Don Simpson, Cartoonist at Large™

Monday, July 15, 2019

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!

Monday, May 13, 2019

Woonan the Barbarian! Summer 2019 Sketches and Commissions!

Here is a slew of some of the things I drew at this past week's Three Rivers Comic Con, kicking off the summer 2019 convention season! The warm-up began a week, earlier at Free Comic Book Day, with a caricature of me courtesy of Howard Bender (below; his contact info is on the image, if you want Howie to sketch at your event). Other examples includes Dejah Thoris for Eric Anderson, and some sweet Ms. Megaton Man sketches.

Read the Ms. Megaton Maxi-Series YA prose novel!

Flat-colored linework.

Here's the inked version, using Hunt #102 crowquill and India ink.

Woonan the Barbarian (why didn't I think of that years ago?) with Deja Vu-This for Dean Focareta.

Dejah Thoris of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom series for Eric Anderson of Northeast Ohio (NEO) Comic Con.

The Human Meltdown encounter Ms. Megaton Man!

A laid-back view of Clarissa James, Ms. Megaton Man.

Ms. Megaton Man shows her smile!

Megaton Man for Mike Easton of The Impossible Family comic!

Caricature of Mega-Don Simpson by Howard Bender!

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All characters, character names, likenesses, words and pictures are ™ and © Don Simpson 2019, all rights reserved (unless otherwise noted).

Wednesday, June 6, 2018

Princess Diana and Mary Jane: Some Recent Commissioned Drawings

Wonder Woman and Spidey's Girl Friend are among the subjects of several recent commissions (a couple below are older and may have been posted before, but well worth revisiting).

For some reason I never warmed up to Harry G. Peter's original version of Wonder Woman; like Steve Ditko on Spider-Man, I grew up on a different, later version of the character, and it is only in maturity that I recognize the originality in their respective versions. I also have come to appreciate that Peter was attempting to do a kind of classical antiquity thing with the drawing, aping Greek figure vases by way of early twentieth century pulp illustration. I also like the early Wonder Woman's mid-thigh-length pants, which have recently come back into style as biker shorts or yoga tights (I never cared for the Linda Carter high-cut thigh look, personally).

Anyway, below are a few recent drawings along those lines, along with some other characters that are obviously not owned by me.

Wonder Woman repels the Cheetah, in a homage to an early H. G. Peter splash page.

Princess Diana takes a jog in the high-heel boots that become more or less standard early in her career.

Wonder Woman in her Art Deco hairstyle and Neo Grec ribboned sandals.

Apropos of nothing, a topless Mary Jane Watson and Spidey (pencil rough).

Spidey defends (pointlessly) Mary Jane's modesty; inked on vellum.

Wonder Woman in the more classic panty bottoms, but losing her fine featherd bustier, which chooses to fly the coop. Wonder Woman is the property of whatever corporate interests own Hollywood at the moment, but Megaton Man™ and © Don Simpson 2018, all rights reserved.

For more racy (or at least weird) convention sketches from the past, proceed to the previous blog post.

Please consult my Commission Price List and contact me if you are interested in acquiring an original custom drawing for your private gallery!

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.

Sunday, May 20, 2018

Three Rivers Comic Con Sketches

The third Three Rivers Comic Con was a great time, with a critical mass of guest artists and a lot of fans looking for original art and sketches. This is most of my output for the two-day show (May 19-20).The sketches on 3RCC sketch paper (carefully selected by New Dimension Coimcs' Jon Engel) and the Wasteland covers were created for the charity auction; the others were for collectors, except the 11" x 14" Megaton Man pencil, which is unclaimed. (Sketch and commission price information can be gleaned elsewhere on this blog! Email me.) More convention sketches and other pieces of original comic art collected by fans at Comic Art Fans!