandered in a devastated post-nuclear land, seeking to avenge the murder of his parents.

Other Bodē creations include Deadbone (the first testament of Cheech Wizard, the cartoon messiah), the adventures of the inhabitants of a solitary mountain a billion years in the past; and War Lizards, a look at the Vietnam War reflecting the hostile stance of the period's counterculture. It is told with anthropomorphic reptiles instead of people.

Tour

Towards the end of his life, Vaughn Bodē toured with a show called the Cartoon Concert, that featured him vocalizing his characters while their depictions were presented on a screen behind him via a slide projector. The first of these was presented at Phil Seuling's convention on the July 4th weekend at the N.Y.C. Comic Con in 1972. Observing the crowd reaction, The Bantam Lecture Company immediately signed him on. This show became very popular on the college lecture circuit, beginning with his debut at the Bowling Green University, in Ohio. He eventually performed his Cartoon Concert at several Comic book conventions, culminating in a show at The Louvre, in Paris. At this time, Bodē's career was managed by David Ferguson.^{[citation needed]} Ferguson was represented in his client's cartoons as Rumplebucks, Cheech Wizard's manager, a lizard with an ever-present dollar sign above his head.^{[citation needed]} Bodē dedicated his final cartoon, which appeared in National Lampoon, to Ferguson.^{[citation needed]}

Death

Bodē's death was due to autoerotic asphyxiation, or perhaps the use of asphyxia as a meditation aid: his last words (to his son) were, "Mark, I've seen God four times, and I'm going to see him again soon. That's No. 1 to me, and you're No. 2." He left behind a library of sketchbooks, journals, finished and unfinished works, paintings, and comic strips. Most of his art has since been published in a variety of collections, most from Fantagraphics.

Influence

Bodē was a friend of animator Ralph Bakshi, and warned him against working with Robert Crumb on the animated film adaptation of Crumb's strip Fritz the Cat. Bodé has been credited as an influence on Bakshi's films Wizards and The Lord of the Rings.

His son Mark Bodé (born 1963) is also an artist, often producing works similar to the elder Bodē’s style. Recently Mark completed one of his father’s unfinished works, The Lizard of Oz, a send-up of The Wizard of Oz, starring Cheech Wizard one more time.

Bibliography

• Das Kämpf, self-published in 1963, considered to be one of the first underground comic books.
• Deadbone appeared monthly in the men's magazine Cavalier from 1968 to 1971. Originally entitled "Deadbone" (a b&w strip) the title changed to "Deadbone Erotica" (a color strip) and then later to "Bodē Erotica". This has made the October 1968 "Cavalier" a rare and expensive commodity sometimes fetching a tidy sum on the open market.
• Space Chanty by R.A. Lafferty, an Ace Double sci-fi novel, had a cover & interior art by Bodē.
• Amazing Stories, Fantastic, Galaxy, and (Worlds of) If science fiction digests featured covers and interior art by Bodē during the 1960s and early 70s. Additionally, his black and white STAR TREK-inspired sci-fi parody, "Sunpot" appeared in Galaxy
• Junkwaffel. Issues 1-4 first published by Print Mint from 1971 to 1974. The final issue, number 5, appeared in Last Gasp along with reprints of the first four.
• Cheech Wizard ran monthly in National Lampoon from 1971-1975.
• The Man, 1972, an independent comic about a cave man who accidentally made important observations about life.
• Sunpot, was republished in fantasy/science fiction publication Heavy Metal, April through July 1977.
• Cobalt-60. Book one created by Vaughn Bodē, illustrated by Mark Bodé, written by Larry Todd. Northampton, Ma.: Tundra Publishing, 1992. ISBN 1879450356
• The Purple Pictography, with Bernie Wrightson

Reissue - The Complete Collection

Assorted collected stories, artwork and sketches republished by Fantagraphics, including volumes as:

• Deadbone
• Erotica Vol. 1
• Erotica Vol. 2
• Erotica Vol. 3
• Erotica Vol. 4
• Cheech Wizard Vol. 1
• Cheech Wizard Vol. 2
• JunkWaffel Vol. 1
• JunkWaffel Vol. 2
• Lizard Zen
• Poem-Toons
• Schizophrenia
• Sketchbook Vol. 1
• Sketchbook Vol. 2
• Sketchbook Vol. 3

Awards

The Hugo Award for Best Fan Artist was bestowed upon him in 1969, and he was nominated for Best Professional Artist the following year. He also won the Yellow Kid Award, awarded at the Italian Lucca comics festival, in 1974. He was a finalist for induction into the Eisner Hall of Fame in 1998 and 2002.

External links

• Official website