ROBIN DATES AT DAWN: The Boy Wonder’s ‘Romance’ With the Other BAT-GIRL
MORRISON MONDAYS Meets ROBIN WEEK!
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! — Want more MORRISON MONDAYS? Come back next week! Want a commission? See below! — 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. — 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...
MORRISON MONDAYS! By BILL MORRISON Hands in the air if you remember this: Way back in 1997, Pepsi partnered with Fox to launch a contest to win The Simpsons house…Bsort of. The prize being offered was an actual house that closely resembled the Simpsons’ residence as seen on TV, but it was over 1,200 miles away from the nearest town named Springfield with not a Moe’s Tavern nor a nuclear power plant in sight. And its mostly faithful resemblance to the iconic house at 742 Evergreen Terrace was only temporary. The house was designed and built by Kaufman and Broad in the Las Vegas, Nevada, suburb of Henderson, and I was one of a handful of lucky Simpsons employees who got to visit it prior to the announcement of the sweepstakes winner. I drew most of the packaging art for the Pepsi products that promoted the contest, and when Fox organized a press junket to visit the house, I was included in Matt Groening’s entourage. We took the Western Pacific Airlines Simpsons jet (another cool late-90’s Simpsons promotion) out of the Bob Hope Airport in Burbank for an amazingly cool day-trip that included a self-guided tour of the entire house. Matt was the center of attention and we all looked on as he was given an award, christened an outside wall of the garage with a drawing of Bart, posed for photos with actors in Simpsons costumes, put his signature, handprints, and a Homer sketch in a slab of cement, and was interviewed by the press and TV news. I remember one of his comments to a reporter, “If you really want a good interview, talk to the guy who lives across the street because he’s the angriest man in Las Vegas!” After our time inspecting the house and all its cool artifacts, such as framed family photos, Lisa’s saxophone, Bart’s skateboard, and even cans of Duff Beer in the fridge, we took a ride to the Vegas strip for lunch at the Motown Cafe in the New York, New York Hotel and Casino where Matt was given another award by none other than Honorary Las Vegas Mayor Wayne Newton! We were then entertained by a Supremes-style girl-group whose members all sported Marge Simpson wigs, and took a free ride on the Big Apple Rollercoaster! It was a day...
MORRISON MONDAYS Meets ROBIN WEEK!
