MORRISON MONDAYS!
By BILL MORRISON
One of my duties at Bongo for many years was to oversee the production of yearly calendars for The Simpsons and Futurama. Normally I would come up with a theme and then either develop concepts for each monthly image, or make assignments to others to come up with ideas.
Fun Fact: For marketing and sales purposes, calendars have to be in production nearly two years in advance of the year that’s on the cover! So, in 2001, when we were planning the 2003 Futurama calendar, I decided the theme would be riffs on vintage comic book covers. At the time, I was juggling my Bongo editorial duties with my job as Art Director on the Futurama TV series, so I thought it would be a good idea to call in a writer to come up with concepts for the monthly images. And with a theme like classic comic books, I could think of no one better than Scott Shaw!
Based on 1943’s All-Star Comics #16
Scott’s knowledge of and passion for comics is unmatched, and he has a special fondness for the weird and wonderful covers of the past. (If you’ve ever seen his hilarious Oddball Comics show at a convention or a rare theatrical engagement, you know what I mean.) Scott is also an animator who has worked on many TV series and has written and drawn comic-book versions of several of those shows. So, he knows how to take concepts and characters that were created for animation and through nuance and finesse, make them work on a printed page.
I knew this was an assignment that was tailor-made for Scott, and that he would give us the perfect blend of in-universe Futurama humor and retro comic-book parody. And of course, he delivered the goods, and then some! (Would I be crowing about it otherwise?)
I have no idea why I changed Scott’s Rudolph parody to a Gold Key-style cover.
Sheldon Mayer and Tenny Henson
I’ve selected some of my favorite final images from the calendar for this column, but to illuminate the process of working from the concept phase through to finished calendar pages, I’ve selected some of Scott’s original sketches to show as well. As you can see, he pitched multiple versions of some of the concepts for me to choose from, and some went through various changes before arriving at the published version.
Unfortunately, we didn’t assign credits to each image for this calendar, only a general list of artists who worked on it. I drew a few of them from Scott’s layouts, such as the Betty and Veronica parody “Amy and Leela Summer Spectacle,” and “The Flesh,” but I find myself unable to identify the individual artists on each piece.
So, as a group, the brilliant creative team members that made this wonder of Gregorian time-organization possible are John Aoshima, Karen Bates, Pam Cooke, Serban Cristescu, Pete Gomez, Jason Ho, Nathan Kane, Mike Lemos, Jeanette Moreno, Bill Morrison, Mike Rote, Aaron Rozenfeld, Sean Sexton, Scott Shaw!, and Chris Ungar! Jamie Angell provided all the birthdates, anniversaries, official observance days, etc, and he is nothing if not thorough on an almanactic (not a word) level!
Jack Kirby and Roz Kirby
In fact, if you’re reading this on the day of its publication, today is Commonwealth Day and Tony Millionaire’s birthday!
And here’s another Fun Fact: If you own a copy of the Futurama 2003 Calendar, you can use it again this year!
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Want more MORRISON MONDAYS? Come back next week! Want a commission? See below!
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MORE
— ROBIN DATES AT DAWN — The Boy Wonder’s ‘Romance’ With the Other BAT-GIRL. Click here.
— GEORGE HARRISON, THE BEATLES and the Long, Tortured Birth of the YELLOW SUBMARINE Graphic Novel. 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.
