Simpson Sampler IV: Spidey in the Crosshairs!

Below are the four pages of a sample I created in 2002 of Spider-Man. This particular round of samples, created in an attempt to land freelance work from Marvel, had the distinction of being personally rejected by Axel Alonso, then editor of a Spider-Man anthology that utilized alternative creators like Peter Bagge. And when I say personally rejected, I mean I made my one and only visit to New York and the Marvel offices in order to have five minutes of his valuable time, in which he told me my work was a curious hybrid of John Romita and Jack Davis (one of the more astute remarks I've ever gotten from a mainstream editor, as it so happens). But it garnered no freelance work.

Colorized panel from page 4.

Higher-res scans courtesy of George Hagenauer, who has these pages for sale!

[Interspersed is my original plot, from the original text document.]

"Four Letter Word"

J. Jonah Jameson, at his desk in his office at the Bugle, trying to figure out the paper's crossword puzzle.

17 Across: To tug, suddenly

Jonah goes through various expressions of frustration, exasperation, befuddlement, etc.

Looks through crossword dictionary, throughs it into wastepaper basket in anger.

Robbie Robertson sticks his head into the office, concerned at loud noise.

Jonah asks Robbie.  Robbie shrugs.

Jonah goes to door of office, holding folded paper and pencil, quizzes his perky receptionist.  She doesn't know the answer.

Jonah asks the even quirkier punkette intern making photocopies, a flat-chested, tattooed, gum-chewing brat.  She doesn't have a clue either.  She give Jonah the finger once his back is turned, as he storms back into his office.

Close up of puzzle - answer in tomorrow's Bugle.  Jonah gets an idea - smiles!

Calls down to puzzle/features department.  The stern librarian-looking editor scolds him, wagging her finger.  She can't divulge the answers!

Jonah pulling his hair out.  Paper nearly in shreads.  About to give up.  Jonah, resignedly, looks forlornly at the paper.  Doesn't see behind him, out window, as Spidey swings up.

Spidey, taking a perch upside down outside the window, below the sill, looks in curiously at Jonah.

Jonah, gesturing with his hands, eyes closed, says something out loud.

Spidey, hands to his mouth, yells something at Jonah.

Eureka!  Jonah has the answer at last!  Pencils in the word 'jerk'.

Jonah beams.  Then his face falls into a not-amused frown.

As Spidey swings away chuckling to himself, Jonah shouts and waves fist at him angrily leaning out of the open window.

Anyway, the thumbnails and final versions tell a little story of J. Jonah Jameson struggling to complete his own paper's crossword puzzle, calling the puzzle's editor for some extra clues (she scolds him for trying to cheat), and finally Spider-Man dropping by, uttering the only dialogue in the sequence, and inadvertently solving the puzzle. I thought it was kind of clever.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, it is a bit astonishing to me as I look back on these samples to see the level of mastery and craft one could attain and still get no response from the major publishers. This, coupled with what I considered the dreadful level of craft manifest in the books since the 1970s ... but then, I'm sorta biased. Some would say it is simply a changing of style; as I've written elsewhere, I think the cognitive skill of drawing has all but vanished from our civilization.

Keep those submissions coming! Failed Pitch One | Two | Three | Inferior Five!
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Read my YA prose experiment, the Ms. Megaton Man Maxi-Series - new chapter every Friday!

Simpson Sampler II: More Exiled Rejects!

Here is another set of samples I created (pencil and ink on Bristol board, from my own plot idea) and pitched to a big NY company, around 2002. I actually paid a visit to the offices, having an inside contact, and got five minutes with the editor. I will never forget this jackass and his sneer as he looked over my work. To much like Wally Wood, Joe Sinnott, and John Veerpoorten for the new millennium! What a jackass. Enjoy!

Sketchbook roughs of pages 1 and 5.

Sketchbook roughs of pages 6 and 2.

Sketchbook roughs of pages 4 and 3.

Excelsior!

Simpson Sampler I: Golden-Age Meltdown! | Simpson Sampler III: Web-Rocks!

Simpson Sampler I: Retro Rejects Circa Y2K!

Just to show young aspiring cartoonist the level of mastery one can achieve and still be completely ignored by major publishers, I offer this 5-page story sampler I created for an outfit in New York, and submitted around the year 2000. (In fairness, at other times I did create a handful of pages of art for them). The plot is my own, as are the pencils and inks; note that melting your boy sidekick out of a block of ice - an idea later exploited in a major movie franchise - was my own original idea ...

The team has a surprise for the old World War II veteran!

The Veteran recalls losing his boy sidekick, who perished while trying to defuse a buzz bomb!

Surprise! The boy sidekick, like the Veteran years before, was frozen in a block of ice! Suspended animation!

The android lets his tool go limp, and electrify the puddle of melt runoff!

The android reverts to his golden age form - and combusts!

On the other hand, now that I look at the panel I quickly colored above, perhaps one reason no editor at the House of Ideas would hire me was the hugely phallic device the android uses to both melt the block of ice and accidentally reactivate his  own golden age self - but this is purely speculation.

Speaking of team books, below is an ink sample over a long-running penciler, who was kind enough to provide with photocopies of his penciled pages. Presumably it was too much like Sinnott, Wood, and Veerporten to result in any work in the early 2000s

While I appreciated the penciler giving me a shot to work over actual layouts, I would have gone nuts as an inker. I did several pages in a row from this issue, and found the layouts to be incredibly pedestrian, the body language stiff, and the storytelling slow as molasses. I prefer doing (at least) the entire art job myself, and the story and lettering as well whenever possible. Being such a stickler has limited my opportunities!

Original pencil layout (photocopy), which I lightboxed (traced) onto Bristol board, then inked with crowquill, brush, and India ink.

Years later, I sold the samples (which I had light-tabled onto Bristol board) to a fan, and the penciler contacted me and accused me of forgery, apparently having forgotten ever meeting me. I had to remind him that he was the source of the photocopies that I worked from. He never apologized and I never heard from him again. 'Nuff said!

Simpson Sampler II: Exilic Exodus! | Simpson Sampler III: Web-Rocks!

The Rogues' Gallery: Secret Origins #41 (June 1989)

Here is a freelance job I drew and lettered from a script by Dan Mishkin and Gary Cohn of Blue Devil fame (and I believe they also performed at weddings!). This is one of those work-for-hire assignments that earned me a rep as a primadonna hack from my erstwhile publisher, but I think it turned out rather well, and still holds up. In fact, I've always been rather fond of this piece, as it shows a more serious, relaxed superhero style emerging out of the overworked early Megaton Man and Border Worlds, just as the opening chapter of my career at Kitchen Sink Press was coming to a close.

Swipes and Studies from the Simpson Spiral Sketchbook!

I have already previewed a lot of sketches and work in progress from War of the Independents #4  in the latter half of 2014 elsewhere on this blog, so I won't be showing any more finished art (you'll have to buy the comic when it comes out in hardcopy this spring/summer 2015!). But I will show you some of the studies I've made for the upcoming bar-room brawl between Dave Sim's Cerebus the Aardvark and Jeff Smith's Fone Bone, a key dramatic moment in the storyline (any similarities to real-life feuds are purely, purely, purely coincidental, I am sure!).

As I've mentioned before, the fun aspect of this project is having to learn to draw so many diverse characters and study their designs and body language. In some ways it's like attempting to forge a signature, since these characters are so personal to the artist and their respective style (and won't convince anybody as authentic!). Anyway, here's me trying to get the hang of two of the featured heroes of the issue (plus a few other stray doodles of my own and other characters). They won't appear in these exact poses (storytelling always requires a certain amount of invention, rendering direct swipes almost impossible or at least futile). Enjoy!

Some studies of the body language of Fone Bone, from Bone #52 and 53 (October 2003 and April 2004), along with a Popeye pose from the cover of Craig Yoe's IDW reprint (#24, July 2014) of Popeye #24 (January-March 1953). Note: Popeye will not be in War of the Independents #4!

More poses of Bone from the same issues, along with studies of Cerebus from images found online. (My character Gower Goose, who won't be in the story, appears at the lower left.) I can swipe funny animal poses fairly wellwhen the art is right in front of me, but when left to my own devices, my own homemade funny animal style is pretty clumsy and anything but classical! But I've picked up a thing or two from Jeff and Dave, and other artists I've studied for WOTI #4.

More Bone and Rose studies, along with my own Ms. Megaton Man drawn from my imagination, but suggesting a certain Tony DeZuniga cast for some reason! (Neither Rose nor Ms. MM will be in WOTI #4 either.)

Some earlier sketches of Ms. Megaton Man from imagination. The top center one I was going for a Gil Kane feeling and I think I got it.

More Ms. MM poses, in this case channeling a certain Romita-Kirby-Wally Wood-Larry Leiber quality from memory.

For warm ups, I often just freehand sketch cubes or boxes in perspective. If one can draw three lines freehand and suggest that they will converge off in some distance, one can draw a reasonably convincing box in 3D. Ultimately, one can then draw any number of converging lines and freehand anything in perspective (including the human figure). Here I'm making notes and systematizing the process into a lesson that I hope to present to a class some time soon.

The above material represents the last few pages of an 11" x 14" spiral Strathmore recycled sketchbook I began in 2012. This is the first time I can remember finishing the filling-up of a sketchbook so close to the end of the year. 2015 will begin with a new sketchbook and fresh drawing challenges and studies! Stay tuned ... and Happy New Year!
 
Ms. Megaton Man and Gower Goose are ™ and  © Don Simpson 2015, all rights reserved. Characters not owned by Don Simpson are ™ and  © their respective creators/owners.

The Comic Warrior: A Lost Don Simpson Story from 1986!

Update: John R. Annunziata provided me with sharper scans to replace the previous snapshots. They are posted below.

Below is a story I created for St. Paul, Minnesota retailer John Annunziata, proprietor of The Comic Warrior shop, in 1986 . I had been to John's show in St. Paul with guests Timothy Truman and others, and had drawn John into Megaton Man #6 as the shady dealer who brings the Captain Megaton Man costume to villainess Rose Shark. John was delighted by this caricatural portrayal and subsequently commissioned me to create a full-color drawing in 1985 (below) of his Comic Warrior store mascot (essentially himself decked out as a barbarian), in which I included not only Megaton Man but also the obligatory supine female (a la Frazetta), which I rendered completely nude. John was delighted by this drawing as well, but in order to display the drawing publicly (he brought it to shows like the Chicago Comic-Con) he painted a fur bikini on the glass of the frame to keep younger eyes from being corrupted (both versions are shown here).

When I moved from Wisconsin to Los Angeles (specifically Van Nuys, in the San Fernando Valley north of L.A.) for a few months at the end of 1986, John contracted me to draw an 11-page Comic Warrior story from his script. I did not even make photocopies of the artwork, which I sent directly to him in Minnesota. Outside of a specially-printed booklet he issued to promote the shop, the story has not been widely seen. At the time I drew the story, I had just completed my ten-issue run on Megaton Man and was beginning Border Worlds. The art is a kind of tame confluence of overtly underground influences (R. Crumb's Zap Comix and Dave Sheridan's Tales of the Leather Nun, a page of original art from which I owned for a long time) and the prevalent Robert E. Howard sword-and-sorcery trappings of the time. In other words, the story evokes not so much 1986 but rather a decade or fifteen years earlier! For nearly 30 years I remembered drawing the story but only vaguely, and it is quite a shock to see it again after so long. It is a delight to relive this rarity and wonderful to think of the person I used to be that is revealed (and concealed!) in this work.

Sadly, John passed away in 2005, and just today his son John R. Annunziata contacted me for the first time, enquiring about the story and passing along these scans of the booklet that the store printed up in the late 80s. My sincere thanks to John R. for permitting me to post them here.

--October 12, 2014; revised texts and better scans posted October 13, 2014.

Below is the original convention sketch I drew in 1985. Caution: cartoon nudity! John brought this piece to shows, but since it was for public display, had a bikini painted over the offending regions of the female figure so as not to corrupt younger (or older!) viewers.

The Federated Eagle: A Misguided Superhero Mascot Pitch

Here is a cartoon superhero character I created for a pitch to Federated Investors. I forget the circumstances, but in retrospect I can hardly fathom how such a button-down company would have gone for such a loopy idea, or what market or segment of the market it was supposed to reach. Cartoon characters and superhero characters have been quite successful in advertising and public relations, but not in the investment sector.

More Internet Superheroes!

Here's another freelance job that made the argument that faster internet connections were akin to superpowers. This one is for bright.net, an Ohio-based internet service provider, c. 1998.

Also included is a parody of the famous Charles Atlas advertisement that has adorned comic books since the dawn of time. My pals at Dark Horse Comics, who had a licensing agreement with Charles Atlas, alerted them to my parody, causing me a bit of legal grief until the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund magnanimously agreed to intervene on my behalf. Thanks, Dark Horse!