S. Clay Wilson, R.I.P. (1941-2021)

An excerpt from Sam Whiting's 2-10-21 SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE obituary entitled "S. Clay Wilson, Ingenious Underground Comix Artist, Dies at 79," which offers an overview of S. Clay Wilson's artistic career, from the underground comix movement of the 1970s all the way to the 21st century:

Back in the maximum-outrage years of underground comix in the 1970s, S. Clay Wilson was known for the Checkered Demon, a short and stubby antihero who wore checkered pants as he busted the heads of bikers, pirates and lowlifes, to the delight of readers of Zap, Yellow Dog, Arcade and other anthologies.

A uniquely San Francisco character and brilliant illustrator, Wilson had a long career using Dicks Bar in the Castro as his mailing address, message center and appointment place. Wilson outlasted Dicks, and he outlasted underground comix before finally dying, on Sunday afternoon, Feb. 7, at his home on 16th Street, half a block from the Dicks location.

His death was announced by his widow, Lorraine Chamberlain, in a series of rambling Facebook posts that began, “He’s gone. At 4 p.m. yesterday. I sat next to him all day yesterday, telling him stories … one of arriving here in a crowd of topless women on Pride Day.”

Wilson had been bedridden for two years because of the lingering effects of a traumatic brain injury he suffered after either a fall or a mugging while drunkenly walking home from a friend’s home on Nov. 1, 2008. At that time, he was found in the pouring rain, facedown between two parked cars.

He came out of a coma after three weeks and drew comics for Zap while still in the hospital. He’d lost his capacity for clever dialogue but kept trying to draw until his cognitive skills declined. He was 79.

“Wilson was a one-of-a-kind original guy,” said another one-of-a-kinder, Ron Turner, publisher of Last Gasp Books and Comics. “Nobody could imitate him. What looked like a jumbled mess on the page was always a smoothly told tale" [...].

“Wilson will go down as one of the boldest cartoonists in art history,” [said Patrick] Rosenkranz [author of a three-volume series titled “The Mythology of S. Clay Wilson"]. “He outdid all of his predecessors in his depiction of sexual deviation, mutilation and perversities of every stripe. But gallows humor was at the heart of all of it. There was something funny happening in the middle of the picture and you had to search to find it.”

To read Whiting's entire article, click HERE.