Ralph Reese

During the 1970s, Reese's artwork surfaced in a wide variety of publications, from underground comics to slick magazines, including National Lampoon and Esquire. He sometimes collaborated with Larry Hama. In Comics Interview #37 (1986), Hama recalled working with Reese and Wood: I guess in 1971 or thereabouts, I was living in Brooklyn and working with Ralph Reese, freelance stuff. I was penciling, and he was inking. We were doing a lot of jobs for National Lampoon. At the time, Woody was moving to Brooklyn, six to eight blocks from where I lived. In the process of helping him move, he said, "Hey, are you interested in a semi-regular job?" I said sure. Reese worked from 1972 to 1977 at Neal Adams' Continuity Associates studio at 9 East 48th Street in Manhattan. There he became acquainted with a group of freelance artists that included Jack Abel, Sergio Aragones, Dick Giordano, Russ Heath, Bob McLeod, Marshall Rogers, Joe Rubinstein and Lynn Varley. At Continuity, Reese and Hama sometimes worked as a team, and they created illustrations for a variety of clients, including the Children's Television Workshop. Reese's comic book credits include pages for Acclaim, Byron Preiss, Eclipse Comics, Marvel Comics, Skywald Publications and Warren Publishing. While working in the mainstream, he also contributed to underground titles, including Conspiracy Capers, Drool, and editor Jay Lynch's Kitchen Sink Press comic Bijou Funnies. His work for DC Comics included stories for House of Mystery, House of Secrets, The Witching Hour and The Unexpected. In 1973, Reese illustrated Thomas Disch's "The Roaches" for the black-and-white horror-comics magazine Monsters Unleashed, published by Marvel's Curtis Magazines imprint, and the following year, he continued in a similar vein with art for Gerry Conway's story, "The Rats" in Haunt of Horror. With these two stories, featuring extreme close-up drawings of roaches and rats, Reese depicted horror lurking in real-life vermin, and both stories had several reprints. After he collaborated with Byron Preiss on the feature "One Year Affair" in the National Lampoon, the two did installments of a follow-up, "Two Year Affair". For Atlas/Seaboard Comics he drew "Midnight Muse" in Devilina #1 (January 1975). In 1982, Reese teamed with Al Williamson, Dan Green and Carlos Garzon on a comics adaptation of the movie Blade Runner. In 1985, Reese horror stories were reprinted in the two issues of Reese's Pieces (Eclipse). Also during the 1980s, Reese illustrated more than a dozen titles in Bantam Books' Choose Your Own Adventure series. In 1989 and 1990, he drew both the daily and Sunday strips of King Features' Flash Gordon, scripted by Bruce Jones. From 1992 to 1997, he did much work for the comic book Magnus Robot Fighter and other Valiant Comics series, including Raj and X-O Manowar. Also in the 1990s, he contributed to several Paradox Press titles: The Big Book of Hoaxes, The Big Book of Freaks, The Big Book of Losers and The Big Book of Little Criminals. In 2009, Reese returned to DC with "The Thirteenth Hour" in issue #13 (July 2009) of editor Angela Rufino's House of Mystery revival for Vertigo. In 2010, an interview with Reese was reprinted in Pure Imagination's Wild Wood.

• Shazam Award for Best Inker (Humor Division) in 1973 and 1974.