George Wunder
Encyclopedia
George S. Wunder was a cartoonist best known for his 26 years illustrating the Terry and the Pirates
comic strip.
Born in Manhattan, Wunder grew up in Kingston, New York
. As a youth, he planned a career as a professional comics artist. Other than correspondence courses, including the International Correspondence School art course, he was a self-taught artist. At the age of 24, he began as a staff artist at the Associated Press
, where he worked alongside illustrator Noel Sickles
and sports cartoonist Tom Paprocki. At AP, Wunder illustrated fiction and various editorial cartoon features, such as "Can Hitler Beat the Russian Jinx?"
During World War II
, he served in the Army from 1942 to 1946. Returning to the Associated Press after WWII, he drew the strip See for Yourself in 1946 for AP Newsfeatures
.
left Terry and the Pirates, there were about 100 artists who applied for the job, according to Caniff. Wunder submitted samples, and the Tribune-News Syndicate
chose Wunder as Caniff's replacement (with former Caniff assistant Lee Elias a close runner-up). Wunder's first Terry and the Pirates appeared in newspapers on December 30, 1946, launching the story "Trouble in Tibet". Comics historian Don Markstein noted the transition:
Initially, Wunder drew the strip so it was similar to that of Caniff and Sickles, but he soon developed his own distinctive style. Hotshot Charlie, for example, was drawn in a more openly humorous manner than before. In 1953, Canada Dry
offered a "premium giveaway" with a case of its ginger ale — one minibook in a trilogy series of Terry and the Pirates strips by Wunder, printed by Harvey Comics
. Throughout the 1950s, the Sunday pages
used color for psychological effect. One Wunder panel from that period has no blue or green shadows as one might expect; the panel was colored only with orange, red and yellow. In another, Terry is colored green in front, and his back is a yellow-orange. Wunder drew dramatic and highly detailed pictures, but comics historian Maurice Horn claimed it was difficult to tell one character from another and wrote that Wunder's stories lacked Caniff's essential humor. At the end of the 1950s, Hotshot Charlie was dropped from the strip, which was drawn and colored in a more sedate manner with careful attention to the airplanes flown by Terry Lee and his friends.
Writer-artist Bill Pearson noted that Wunder spent "decades producing a very solid adventure strip. He drew ugly people, even young women, which was certainly a curious trait, but he was one of the very best inkers in the business. His technique was flawless." With his clean and precise inking style, Wunder filled his panels with numerous foreground and background details, as landscape painter Bob Foster observed:
, Fred Kida
, Don Sherwood, Frank Springer
and Wally Wood
.
When Wunder, who lived in Sherman, Connecticut
, announced his retirement, the syndicate chose to cancel the strip on February 25, 1973. Wunder regarded the cancellation as a Vietnam War casualty, commenting, "The fighter pilot is no longer the glamorous, reckless defender of the free world against all comers. He's now the cold-blooded professional dropping napalm on women and children."
. At age 87, Mildred A. Wunder (née Smith), who was known as "Mrs. Terry and the Pirates," died March 1, 2001, in Port St. Lucie, Florida
after a short illness.
. On June 11, 1963, he was honored by the United States Air Force
with their Exceptional Service Award. In 1970, he received the National Cartoonists Society's Silver T-Square Award.
Terry and the Pirates (comic strip)
Terry and the Pirates was an action-adventure comic strip created by cartoonist Milton Caniff. Captain Joseph Patterson, editor for the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate, had admired Caniff’s work on the children's adventure strip Dickie Dare and hired him to create the new adventure strip,...
comic strip.
Born in Manhattan, Wunder grew up in Kingston, New York
Kingston, New York
Kingston is a city in and the county seat of Ulster County, New York, USA. It is north of New York City and south of Albany. It became New York's first capital in 1777, and was burned by the British Oct. 16, 1777, after the Battles of Saratoga...
. As a youth, he planned a career as a professional comics artist. Other than correspondence courses, including the International Correspondence School art course, he was a self-taught artist. At the age of 24, he began as a staff artist at the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
, where he worked alongside illustrator Noel Sickles
Noel Sickles
Noel Douglas Sickles was an American commercial illustrator and cartoonist, best known for the comic strip Scorchy Smith....
and sports cartoonist Tom Paprocki. At AP, Wunder illustrated fiction and various editorial cartoon features, such as "Can Hitler Beat the Russian Jinx?"
During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, he served in the Army from 1942 to 1946. Returning to the Associated Press after WWII, he drew the strip See for Yourself in 1946 for AP Newsfeatures
AP Newsfeatures
AP Newsfeatures, aka AP Features, was the cartoon and comic strip division of Associated Press, which syndicated strips from 1930 to the early 1960s.In February 1930, I.M...
.
Terry and the Pirates
In 1946, when Milton CaniffMilton Caniff
Milton Arthur Paul Caniff was an American cartoonist famous for the Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon comic strips.-Biography:...
left Terry and the Pirates, there were about 100 artists who applied for the job, according to Caniff. Wunder submitted samples, and the Tribune-News Syndicate
Tribune Media Services
Tribune Media Services is a syndication company owned by the Tribune Company.The company has two divisions, "News and Features" and "Entertainment Products"...
chose Wunder as Caniff's replacement (with former Caniff assistant Lee Elias a close runner-up). Wunder's first Terry and the Pirates appeared in newspapers on December 30, 1946, launching the story "Trouble in Tibet". Comics historian Don Markstein noted the transition:
- Terry was left in the hands of George Wunder, a skilled cartoonist who maintained a high level of quality. But Caniff was a unique talent, and nobody could ever truly replace him. Terry Lee had joined the U.S. Air Force during World War II. Wunder left him there, and let him mature fully as an Air Force officer. During the Vietnam Era, military-oriented entertainment declined in popularity. The strip was discontinued in 1973. By that time, Wunder, too, had stopped doing it — although it still bore his byline, it was ghosted by Al PlastinoAl PlastinoAl Plastino is an American comic book artist best known as one of the most prolific Superman artists of the 1950s, along with his DC Comics colleague Wayne Boring...
, better known for his work on SupermanSupermanSuperman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...
. (Plastino was also handling the pantomime strip Ferd'nandFerd'nandFerd'nand is a pantomime comic strip notable for its lack of word balloons and captions, lack of continuity and its longevity .-Background:Ferd'nand was first published in 1937 by the Presse-Illustrations-Bureau of Copenhagen...
, and later became Ernie BushmillerErnie BushmillerErnest Paul Bushmiller, Jr. was an American cartoonist, best known for creating the long-running daily comic strip Nancy....
's assistant on Nancy.)
Initially, Wunder drew the strip so it was similar to that of Caniff and Sickles, but he soon developed his own distinctive style. Hotshot Charlie, for example, was drawn in a more openly humorous manner than before. In 1953, Canada Dry
Canada Dry
Canada Dry is a brand of soft drinks owned since 2008 by the Texas-based Dr Pepper Snapple Group. For over a century Canada Dry has been known for its ginger ale, though the company also manufactures a number of other soft drinks and mixers...
offered a "premium giveaway" with a case of its ginger ale — one minibook in a trilogy series of Terry and the Pirates strips by Wunder, printed by Harvey Comics
Harvey Comics
Harvey Comics was an American comic book publisher, founded in New York City by Alfred Harvey in 1941, after buying out the small publisher Brookwood Publications. His brothers Robert B...
. Throughout the 1950s, the Sunday pages
Sunday strip
A Sunday strip is a newspaper comic strip format, where comic strips are printed in the Sunday newspaper, usually in a special section called the Sunday comics, and virtually always in color. Some readers called these sections the Sunday funnies...
used color for psychological effect. One Wunder panel from that period has no blue or green shadows as one might expect; the panel was colored only with orange, red and yellow. In another, Terry is colored green in front, and his back is a yellow-orange. Wunder drew dramatic and highly detailed pictures, but comics historian Maurice Horn claimed it was difficult to tell one character from another and wrote that Wunder's stories lacked Caniff's essential humor. At the end of the 1950s, Hotshot Charlie was dropped from the strip, which was drawn and colored in a more sedate manner with careful attention to the airplanes flown by Terry Lee and his friends.
Writer-artist Bill Pearson noted that Wunder spent "decades producing a very solid adventure strip. He drew ugly people, even young women, which was certainly a curious trait, but he was one of the very best inkers in the business. His technique was flawless." With his clean and precise inking style, Wunder filled his panels with numerous foreground and background details, as landscape painter Bob Foster observed:
- I read Wunder's Terry when I was a kid and even then was impressed by all the work he put into it. Every single panel was fully loaded with detailed backgrounds and detailed wrinkles, costumes and hairs, even on all the characters in the background, all the woodgrain in all the wood, and all those black shadows that lent an air of foreboding to each panel. I could never get over his 3/4 rear view of a character's eyeball straining to see something behind him. And all those overly bridged noses on both guys and gals all crying out for rhinoplasty. For many years I resented the overloaded panels and decided I didn't like Wunder's rendering of Terry and the Pirates. It was only in the last few years that I came to appreciate Wunder's work on Terry. One day I realized that he never cheated. He gave us everything in infinite detail in every panel and never deprived us of any wrinkles, bricks, tiles, leaves, woodgrain, fingernails, hairs, cloth patterns or buttons. Yeah, the look-alike facial features of all his characters in the later years of Terry was stylistic and bothersome, but he never cheated.
Assistants
In the late 1960s, aviation artist George Evans began working with Wunder on the Terry and the Pirates dailies, continuing for 13 years. Wunder penciled heads and left notes ("office," "airport," "riot scene") indicating what Evans should draw into the backgrounds. Later, Evans also did inking on Terry and the Pirates, continuing on the strip until 1972. Other artists who stepped in to assist Wunder included Lee Elias, Russ HeathRuss Heath
Russell Heath, Jr. is an American artist best known for his comic book work — particularly his DC Comics war stories for several decades and his 1960s art for Playboy magazine's Little Annie Fanny featurettes — and for his commercial art, two pieces of which, depicting Roman and...
, Fred Kida
Fred Kida
Fred Kida is an American comic book and comic strip artist best known for the characters Airboy and Valkyrie.-Early life and career:...
, Don Sherwood, Frank Springer
Frank Springer
Frank Springer was an American comic book and comic strip artist best known for Marvel Comics' Dazzler and Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D....
and Wally Wood
Wally Wood
Wallace Allan Wood was an American comic book writer, artist and independent publisher, best known for his work in EC Comics and Mad. He was one of Mads founding cartoonists in 1952. Although much of his early professional artwork is signed Wallace Wood, he became known as Wally Wood, a name he...
.
Retirement
The strip was being carried in 100 newspapers when Wunder retired in 1973. The New York Daily News ran every Terry and the Pirates daily and Sunday except for the final three weeks by Wunder in 1973. At the time of his retirement, Wunder commented:- It's a strip I've enjoyed doing, but on the other hand, it has been, oh, a chore. The sheer mechanics of producing that much work week in and week out ties you down... Taste in strips seems to be changing. People just don't seem to follow continuity strips any more the way they used to. They get an average of three to four complete stories a night off the boob tube. There's no reason why they should hang around anywhere from eight to 12 weeks to find out just how one story came out."
When Wunder, who lived in Sherman, Connecticut
Sherman, Connecticut
Sherman is the northernmost and least populous town of Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 3,581 at the 2010 census. The town is named for New Haven's Founding Father, Roger Sherman....
, announced his retirement, the syndicate chose to cancel the strip on February 25, 1973. Wunder regarded the cancellation as a Vietnam War casualty, commenting, "The fighter pilot is no longer the glamorous, reckless defender of the free world against all comers. He's now the cold-blooded professional dropping napalm on women and children."
Death
Wunder died of a heart attack in the New Milford Hospital on Sunday, December 13, 1987, survived by his wife, Mildred, and his sister, Beatrice Bogert of Riverdale, New JerseyRiverdale, New Jersey
As of the census of 2000, there were 2,498 people, 919 households, and 671 families residing in the borough. The population density was 1,215.2 people per square mile . There were 940 housing units at an average density of 457.3 per square mile...
. At age 87, Mildred A. Wunder (née Smith), who was known as "Mrs. Terry and the Pirates," died March 1, 2001, in Port St. Lucie, Florida
Port St. Lucie, Florida
Port St. Lucie is a city in St. Lucie County, Florida, United States. The population of Port St. Lucie was 88,769 at the 2000 census but grew rapidly during the 2000s. In 2009 the State of Florida estimated the City's population at 155,251. Port St. Lucie forms part of a metropolitan area called...
after a short illness.
Our Guest Star
Wunder's Our Guest Star was a 1955 promotional strip featuring characters from Terry and the Pirates with cameo appearances by film stars and other celebrities.- January 27, 1955 (features Mary MartinMary MartinMary Virginia Martin was an American actress and singer. She originated many roles over her career including Nellie Forbush in South Pacific and Maria in The Sound of Music. She was named a Kennedy Center Honoree in 1989...
) - April 19, 1955 (features Grace KellyGrace KellyGrace Patricia Kelly was an American actress who, in April 1956, married Rainier III, Prince of Monaco, to become Princess consort of Monaco, styled as Her Serene Highness The Princess of Monaco, and commonly referred to as Princess Grace.After embarking on an acting career in 1950, at the age of...
) - October 28, 1955 (features Robert CummingsRobert CummingsCharles Clarence Robert Orville Cummings , mostly known professionally as Robert Cummings but sometimes as Bob Cummings, was an American film and television actor....
) - December 29, 1955 (features Charlton HestonCharlton HestonCharlton Heston was an American actor of film, theatre and television. Heston is known for heroic roles in films such as The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, El Cid, and Planet of the Apes...
)
Awards
Wunder was a member of the Illustrators Club and the National Cartoonists SocietyNational Cartoonists Society
The National Cartoonists Society is an organization of professional cartoonists in the United States. It presents the National Cartoonists Society Awards. The Society was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the troops...
. On June 11, 1963, he was honored by the United States Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
with their Exceptional Service Award. In 1970, he received the National Cartoonists Society's Silver T-Square Award.
See also
- Titles of George Wunder's 95 Terry and the Pirates stories from 1946 ("Trouble in Tibet") to 1973 ("Contraband")
External links
- Ger Apeldoorn: Month-long Terry and the Pirates sequence (October 1952)
- Milton Caniff: Conversations by Robert C. Harvey
- George Wunder Cartoons 1947–1970 at Syracuse University (primary source material)