A MORRISON MONDAYS birthday salute!
By BILL MORRISON
I’ve always considered the work of Frank Frazetta to have had a big influence on my art. I know it doesn’t really show very much, but there was a time in art school when I bought every Frazetta art book available, had posters of his paintings on my bedroom walls, scribbled barbarian drawings in my sketchbooks, etc.
So, in thinking about the anniversary of his birth — he was born Feb. 9, 1928 — I started pondering whether I’d ever done a Simpsons parody of one of Frank’s pieces. I know I did an homage to Frank’s cover of Famous Funnies #211, with Stan Sakai’s Space Usagi standing in for Buck Rogers, but I thought must have also done a Frazetta satire with Homer, Bart, Marge, et al. I went back through 36 years of Simpsons comic covers, prints, video game box covers, magazine promotional images, etc., but nothing came up.
Then, suddenly, I remembered that I did pay tribute to Frazetta, not with a Simpsons image, but with Turanga Leela and Phillip J. Fry from Matt Groening’s other show, Futurama. It’s not a direct parody, but it was definitely inspired by Frank’s iconic Conan the Adventurer paperback cover.
Leela’s pose doesn’t exactly mimic Conan’s on that cover, but the fact that she’s standing triumphantly on a pile of vanquished bodies (dismembered robots, in this case) and has a sycophant clinging to her leg (in this case, Fry,) makes the image unmistakably a Frazetta swipe.
This drawing appeared as the center spread of the 2015 Futurama Wall Calendar, and was offered as a poster at the Bongo Comics booth at San Diego Comic-Con that year.
I remain in awe of Frank Frazetta’s work, as I was in art school. And I think it’s high time I drew a Simpsons homage to one of his amazing images. Maybe I’ll have that to show by next year at this time!
(For more Frazetta birthday shenanigans, check out Peter Bosch’s piece over here. — Dan)
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— CATWOMAN’s Caught in a BAT ROMANCE — Again! 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.
February 9, 2026
Space Bunnies. I want that on a tee shirt. The wild bunnies I feed in the yard will be even more fun. Thanks