Posted By Dan Greenfield on Jun 9, 2025 | 4 comments

MORRISON MONDAYS!

By BILL MORRISON

It’s human nature to make judgments about others based on circumstantial evidence. Observational things like the kind of art people have on their walls, the clothes they wear, or what sort of bric-a-brac they leave around in their personal spaces can all cause us to form instant conclusions about other individuals. This is the story of how, because of one such circumstance, I was once mistaken for a Nazi.

Fans of Golden Age comic books and Pulitzer Prize-winning novels may recall a book by Michael Chabon titled The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. The novel begins in 1939 in New York City and tells the story of two young cousins who create a hugely popular comic-book hero called the Escapist. Many events and characters in the book are based on real-life incidents and personalities from that era of American comics.

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It’s about a lot more than that, which is why it won a Pulitzer, but it’s the comic book aspect of the novel, and the strength of the fictional characters created by cousins Joe Kavalier and Sammy Clay, that prompted Dark Horse Comics to join with Chabon to create an Escapist comic-book series titled Michael Chabon Presents the Amazing Adventures of the Escapist.

The series was written and drawn in a way similar to how we approached Radioactive Man at Bongo, imagining that the character really had existed in our world since comics’ Golden Age, and presenting stories as if they were reprinted from a rich publishing history.

The Escapist tales were written and drawn by various comics creators, and I was fortunate to be invited to draw a pin-up for the back cover of Issue #6. Notable comics superstars in that issue alone include Howard Chaykin, Eddie Campbell, Norm Breyfogle, Thomas Yeates, and Will Eisner, writing and drawing his very last Spirit story!

For my back-cover pin-up, I decided to take a cue from the novel and explore the live-action film aspect of the Escapist. In The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, there is an actor named Tracy Bacon who plays the Escapist on a weekly radio program. Eventually, Tracy is cast in a film adaptation of the show and heads out to Hollywood. So, my “pin-up” took the form of a poster for an Escapist movie serial, with scattered Easter eggs that reference the novel, as well as actual movie serial posters. I designed it to go along with the idea of the Escapist existing as a character in our world since the late 1930s, with all the attention to detail that entails.

One element common to most serial posters was an inset photograph that showcased the current chapter playing at the theater where the poster was on display. Every week during the run of the serial, a new poster was put up, and it was generally identical to the poster from the previous week except for that chapter box and photo. So, naturally, to create an authentic serial poster I needed to have a photo shoot with actors, costumes, and props.

Lucky for me, I’m married to a lovely actress who also sings in a vintage-style swing band, the Dean Mora Orchestra! I enlisted my wife, Kayre, along with her band leader, Dean Mora, the male singer in the band, Damon Kirsche, and Maxwell DeMille, who produces many of the shows where the band performs. They all own 1940s vintage clothing, and my friend, magician Misty Lee, loaned me a straitjacket, so most of the costuming was taken care of.

However, since the villains in the photo were to be Nazis, I needed some authentic-looking Nazi arm bands. In retrospect, I could have just Photoshopped them in, but at this point I was so committed to authenticity that it didn’t occur to me. Again, lucky for me, Kayre is also an excellent seamstress, and she volunteered to make the desired costume accessories. And she did a great job with them… maybe a little too great.

The photo shoot for the chapter inset went well, and I also took reference shots for the painting. I brought the props home, which included a bomb made of dowel rods painted red to resemble dynamite, a vintage plastic ray gun, and the swastika-emblazoned arm bands. But did I take the time to put them away? Of course I didn’t. They lay scattered around my home studio for probably months after I finished the pin-up.

So, one day while I was at Bongo, we had a workman come to put up some shelving in my home studio. Kayre ushered him in, and while she was discussing the job to be done, she noticed him looking at something behind her. Kayre told me his eyes kept darting from her to whatever was behind her and it was obvious that he was becoming increasingly distracted from their conversation. Eventually, she turned to see what he kept looking at and saw the dreaded, and very authentic-looking, Nazi arm bands, there on a table. Laid out as if waiting for me to come home from work, put one of them on, and head off to some clandestine White Supremacist rally!

When I did arrive home from work, Kayre told me what had happened, describing how she scrambled to explain the reason for the arm bands, and to assure the workman that they were just props for a photo shoot and we were not California Nazis, just very creative, very detail-oriented kooks. We’re still not sure if he finally believed her. Who knows how many times he may have told friends and family members about the time he did a job for a Nazi cartoonist!

Now that I’ve told this tale, I realize that there was an important lesson to learn here that didn’t stick. People will make judgments about you based on your personal items, so get rid of the stuff that may be communicating false perceptions about you. I rarely, if ever, throw anything away, even things that have good reason to be discarded, so I still have those arm bands in a box somewhere. Why didn’t I get rid of those things when I had the chance? Who knows. After I die, someone will surely discover that box, rummage through it, find those arm bands, and draw a very unpleasant conclusion about me!

Aw, nuts! I’d better go and find that box!

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