MORRISON MONDAYS!
By BILL MORRISON
Yesterday marked the 86th anniversary of the first appearance of my favorite character of all time, Batman! So, in honor of that Earth-shaking event, I’m presenting a six-page story that I wrote and drew in 2003, all about my decades-long obsession with the Caped Crusader and his enthralling cast of characters, and my cosplay quest for the perfect Batman costume!
Most of what’s portrayed in the story happened as presented, though some scenes were enhanced for comedic effect.
And a word about the art style. This was my first autobiographic story, and I was experimenting. I looked to Dan DeCarlo’s work on the Willie Lumpkin newspaper comic strip for inspiration and I confess I borrowed heavily from it.
This story was created for and published in the anthology, Autobiographix, edited by the great Diana Schutz, and appears here by special permission of Dark Horse Comics. The collection features other autobiographical stories by such talented creators as Will Eisner, Frank Miller, Stan Sakai, Sergio Aragonés, Matt Wagner, and many more! A hardcover edition is still in print, and I highly recommend it!
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Want more MORRISON MONDAYS? Come back next week! Want a commission? See below!
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MORE
— A Trip to the One (and Only) Real-Life SIMPSONS HOUSE. Click here.
— FUTURAMA’s Fab Riffs on Classic Comic Book Covers. 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.
March 31, 2025
That was wonderful. I can so relate to that, even though I was about a decade behind you. I still have my Ben Cooper playsuit! I have a not-too-bad Batman costume my mother helped me put together for a college Halloween party, and I wore it many times to take my kids trick or treating. To many of the kids we met on the street, I was the REAL Batman. It was an awesome feeling.
March 31, 2025
HOLY NOSTALGIA, BATMAN! This was wonderful, thanks for this
April 1, 2025
Oh, what a wonderful story! Thank you! I had a homemade Batman costume for Halloween about 1967! (Isn’t there a story where Batman has to wear a different color costume, maybe made out of a discarded bedsheet? That was me!) I had loads of fun!