In my mind, I’ve been associated with Playboy for roughly 40 years—I was roughly 10 when I discovered my dad’s box of old magazines in a cardboard box on top of the standup cedar wardrobe in the attic.
Hello, Miss May, 1966!
“Discovered” may not be the right word—at 10, I was finally mischievous enough to devise a way of getting up high enough to see what was in the box.
GAHAN WILSON podcast excerpt: “I said, I’ll see Mr. Kurtzman?’ ‘Oh, no,’ the receptionist said. ‘Trump is out of New York.’ The art director came up behind me and said, ‘Hef would like to see you.’ I didn’t know who or what a Hef was. I went up this staircase to a small room, lit only by one lamp, and this man was talking on the phone. He said to the other person, ‘It’s a swell article you wrote. Liked it very much. The problem is, it’s anti-sin. And we’re pro-sin.’ He hung up the phone, reached out to shake hands with me and said, ‘I’ve been waiting for you.'”
Anyway, cartoonist Gahan Wilson still has me beat. He’s been connected with Hugh Hefner’s monthly treehouse for boys for 50 years! He’s joining us today to talk about about his phenomenal longevity and production, work that resulted in the publication of the three-volume collection, Gahan Wilson: Fifty Years of Playboy Cartoons, now available from Fantagraphics.
Gahan Wilson: Website
The Party Authority in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland!