Walter Simonson...Herculean effort of Godlike proportion

Hercules Unbound No. 7. Splash page. Layouts in pencil scanned from a really old xerox. 1976.Hercules Unbound was the first comic I worked on that I didn't ink myself. I accepted the gig from Denny O'Neil, the book's editor. José Luis Garcia Lopez had been doing the pencils for the first six issues. First work of his I ever saw and it was beautiful. I took the job anyway.I took the job primarily because Wallace Wood, generally credited as Wally Wood, was doing finishes. Everybody in my generation and a lot of guys older and younger than me knows who Wally Wood is. And loved his work. An icon. An artist for EC and for the early Mad magazines. I knew Woody in those days some and the idea that he was going to ink over my stuff (or more properly 'finish' as I was doing layouts and not pencils) was a thrill. And something I'm still delighted to have on my resumé!So I sucked it up and followed José on the book. Woody used a lot of assistants over the years and basically converted whatever he was inking to look more or less like his own stuff. I was completely cool with that idea, and that's why I was content to do layouts and have Woody do finishes.David Michelinie and Cary Bates wrote the issues I did layouts for.Woody only did finishes on the first two of my six issues on the title, but it was worth it.