REVEALED! The Brave Veterans Who Beat the REAL MARTIAN INVASION of 1938
A special Veterans Day MORRISON MONDAYS!
MORRISON MONDAYS! By BILL MORRISON Last week I wrote about an image that I drew in 1993 for the purpose of heralding Matt Groening’s forthcoming publishing company, Bongo Comics. In that remembrance, I mentioned how editor Steve Vance gave me the task of thinking up some ideas for promotional images based on classic comic book covers. Well, I recently uncovered some of those rough sketches in a flat file drawer, and as promised, here they are! You can tell I was a student of the masters… Kirby, Steranko, Adams, Infantino, Kane, Shuster… even Robert Crumb! When I presented these sketches to Steve, he instantly zeroed in on the Fantastic Four #1 homage. None of the sketches were quite right for the image we needed to promote the birth of the company, including the FF #1 sketch. We needed a drawing that kept the Simpsons family front and center, but also prominently displayed the subjects of our other three titles: Bartman, Radioactive Man, and Itchy & Scratchy Comics. So, I went back to the drawing board and came up with the image that I wrote about in last week’s column, the tribute to the covers of DC 100-Page Spectacular #6 and All-Star Comics #16. It fit the bill perfectly. But Steve loved the idea of launching the company with a parody of Kirby’s classic Fantastic Four #1 cover, so he asked me to draw it up and ink it for the cover of the first issue of Simpsons Comics! In fact, Steve was so inspired by the idea of Homer as a giant, rampaging monster, he decided to write the main story of Simpsons Comics #1 around the cover! Steve provided detailed layouts with his hilarious and outlandish script, and I contributed tight pencils and inks with Cindy adding colors and lettering. The title of this terrific tale was The Amazing Colossal Homer, itself a parody of the title of the 1957 American International Pictures production, The Amazing Colossal Man. Steve’s instincts couldn’t have been more acute, because not only did the issue sell like crazy, The Amazing Colossal Homer was nominated that year for the Eisner Award™ for Best Short Story! And in July of 1994, Steve, Cindy, and I found ourselves at San Diego Comic-Con on the Eisner Awards™ stage, accepting the trophy from Will Eisner himself! Winning...
MORRISON MONDAYS! By BILL MORRISON When Matt Groening, Steve Vance, Cindy Vance, and I were planning our launch for a new comic book company called Bongo in the early months of 1993, I was tasked with coming up with some promotional ideas to let the public know that an entire line of Simpsons comic books was headed their way. Steve suggested that we try some classic comic-book cover parodies, so I started making Simpsons-centric sketches based on some of the most iconic comics images of the past. One that rose to the top of my list of favorites was Neal Adams and Dick Giordano’s cover to 1971’s DC 100-Page Super Spectacular #6, which featured a Who’s Who of DC superheroes with the Big Three — Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman — in a spotlight. I marveled at it as a kid and only as a young adult realized that they were paying tribute to the Golden Age cover of 1943’s All-Star Comics #16, by Frank Harry. Apparently, the cover was popular with the rest of the Bongo crew as well. It was decided that we would use my tribute drawing of a whole crowd of Simpsons characters, with the subjects of our four soon-to-premiere titles in a spotlight, to herald the coming of Bongo. The image appeared on store posters, magazine advertisements, postcards, etc., and we even made it the cover of a limited-edition hardcover collection of all four first-issues (Simpsons Comics, Bartman, Radioactive Man, and Itchy & Scratchy Comics) titled Bongo Comics Group Spectacular. The book has become a rare collectible as it was limited to 1,000 copies and only available as a retailer incentive. Obviously, Neal and Dick’s image and the original All-Star Comics version made an indelible impression on me, because in 2010 when I was thinking about cover variants for the first issue of Comic Book Guy: The Comic Book (see Morrison Mondays, May 27, 2024) I went back to it and drew a version with Jeff Albertson in the spotlight. I don’t recall why I ended up rejecting this image but it may have been for the lack of a good gag. I also don’t remember why Martin is dressed as Starman, so please don’t ask! Anyway, I had gone as far as the tight pencil drawing and I recently discovered it in a...
A special Veterans Day MORRISON MONDAYS!
