On this day, June 17, 1927, comic writer and artist Wally Wood was born in Menahga, Minnesota. After high school Wood signed on with the U. S. Merchant Marines and then enlisted in the U. S. Army’s 11^th Airborne Division. In 1947 Wood studied for a term at the Minneapolis School of Art and then moved to New York and attended the Hogarth School of Art of a semester as well. Wood worked for Will Eisner as a Spirit background artist and in 1952 was one of the founding cartoonists of Mad magazine. Wood worked on many different comic books and he illustrated for books and magazines including 60 issues of Galaxy Science Fiction digest.