[Were-Yeti Week] Throwback: Marvel's Wendigo

O Wendigo...

An honorary yeti in my book, I've blogged about him numerously (examples here here here and here).

Marvel introduced this monster in 1973, having him fight Hulk.  One of his creators recalled, "I knew about the legend of the Wendigo, and thought, between his strength and his sad story, that he sounded like a good Hulk opponent."

I'm not entirely sure why, but it was decided their version of the legend would look exactly like a yeti, but with a tail. Sometimes he has horns like a yeti, too.

Like the folklore it's based on, there's a Canadian cannibal curse (yup you have to be in Canada) that turns you into a were-yeti basically.

Here are some examples of a person in mid-transformation:

---

And here are some other pretty pictures of Wendy I found as well. Note the variety. The only thing they all have in common is that they could all be yetis.

Wolverine's always fighting him cuz he's Canadian

Wolverine vs. Multiple Wendigos

Source

Avengers Earth Mightiest Heroes cartoon

Source

Source

Constrictor vs. Yeti (WAIT, horns?!)

 

Source

[Marvel Week] Hulk vs. Yeti

---

Source

---

Source

[Wendigo Week] My Personal Favorite

....is Guy Davis' Wendigo from B.P.R.D.

I previously blogged about Guy Davis' Yeti from B.P.R.D.

But look at his creepy Wendigo:

Snippet from this CBR interview:

Some monsters, such as the wendigo, have a bit of mythology and folklore around them. How do you go about when developing your own interpretation of monsters with such a history?

You know, I didn't look too much into the mythology of it because I didn't want to get bogged down into any restrictions of folklore, whether I needed him to have horns or certain types of hoofs. I never wanted to worry about that. I wanted the "B.P.R.D." Wendigo to be unique to the book.

As I remember, John [Arcudi]'s only note in the script was not to make it look like the Marvel Comics' Wendigo, which I had no clue about to begin with. He also wanted it to be spooky, like the drawing from Roy Krenkel, and I was familiar with that, but I didn't really want it to look like a man. I think going into the Wendigo design, I was thinking it would have the feel of a "snowman" with the rounded head shape and dot eyes. And since the Wendigo had a human personality of Daryl the former human hunter, the simplified face made it easier to get across some range of emotion.

When I sketched him out, the dot eyes also made me then think of a shark, which I carried over to his angry mouth design, especially in the big splash of "Killing Ground." Also, keeping with the original "snowman" motif made me imagine the arms would be spindly like stick arms, and I worked up that idea into its odd arms/legs. It's that sort of basic idea that will sort of feed into other ideas while I'm sketching.

And now for some fan art...

Source

[Wendigo Week] A Wainbow of Wendigos

Source

Source

Source

Source

Source

Source

Source for above and below

Source

[Wendigo Week] Yetis with Antlers?

Source

Source

Source

Source

 

[Wendigo Week] Krenkel Wendigo

Roy G. Krenkel was pretty amazing.

For Creepy Loathsome Lore, he also did one on Abominable Snowman,
which I'll blog about next week!

[Wendigo Week] Books

This story (read for free here) popularized the Wendigo... considered one of the best horror tales of all time?

---

I recommend this book, The Curse of the Wendigo by Rick Yancey, second in the Monstrumologist series. Looking forward to the final book in the series.

---

Source

Source

And apparently these are screenshots from the 12th episode of the TV show Charmed (1998-2006),  entitled "The Wendigo".

[Wendigo Week] Scary Go Round

John Allison's Scary Go Round was a webcomic featuring a wendigo named Archie.  His owner thought he was a dog.

Source

Source

Source

Source