Edward Gorey (1925-2000) was an illustrator whose work defied categorization. His books nowadays are found in the cartoon and/or humor section of bookstores or libraries. Some have labelled his books as being children's books - yet Gorey had no fondness for children. A few Gorey titles like the Object Lesson have been popular as surrealist art. Some of his work (maybe even all of it) could be considered comics. In his groundbreaking book Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud even called Gorey's work comics.
In the 1950s through part of the 1980s, Edward Gorey resided in New York City working for the art department of Doubleday Anchor where he did cover illustrations and even interior illustrations for works like Dracula and War of the Worlds. During this time, comic book companies - that is, Marvel and DC - still largely operated in the Big Apple.
So here's some food for thought:
1. What if Edward Gorey approached the NYC comic book publishers as an artist or was extended an offer by the same?
2. Let's say the Gorey does comic books, be it mainstream or possibly small press material (alternative or underground) - what possible butterflies could this have on the medium, its readership, the industry or even public perception?
Remember that around the time Gorey was putting out his books in the late 1950s and into the early 1960s, we saw the beginnings of the underground comics movement. You had the subversive MAD that essentially gave the middle finger to the then-powerful Comics Code Authority; that influenced the underground of the mid-1960s through mid-1970s - we got stuff like ZAP, the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, God Nose Comix and so on. The underground greatly influenced the alternative scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Gorey's style was unique. It was a very line-heavy and scratchy pen style set in a Victorian or Edwardian era with elements of the 1920s. Could this be an inspiration or even influence to many of the underground artists and the burgeoning small press scene of the comics Bronze Age (1970-1985) and the 1990s?