FUTURAMA COMICS #8’s X-MEN HOMAGE: Slabbed for Your Protection

MORRISON MONDAYS!

For this week’s MORRISON MONDAYS — our new, weekly feature spotlighting homage covers by cartoonist extraordinaire Bill Morrison — it’s Bongo Comics’ 2002 Futurama Comics #8, a riff on 1975’s Giant-Size X-Men #1.

Naturally, there’s a funny story to go with it.

Take it away, Bill!

By BILL MORRISON

While I was editing Futurama Comics and drawing the covers, I read Eric Rogers’ script for Futurama Comics #8, a send-up of X-Men comics titled Planet X-Press Men, and naturally thought of doing an X-Men parody cover. Dave Cockrum and Gil Kane’s Giant-Size X-Men #1 was an all-time favorite of mine and given its iconic status, it was a natural choice.

At the time, the Certified Guarantee Company (CGC) had only been grading comics for about three years, and it seemed like the book I saw enclosed most often in their familiar plastic case was Giant-Size X-Men #1. Obviously, because it contains the first appearances of so many popular X-characters, many collectors had it graded and slabbed (and still do to this day). For that reason, I decided to do a double-parody for the Futurama Comics #8 cover and lampoon CGC as well.

I drew the cover, and then asked Bongo’s Art Director, Nathan Kane, who also colored the cover, to create a convincingly photorealistic image of a plastic CGC frame. I wrote a funny version of their label copy and changed the company name to “Comics Incarceration Co-op.”

After the issue was printed I decided it would be fun to submit a stack of copies to CGC and get them slabbed and graded, thus creating a slab-within-a-slab effect. When they came back, I was delighted to discover that CGC included a special notation on the label! Along with the grade, creator credits, date, etc. the issue is designated as “1st CGC parody cover.”

I have no idea if there have been subsequent CGC parodies, but hey, first is first!

Want more MORRISON MONDAYS? Come back next week! Want a commission? See below!

MORE

— BARTMAN NO MORE! JOHN ROMITA’s Epic Reaction to the AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #50 Satire. Click here.

— BATMAN STRIKES AGAIN: What if JACK KIRBY Had Never Left DC Comics in 1958? 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 Comics.

Author: Dan Greenfield

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2 Comments

  1. Excellent a parody of the now controversial tombing process is well in order. Terrific. Bender is a slasher.

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