MORRISON MONDAYS!
By BILL MORRISON
In a few days we’ll welcome the year 2025, and for me that particular milestone brings three things to mind: sleeping in past 7 a.m., Twilight Zone marathons, and fresh new wall calendars!
I only mention the first two things because of the literary rule of threes, so let’s forget those and talk about calendars! I’ve loved them ever since my first, which was the 1966 Peanuts Calendar! Another memorable one for me was the Mighty Marvel Calendar for 1975, which is not only featured in AbramsComicArts’ new Mighty Marvel Calendar Book: A Visual History, by fellow 13th Dimension contributor Chris Ryall, but has also been re-released because 1975 and 2025’s dates line up! (This plug is for a dear friend at Abrams! You know who you are!)
I love the multi-functionality of wall calendars. They’re useful tools for keeping track of important dates and events throughout the year, but also serve as decorative art pieces, suitable for framing.
When I was creative director at Bongo Entertainment we not only created comics and books for The Simpsons and Futurama, but calendars as well. I look back very fondly at some of the calendars we produced, because they almost always featured original, unrecycled art, and usually had a fun and interesting theme that took full advantage of the parody/satire nature of Matt Groening’s TV shows.
As owner and publisher of Bongo, Matt always put a great deal of importance on giving our fans a lot of value for their money, and that was true of the calendars as well as the books and comics. He always wanted our calendars to feature all-original content that could be found nowhere else, with themes that ranged from great moments in history, to magazine cover parodies, to trips to exciting places around the world. A great deal of thought and creativity went into the calendars we produced, and because of that they are sought-after items by Simpsons and Futurama collectors today.
So to kick off the new year, I’m presenting a look behind the scenes at one of my favorites, the Futurama 2009 Art Calendar! Included here are my original concept sketches, based on some of the most iconic works of art in history, along with as many of the finished pieces by the Bongo Bullpen as we can fit!
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Want more MORRISON MONDAYS? Come back next week! Want a commission? See below!
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MORE
— KA-POW! These BATMAN TOY GUNS Will Blow Your Mind. Click here.
— WHY DC NEEDED A STYLE GUIDE: Dig 13 Wildly Off-Model BATMAN COLLECTIBLES. Click here.
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Eisner winner Bill Morrison has been working in comics and publishing since 1993 when he co-founded Bongo Entertainment with Matt Groening, Cindy Vance and Steve Vance. At Bongo, and later as Executive Editor of Mad Magazine, he parodied the comics images he loved as a kid every chance he got. Not much has changed.
Bill is on Instagram (@atomicbattery) and Facebook (Bill Morrison/Atomic Battery Studios), and regularly takes commissions and sells published art through 4C Comics.
December 30, 2024
Thanks for the look behind-the-scenes! And the Three Stages… made me go “Awwwwww!”
January 2, 2025
I share your passion for calendars. This year I’ve got the “90 Years of DC” one, it’s pretty snazzy!