Greg Allen Theakston is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 comics

Comics

Comics denotes a hybrid medium having verbal side of its vocabulary tightly tied to its visual side in order to convey narrative or information only, the latter in case of non-fiction comics, seeking synergy by using both visual and verbal side in...

 artist and illustrator who has worked for numerous publishers. In addition to his many contributions to books and magazines, he is known for developing the Theakstonizing process used in comics restoration. He has used the pseudonym Earl P. Wooten.

Illustration

After Theakston graduated in 1971 from Redford High School, he worked with artist Jim Steranko

Jim Steranko

James F. Steranko is an American graphic artist, comic book writer-artist-historian, magician, publisher and film production illustrator....

 before moving with partner Carl Lundgren in 1972 to upstate New York, where he began illustrating for men's magazines, including Gent, Dude and Nugget. As he built his portfolio, Theakston expanded to paperbacks and magazines, including Berkley Books, Dell, Ace, DAW, Zebra, Tor, St. Martin's Press, Warner, Ballantine Books

Ballantine Books

Ballantine Books is a major book publisher located in the United States, founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. It was acquired by Random House in 1973, which in turn was acquired by Bertelsmann AG in 1998 and remains part of that company today. Ballantine's logo is a...

, Belmont-Tower, If and Galaxy Science Fiction

Galaxy Science Fiction

Galaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by an Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break in to the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L...

.

Among other various assignments were jobs for Marvel Comics

Marvel Comics

Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...

, DC Comics

DC Comics

DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...

, Image Comics

Image Comics

Image Comics is a United States comic book publisher. It was founded in 1992 by high-profile illustrators as a venue where creators could publish their material without giving up the copyrights to the characters they created, as creator-owned properties. It was immediately successful, and remains...

, Warren Comics, New York Daily News

New York Daily News

The Daily News of New York City is the fourth most widely circulated daily newspaper in the United States with a daily circulation of 605,677, as of November 1, 2011....

, Archie Comics

Archie Comics

Archie Comics is an American comic book publisher headquartered in the Village of Mamaroneck, Town of Mamaroneck, New York, known for its many series featuring the fictional teenagers Archie Andrews, Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge, Reggie Mantle and Jughead Jones. The characters were created by...

, as well as periodicals magazines including National Lampoon, The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

, Kitchen Sink

Kitchen sink

Kitchen sink is a term often used in the phrase everything but the kitchen sinkKitchen sink may also refer to:* A sink in a kitchen for washing dishes, vegetables, etc* Kitchen Sink, a 1989 short film by Alison Maclean...

, Playboy

Playboy

Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...

, TV Guide

TV Guide

TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...

and Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...

. He was a Mad

Mad (magazine)

Mad is an American humor magazine founded by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines in 1952. Launched as a comic book before it became a magazine, it was widely imitated and influential, impacting not only satirical media but the entire cultural landscape of the 20th century.The last...

illustrator for ten years and has worked regularly with numerous comics publishers on projects such as Omega Men

Omega Men

The Omega Men are a fictional team of extraterrestrial superheroes who have appeared in various comic book series published by DC Comics. They first appeared in Green Lantern #141 , and were created by Marv Wolfman and Joe Staton....

, Super Powers, DC Comics Presents

DC Comics Presents

DC Comics Presents was a comic book published by DC Comics from 1978 to 1986 featuring team-ups between Superman and a wide variety of other characters of the DC Universe...

, DC's Who's Who

Who's Who in the DC Universe

Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe is the umbrella title for a number of comic book series which DC Comics published to catalogue the wide variety of fictional characters in their imaginary universe, the DC Universe.-History:Who's Who was the creation of Len Wein, Marv...

and Planet of the Apes

Planet of the Apes (comic book)

Planet of the Apes comics are tie-ins to the Planet of the Apes universe. They have been released by several publishers over the years and include tie-ins and spin-offs.-Japanese comics :...

.

He contributed to Detroit's Fantasy Fans and Comic-collector's Group on their fanzine The Fan Informer (1968–71), as well as his own publication, The Aardvark Annual (1968). Theakston was also involved in the Detroit Triple Fan Fair

Detroit Triple Fan Fair

The Detroit Triple Fan Fair ' was a multigenre convention held annually in Detroit, Michigan, from 1965 to 1978. It is credited as being the first regularly held convention featuring comic books as a major component...

, a multimedia convention from 1970 to 1978, eventually owning it after working on a dozen shows. An original member of the Crusty Bunkers

Crusty Bunkers

Crusty Bunker, or the Crusty Bunkers, was the collective pseudonym of group of comic book inkers clustered around Neal Adams' and Dick Giordano's New York City-based art and design agency Continuity Studios from 1972-1977. The group was also occasionally credited as Ilya Hunch, Chuck Bunker, or The...

, Theakston worked closely with Neal Adams

Neal Adams

Neal Adams is an American comic book and commercial artist known for helping to create some of the definitive modern imagery of the DC Comics characters Superman, Batman, and Green Arrow; as the co-founder of the graphic design studio Continuity Associates; and as a creators-rights advocate who...

 at Continuity Associates

Continuity Associates

Continuity Studios is a New York City- and Los Angeles-based art and illustration studio formed by cartoonists Neal Adams and Dick Giordano...

 between 1972 and 1979, producing animatics, storyboards, comic art and various commercial advertising assignments.

Posters and publishing

Theakston's movie poster work includes Invaders From Mars

Invaders from Mars (1986 film)

Invaders from Mars is a 1986 science fiction film directed by Tobe Hooper from a screenplay by Dan O'Bannon and Don Jakoby. It is a remake of the 1953 science fiction film Invaders from Mars, and is a reworking of that film's screenplay by Richard Blake from an original story by John Tucker Battle...

, Silk Stockings

Silk Stockings

Silk Stockings is a musical with a book by George S. Kaufman, Leueen MacGrath, and Abe Burrows and music and lyrics by Cole Porter.Hildegarde Knef gives a vivid backstage account of the casting, rehearsals, tryouts and Broadway opening of "Silk Stockings" in her autobiography "The Gift Horse:...

, B'Wani Junction, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Jungle Book

The Jungle Book

The Jungle Book is a collection of stories by British Nobel laureate Rudyard Kipling. The stories were first published in magazines in 1893–4. The original publications contain illustrations, some by Rudyard's father, John Lockwood Kipling. Kipling was born in India and spent the first six...

and Mogambo

Mogambo

Mogambo is a 1953 film directed by John Ford, featuring Clark Gable, Ava Gardner, Grace Kelly and Donald Sinden. The film was adapted by John Lee Mahin from the play by Wilson Collison....

. He has seven lithographs in the permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art

Museum of Modern Art

The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...

.

Theakston has run Pure Imagination

Pure Imagination (comics)

Pure Imagination is a comic book, magazine, and comics-related book publisher run by Greg Theakston since 1975.While briefly doing some original comics in the 1990s, as well a publishing a few "girlie" magazines, its main focus has been in publishing books to preserve the great works of several...

, a comic book and magazine publisher since 1975. His biographical work includes an estimated 200,000 words on Jack Kirby

Jack Kirby

Jack Kirby , born Jacob Kurtzberg, was an American comic book artist, writer and editor regarded by historians and fans as one of the major innovators and most influential creators in the comic book medium....

, his long-time friend and work associate, 250,000 words on Bettie Page

Bettie Page

Bettie Mae Page was an American model who became famous in the 1950s for her fetish modeling and pin-up photos. She has often been called the "Queen of Pinups"...

, numerous pieces on great comic book artists, and pop culture figures for Pure Imagination and other publishers including, Mad, Penthouse and Playboy

Playboy

Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...

.

Comics restoration

His name has been given to a process called "Theakstonizing", a term coined by DC editor-in-chief, Dick Giordano

Dick Giordano

Richard Joseph "Dick" Giordano was an American comic book artist and editor best known for introducing Charlton Comics' "Action Heroes" stable of superheroes, and serving as executive editor of then–industry leader DC Comics...

, which bleaches color from old comics pages, used in the restoration for reprinting. To date, he has reconstructed over 12,000 pages of classic comic art, including work on Superman

Superman

Superman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...

, Batman

Batman

Batman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. A comic book superhero, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 , and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics...

, Captain America

Captain America

Captain America is a fictional character, a superhero that appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character first appeared in Captain America Comics #1 , from Marvel Comics' 1940s predecessor, Timely Comics, and was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby...

, Green Lantern

Green Lantern

The Green Lantern is the shared primary alias of several fictional characters, superheroes appearing in comic books published by DC Comics. The first Green Lantern was created by writer Bill Finger and artist Martin Nodell in All-American Comics #16 .Each Green Lantern possesses a power ring and...

, The Flash, Porky Pig

Porky Pig

Porky Pig is an animated cartoon character in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons. He was the first character created by the studio to draw audiences based on his star power, and the animators created many critically acclaimed shorts using the fat little pig...

, The Spirit

The Spirit

The Spirit is a crime-fighting fictional character created by writer-artist Will Eisner. He first appeared June 2, 1940 in "The Spirit Section", the colloquial name given to a 16-page Sunday supplement, distributed to 20 newspapers by the Register and Tribune Syndicate and reaching five million...

, The Human Torch, Sub-Mariner, Archie, Dick Tracy

Dick Tracy

Dick Tracy is a comic strip featuring Dick Tracy, a hard-hitting, fast-shooting and intelligent police detective. Created by Chester Gould, the strip made its debut on October 4, 1931, in the Detroit Mirror. It was distributed by the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate...

, Torchy, Pogo and numerous collections of popular comics artists, including Jack Kirby

Jack Kirby

Jack Kirby , born Jacob Kurtzberg, was an American comic book artist, writer and editor regarded by historians and fans as one of the major innovators and most influential creators in the comic book medium....

, Alex Toth

Alex Toth

Alexander Toth was an American professional cartoonist active from the 1940s through the 1980s. Toth's work began in the American comic book industry, but is known for his animation designs for Hanna-Barbera throughout the 1960s and 1970s. His work included Super Friends, Space Ghost, The...

, Basil Wolverton

Basil Wolverton

Basil Wolverton was an American cartoonist, illustrator, comic book writer-artist and professed "Producer of Preposterous Pictures of Peculiar People who Prowl this Perplexing Planet", whose many publishers included Marvel Comics and Mad.His unique, humorously grotesque drawings have elicited a...

, Steve Ditko

Steve Ditko

Stephen J. "Steve" Ditko is an American comic book artist and writer best known as the artist co-creator, with Stan Lee, of the Marvel Comics heroes Spider-Man and Doctor Strange....

, Frank Frazetta

Frank Frazetta

Frank Frazetta was an American fantasy and science fiction artist, noted for work in comic books, paperback book covers, paintings, posters, LP record album covers and other media...

, Jack Cole

Jack Cole (artist)

Jack Ralph Cole was an American comic book artist and Playboy magazine cartoonist best known for creating the comedic superhero Plastic Man....

, Lou Fine

Lou Fine

Louis Kenneth Fine was an American comic book artist known for his work during the 1940s Golden Age of comic books, where his quality draftsmanship became an influential model to a generation of fellow comics artists....

, Wallace Wood, and many others.

External links

• "Theakston, Greg" at the Michigan State University Libraries
  Michigan State University Libraries
  Michigan State University Libraries comprise the 29th largest academic library system in North America with over 4.9 million volumes and 6.7 million microforms. A unit of Michigan State University, the library system comprises nine branch locations including the main library...
  
  Special Collections Division: Reading Room Index to the Comic Art Collection, "The" to "Thede"