MORRISON MONDAYS! By BILL MORRISON In 2002-03, Marvel had a miniseries titled Marvel Double-Shot, which featured two, 11-page stories per issue by different writers and artists. One day at Bongo, I got a call from the editor of the series, Marc Sumerak, asking me if I’d like to write and draw a story. He laid out the concept of the book and told me I could choose any characters I wanted for my story except for Spider-Man and the X-Men, the reason being that those characters were already oversaturated among their titles. Naturally, I was very flattered and extremely excited that they wanted me, a lowly humor cartoonist, to do a Marvel story! Then it dawned on me that they probably wanted me to do it in The Simpsons style. Why? Because that’s what everyone wanted. I began my career as a photorealistic illustrator, and went on to draw in many different styles, but my work for The Simpsons had me typecast! Plus, The Simpsons were red hot! So, I said “Before I say yes, do you want me to draw it in my own style, or in The Simpsons style?” Marc answered “Oh, definitely in The Simpsons style!” Well, that let the air right out of my big, happy, Marvel balloon. Regretfully, I didn’t feel I had the right to co-opt The Simpsons style for another publisher, so I had to decline the invitation. Within a few weeks, Matt Groening came into my office and asked if I’d heard about the new Spider-Man one-shot by Peter Bagge, The Megalomaniacal Spider-Man. Matt and I were both fans of Peter’s Hate comic, and I could see that Matt was excited about seeing what he would do with Ol’ Webhead. Matt directed me to a website on my computer that had a preview of the book, and we spent a few minutes gushing about how cool it was to see Spidey done in Bagge’s underground, cartoony style. Then, I swear to Jeebus, he looked at me and said “You should call someone at Marvel and tell them you want to do a story in The Simpsons style!” His very words! When I told him that just days earlier a Marvel editor had invited me to do literally what he suggested, and that I had turned him down, he asked “Why did...