MORRISON MONDAYS!
By BILL MORRISON
This week I’m celebrating the birthday of one of my favorite comics artists, Lee Elias. Lee was born May 21, 1920, in England, and then immigrated to the US as a boy.
Though he excelled in almost every genre of comics, including superheroes (Black Cat,) war (Captain Wings), Western (Firehair) science fiction (Tommy Tomorrow), and even humor (he assisted Al Capp on the Li’l Abner comic strip), I’m really drawn to his work on Harvey Comics’ pre-code horror books. His inky, Milton Caniff-inspired style was perfect for the grisly horror comics of the early 1950s, and many of his Harvey covers have become iconic classics of the genre.
Probably the most popular of those is the cover of 1953’s Chamber of Chills #19, which has been used on t-shirts, prints, even an action figure, and honored by multiple artists with tribute drawings, including a Misfits album cover.
I was recently commissioned to draw a Simpsons version of the image, with Marge’s sister Selma replacing the seductive blonde who seems marked for death by the toasting skeleton in the foreground.
The commission was an ink drawing with no trade dress of any kind, so in honor of Lee Elias’s birthday I decided to add color and type! And as an Easter egg, I’ve included a clue as to the identity of Selma’s date. See if you can decipher it!
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Want more MORRISON MONDAYS? Come back next week! Want a commission? See below!
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MORE
— The World’s Finest WORLD’S FINEST/FUTURAMA Mash-Up. Click here.
— STAN GOLDBERG’s Brilliant ARCHIE/SIMPSONS Satire. 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.
May 19, 2025
“TM?” Unless those are Lord Deathman’s real initials I haven’t got a clue!
May 19, 2025
I believe that issue was also part of a facsimile run in Kickstarter.
May 19, 2025
Correct!
May 19, 2025
It’s got to be Selma’s ex-beau Troy McClure.
RIP to Phil Hartman, still missed and remembered.
May 19, 2025
You nailed it, Justice! I wish I had a No Prize to give you!
May 19, 2025
Any tribute to Lee Elias is perfectly swell to me.