RIP GAHAN WILSON
When you grow up as a weird kid you generally find few allies. You often feel like you were born into an alien and unjust world where instantaneous, pants-soiling embarrassment often seems only seconds away at all times. Thus, when you find things that bring joy you clutch onto them like a life preserver in the middle of the ocean. These things, these few bright objects in a dark, threatening world, become more precious than anything. You marvel at them, soak in them, hoping to metabolize and absorb everything about them so that you might feel like you may just have a place in this mad, mad world.
Gahan Wilson’s art was one of these things to me. His figures were weird, grotesque and misshapen. But the humor in them made complete sense. Sometimes dark, sometimes scatalogical, sometimes sexy but always relatable. We had a collection of his comics growing up which I think one of my older brothers purchased. I loved those comics. His character The Kid seemed to be written exclusively for me. The Kid had parents who didn’t get him, were loving and gruff but often punished seemingly without concern for justice or fairness. The Kid’s idea of God was a kind of omnipotent father figure (really isn’t that everyone’s?) who occasionally threw The Kid a bone in the midst of throwing him a lot of curveballs.
Amidst all this crazy art a couple stand out most for me. The first is… The Wudge Bar. Maybe it was because I shoplifted once or twice (the first time totally accidental, the second less so and the fear of getting caught prevented a third time) but it was instantly relatable in a guilty, fearful way.
The second was when The Kid was trying to get by in school but everything was incomprehensible. As an ADD kid it was also sadly instantaneously relatable, since I often felt like 3rd grade math (frankly all math) was like MIT-level calculus. And it was even worse when you got sick with the flu or strep throat.
And finally, there was the Death Ray. In these times it feels necessary to state I never wanted to kill my parents so much as show them I had some measure of control, power and strength in this world. It was born out of knowing I wasn’t slow or an idiot I just thought very differently than other people. This led to immense frustration. Which led to anger. Which led to wishing I had some way to show people in authority I had some sort of power. That power was my imagination and The Kid’s Death Ray.
Mr. Wilson, wherever you are I’m sure you’re chuckling. I’m sorry I never met you but I promise I will never stop singing your praises nor preaching the gospel of The Kid.
Rest in Peace, good sir. May your pen never run out of ink and may your laughter never end.