Recent Commissions Fall 2022

2022 was a strong year for Don Simpson personalized commissions! Thanks for your support! Hope you'll contact me throughout the holiday season and into 2023 with your requests! Here goes:

OMAC - The One-Man Army Corps!

Here's a commission I completed in 2021 for a collector of OMAC, Jack Kirby's quasi-loopy DC comic from the early 1970s, which was aborted somewhat prematurely for Jack's heralded return to Marvel and Captain America in time for the Bicentennial. Those DC Kirby comics -- namely, his improbably run on Jimmy Olson -- were some of the first comic books I could call my own. Although lacking the sparkly of Stan Lee's "Master of Ceremonies" scripting, they were some of the mature Jack's most energetic and creative work. This 14" x 17" commission, which came to me online, was begun during the afternoon lull at the 2021 Akron Comic Con as a lone pencil figure, then completed at home.

Megaton Man Rejects from Savage Dragon Team-Up!

 This are four pages I created on oversized Marvel bleed Bristol (13.5" x 21") for The Savage Dragon vs. the Savage Megaton Man #1 (Image Comics, 1993) but were rejected by Erik Larsen. I was going for a more simplified, Kirby-esque style at the time (evident later in my self-published Bizarre Heroes, made possible by the generous proceeds from this and Splitting Image). Erik wanted the more elaborate Neal Adams-ish inking style of the early issues of Megaton Man, so I took another shot at it. Some panels included Erik's headshots of the dragon, but one splash was left unfinished (apparently, that's when Erik decided he couldn't live the approach I'd taken). The lettering and script in this case is entirely by me.

So You Think You Can Ink? The Dandy Don Tryout Page!

A number of fans, enthusiasts, and even fellow pros have asked me if they could try their hand at inking my stuff ("stuff" being the technical term for "pencil art"!). I've posted tons of my drawings hither and yon, on Facebook as well as this and related blogs (usually right before inking them myself, so some images have already been inked, others not). I've gathered some of my favorites here below to appease those lockdown inkers who want to give it a go. Those interested may find others be searching this blog or Google Images.

Webs and Shreds (and Thunder!): Three More Recent Drawings

Here are some more commission-like drawing (they're like what I would do for a convention or commission drawing, but these aren't sold yet!). The first is a Spidey pose traced from a 2005 sketchbook drawing I always liked, with the addition of a goofy Hulk figure. It's 11" x 14" on Aquabee sketchbook paper, colorized in Photoshop (although I could accomplish much the same effect physically with Dr. Martin's dyes).

A Signal, Two Girls, and Three Recent Ink Drawings!

I had some time to use India ink at Wizard World Pittsburgh July 26-28, 2019, something I haven't done in many years, and produced three fairly nice ink drawings, all on 11" x 14" Aquabee sketchbook paper, with a Hunt #102 "crowquill" pen.

Spidey Stampede: A Decades-Delayed Office Dash!

This is a drawing I just completed in pen and ink on 11" x 14" Aquabee sketchbook paper (nice stuff that takes pen and ink really well; it's almost like Bristol board). I had this pad for ages and decided to cut the spiral-wire binding and use it for warm-up drawings and convention sketches.

Patriotic Pen and Ink: An Orphaned Commission!

Perhaps it's all the deep divisions right now in this great land of ours, or (more likely) my own perverse prankishness, but when a collector contacted me about doing a commission over the weekend with instructions that he wanted me to be me, this is the idea I woke up with this morning. So, I let 'er rip. Unfortunately, at the pencil stage (below), said collector balked, informing me that he was "really not a Marvel fan." Okay. So I went ahead and inked it anyway.

SpideyCat and the Chopper Cube: Marvel Samples Then and Now!

I started reading comics in earnest at the age of ten in the summer of 1972. The first comics I devoured were from the Marvel Comics Group with the cover date of September. Virtually the last comic book on the spinner rack at Howard's Drugs at Six Mile and Inkster Road in my neighborhood of Livonia, Michigan--with a Marvel banner that I hadn't read already--was Amazing Spider-Man #112, which I bought somewhat reluctantly. I don't know what it was that turned me off of Spider-Man; maybe it was the awful Ralph Bakshi Saturday morning cartoon of some years before, with the dreadful theme song that still haunts the current Marvel movies.

Scream Queen Studies and Pulp Pencil Sketches

Here is a slew of studies from recent weeks since the semester came to an end. First are several studies of Viola Conley, model and wife of pulp cover artist Hugh Joseph Ward, who collaborated with Viola on countless covers for Spicy Mystery and similar titles. Viola's features are reminiscent of Joan Cusack, and greatly expressive--largely grimacing in terror, and has a great body language. Ward's style is brushy and impressionistic--sketchy, almost watercolor, although he probably used oils. My studies--they would be "swipes" in another context--are attempts to capture some of those ephemeral qualities and, more importantly, to have those overtones seep into my natural drawing style and hopefully come out when I'm drawing from my imagination.

Viola Conley could rank as arguably the most prolifically-depicted pulp character in the history of magazines, and one of the more frequently portrayed American of the twentieth century, at least in paint by a single artist (Doc Savage and men's adventure magazine model Steve Holland might have more appearances, not only by James Bama but other artists). Mostly she's menaced by thugs, bad guys, space pirates, etc., but I thought it might be fun--for purposes of a few collector commissions--to have her play the role of Ann Darrow (immortalized by Fay Wray--the original scream queen). I don't quite get Viola's inimitable features, but I enjoy drawing her body language.

In a totally unrelated lark, I drew this pencil sketch of Veronica Hamel (Hill Street Blues), who was a longtime model for Virginia Slims cigarettes. One of her early ads have her in a female superhero getup, which suggested further adventures. I've tried to be true to the costume, and naturally I had to conflate the persona with her Hill Street co-star, Daniel J. Travanti.

Finally, I've been reading a good deal of Philip José Farmer, who virtually created a different fantastic world with almost each novel he wrote (as did many of his generation of sci-fi and fantasy scribes). One of his mid-sixties works, Dare, is a pretty uneven outing, but introduces a tantalizing character named R'li. Too bad further stories were never written--I think it would have been amazing. I'm not often inspired to draw renditions of literary characters, but I didn't like any of the various interpretations of R'li  that I've seen on various paperback editions--so I drew my own. Farmer doesn't describe her ears as pointy, but details such as body hair patterns are faithful, I think.

These interpretations are pretty earthy, but that's my sensibility. I've been reading a good deal of pulp prose lately--Edgar Rice Burroughs, Lester Dent (the principal author of Doc Savage as "Kenneth Robeson"), and James Blish (most famous for adapting Star Trek TV episodes into short-story anthologies in the 60s and 70s. There is something extremely regressive about most pulp adventure--characterization of females is mostly sparse--but there is also something terribly important about what it says of the American century in which it was created as a mere distraction--now we are distracted by entertainment that is far less substantive and in many ways even more socially regressive.

I have said elsewhere that the bankrupt discipline of art history has missed the boat on American illustration, opting instead to genuflect before the one-percent investor-friendly art world (replete with MeToo contemporary theorists in academia). Literary studies also has missed the boat on popular American fiction. These overlapping entertainments are more than "visual culture studies" and "popular culture"--they are important products of an era now vanished forever, as Philip José Farmer himself pointed out. If your object is to study the American psyche, this material deserves our scrutiny.

Read the Ms. Megaton Man Maxi-Series every week! New chapter every Friday!

Deviant Don: Creaturely Commissions from the Empowering Eighties!

Here are a couple of convention sketch commissions I created in 1989-1990 for cartooning connoisseur and former longtime Comics Buyer's Guide columnist Kim Metzger, who has a passion for what he calls "transformations" (a term I was unfamiliar with) - in this case, female media personalities turned into hybrid animal creatures. This is definitely a very minor part of my oeuvre - I can't recall more than a few other "furry" type commissions at shows over the years, among hundreds of PG con sketches of my own characters (Megaton Man, Border Worlds, Bizarre Heroes) and other mainstream superheroes.

Mr. Metzger's sometimes requests became legendary at conventions like the old Chicago Comicon and Mid-Ohio Con, and many artists felt uncomfortable and even refused them; but I'm glad to see at least the best of his collection curated on a very nice Kim Metzger Deviant Art Page.

Former Miss America Diane Sawyer as a lizard, colored by another artist (I think they may have added the tongue and sound effect, too, since it does not appear to be my work) for collector Kim Metzger.

Material Girl Madonna Ciccone as a feline (gripping her tail suggestively), for Kim Metzger.

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For collectors and would-be collectors of original Don Simpson art wishing to see just how far I will go, you may get some idea by visiting the Anton Drek DeviantArt Gallery for slightly censored sexually explicit content, and more directly, the Anton Drek Blog - WARNING! SERIOUSLY MATURE ADULT XXX SEXUALLY EXPLICIT CONTENT - (although honestly, I don't know why people always confuse my work with that guy; there isn't any similarity between our respective styles at all that I can see!).

Please refer to my Commission Price List, and please remember: requests beyond garden-variety PG are never embarrassing, but you'll pay through the nose, and I reserve the right to turn down any request for any reason whatsoever.

Two Orphaned Drawings from Personal Appearances

Update 12/12/14: Watch videos of me drawing this Spidey! See final colored Spidey drawing below.

Ms. Megaton Man, from Genghis Con, Cleveland, Nov. 30, 2014.

I will part with no drawing before its time! Here are a couple of drawings I began at recent personal appearances (Ms. Megaton Man at Genghis Con in Cleveland, Nov 30, 2014 and Spidey at the Frank L. Melaga Art Museum in Brownsville PA, Dec 8, 2014), but ran out of time to complete them on-site. I later finished inking them, including making minor corrections, at home.

There is nothing more tragic than a homeless cartoon drawing, especially during the holidays! If you can provide safe, warm shelter for works of art like these, please contact me. Or, if you would like to commission a completely new, custom made drawing of your favorite character, please visit my commission rate page. Thanks, and have a happy holiday season!

Spider-Man colored in Photoshop.

Ms. Megaton Man is ™ and  © Don Simpson 2014, all rights reserved. Other characters are ™ and  © their respective creators/owners.

Ed "Big Dandy" Don: Megastang Man!

Here is a recent commission idea that got completely out of control: a request for a Megaton Man pin-up in the manner of Ed "Big Daddy" Roth (Ed being my middle name anyway). Takes me back to second grade when all boys draw cars, whether they had any interest in drawing or were into cars or not (I drew, but despite my dad being an auto mechanic, had no interest in cars per se). It doesn't take a practiced eye to note that all the chrome and engine parts are faked (although the basic underlying phallic symbolism couldn't be more obvious)!

If you would like a Dandy Don sketch, drawing, pin-up, whatchamacallit, please peruse the handy Dandy Don Commission Price List.

Original blue and graphite pencil layout on bond. "Schwing," indeed, as The Man of Molecules goes bonkers over the curvaceous See-Thru Girl.

Pen (Hunt #102 Crowquill) and India ink on Clearprint Design Vellum, approximately 11" x 14".

Wooverine: Megalogan Man!

Blue and graphite pencil on blank comic book cover.

Pen and brush with India ink on blank comic book cover.

Captain Amegatonman and Bucky Barrage: A Recent Commission

A recent commission request from Mark Martin's personal art dealer and consigliore Michael Beaver, who informs me that he collects sketches of old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles artists who had work published by Mirage Studios back in the 1980s (which I somehow qualify as, although it was so long ago I forget exactly how!). His theme: Captain America! So Michael has compiled a sketchbook of various turtle artists drawing the red, white and blue Avenger. No problem! So the sketchbook arrived last week by armored car, and this is what I drew:

Here is the double-paged extravaganza I produced, with Stella Starlight (The See-Thru Girl as Cap) and Megaton Man as Bucky. I thought the white leggings on Stella balanced the arms (I never understood why Cap had white arms), and she is blond like Steve Rogers, so it made a certain amount of sense. Changing Megaton Man's cowl to white is a choice I'm less certain about, but I thought it would get lost in all that blue otherwise. I should have made Bucky's buttons more like those on Meg's cape!

I suppose Captain America is one of my favorite characters (although he is so iconic I tend to think of him more like Santa Claus or Uncle Sam, and hence, not a "character" at all in that sense), if only because three of his more important artists - Jack Kirby, John Romita, and Jim Steranko - were so utterly influential for me.

Mike also enclosed a couple of items to be autographed: the first collection of Megaton Man #1-4 from Kitchen Sink Press (1990), and Shell Shock, an anthology of TMNT by Mirage (1989), which features the first appearance of Bizarre Hero Pteranoman (the entire story appears here). So I had to add appropriate sketches.

Here is the pencil sketch of Stella I drew on the largely-blank dedication page of the Megaton Man Kitchen Sink collection. In the past such things would escape (as far as I was concerned), never to be seen again, but today it is easy to snap a photo as documentation, so why not? Now, instead of a personal experience for Michael, I can ruin it by posting it on the Internet!

Here is the ballpoint pen sketch of Pteranoman that I drew on the Shell Shock table of contents page (the title page was already filled with autographs from contributors to the anthology). My contribution, "Teen Techno Turtle Trio," was the first appearance of what Michael aptly describes as "the Paleo Dark Knight."

My thanks to Michael Beaver for letting me a part of his personal Sentinel of Liberty on a Half-Shell menagerie, and for allowing me to reproduce the above images!

Please note: I have done a number of commissions in bound sketchbooks as comic book conventions over the years, where fans will leave their treasured books with me in artist's alley and pick them up later (this is fraught enough, if only because in the melee of conventions it is sometime difficult to locate these fans later, especially in the closing hours of an event). When working remotely, at home, as I do in the case of Internet requests, I prefer to draw commissions on loose, quality paper stock of my choice, not bound sketchbooks that already have numerous and irreplaceable masterpieces by famous artists already contained therein, if only because of the enormous emotional strain of drawing under such nerve-wracking conditions! I only undertook this commission because Michael had armed guards standing over me the whole time to make sure I did not drip ink on any of the other sketchbook pages!

Please note further that if your commission request involves a bound sketchbook, it will entail additional surcharges just for insurance and catering the armed guards!! Thanks for understanding.