MORRISON MONDAYS!
By BILL MORRISON
2002 was an important year for the Amazing Spider-Man. Not only was it the 40th anniversary of ol’ Webhead’s first appearance in Amazing Fantasy #15, but it was also the year that saw the premiere of the greatly anticipated Sam Raimi Spider-Man film.
Jack Kirby pencils, Steve Ditko inks
Early in that year I was invited to be a guest at Motor City Comic Con in Detroit, and was also asked to draw the program cover. Since I was known mostly for drawing the Simpsons and was the creative director at Matt Groening’s Bongo Comics, I took the opportunity to promote Simpsons comic books and pay homage to Spidey’s anniversary with an image that I knew Simpsons and Spider-Man fans alike would relate to. The Motor City Comic Con program cover is also a tribute to Detroit with several iconic Motor City landmarks.
Eight years later I was badly in need of a cover for Bongo’s annual contribution to Free Comic Book Day, and decided that since A) Comic Book Guy was the star of all our FCBD covers, and B) the Motor City cover had had such limited exposure, it would be a perfect fit for the 2010 Bongo Comics Free-For-All cover. We de-Detroited (that’s not a word!) the background, giving it more of a Springfield vibe, and applied a fresh coloring job and voila, it was ready to go to print! I’d say it was one of Bongo’s most successful covers, but it didn’t sell a single copy!
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MORE
— The Four Fantastic COMIC BOOK GUY Variant Covers That Honor KIRBY, PEREZ, BUSCEMA and MORE. Click here.
— Dig This Incredible INCREDIBLES Tribute to THE NEW TEEN TITANS #1. 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.
June 10, 2024
I’m glad you included the ferris wheel (Royal) in the Detroit one. I guess by then the nail had been removed. Hmmmm…..I wonder if that’s the same nail from the JLA.