Artist, author, editor - it's difficult to describe Gahan Wilson succinctly. He's written children's books (Harry, the Fat Bear Spy), mysteries (Eddie Deco's Last Caper), Lovecraftian fiction ("H.P.L", anthologized in Lovecraft's Legacy), but is probably best known for his cartoons.
"Cartoons" is perhaps too confining a description of his art. Gahan Wilson depicts a world that's almost the same as ours, but not quite. In Wilson's world, mad scientists have trouble keeping up with General Electric's research budget. Museums post feeding times in front of many-limbed, skull-bedecked statues. Tentacled aliens lie in wait for hapless door-to-door salesmen. There are stories behind all of them - perhaps wisely left to the imagination of the reader.
Gahan may hold the record for the most diverse collection of publications in which his work has appeared: Playboy, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, The National Lampoon, The New York Times Book Review, Punch, Audubon Magazine, and Passport to World Band Radio.
Gahan Wilson has been involved with the World Fantasy Convention since the beginning. He was toastmaster for the first six World Fantasy Conventions, edited the First World Fantasy Collection Anthology, and received a lifetime achievement award at the Baltimore convention in 1995. This is the first time, though, that he has been Guest of Honor at a World Fantasy Convention.