The Ms. Megaton Man™ Maxi-Series!: rough

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Tuesday, December 18, 2018

Return to Ann Arbor: Clarissa Sketches and Swipe Gallery!

I've been thinking a lot about the period in the Megaton Man narrative when I moved the characters to Ann Arbor in Return of Megaton Man #1 (Kitchen Sink Press, July 1988). I've blogged elsewhere about how a regrettable "nuclear-option" dispute with my publisher, including the dictate that henceforth all iterations of the Megaton Man series be re-numbered #1 for my perceived lapses and transgressions, eventually soured me on continuing with the character, at least at that fabled arthouse boutique publisher.

While I could never reconstruct, story-wise, every nuance of what I might have had in mind in the late 1980s, there are clearly a lot of untold stories from that era, particularly of the early career of Ms. Megaton Man, who gained her powers in the first Megaton Man one-shot, Megaton Man Meets the Uncategorizable X+Thems #1 (Kitchen Sink Press, April 1989), and the early childhood of Simon Phloog, result of the union between Megaton Man and the See-Thru Girl. In particular, there are some interesting aspects to the "Civilian" life of Trent Phloog (Megaton Man's non-Megapowered alter ego) that particularly interest me.

Many of the following pencil sketches and studies, for the most part, were drawn recently with that Ann Arbor milieu in mind. Others refer to more recent cultural disturbances, particular a despicable Right-Wing movement among mainstream comics creators. Some of these feature an added layer of referring to various iconic covers from the history of comics or pulp adventure.

Megaton Man™ and the Human Meltdown™ go at it as Ms. Megaton Man stands by. This is an homage to the cover to Philip Jose Farmer's A Feast Unknown (Playboy Press, 1980) by Jordi Penalva, which features a surrogate Doc Savage and a surrogate Tarzan going at a hightly homoerotic tussle. ™ and © Don Simpson 2018, all rights reserved.

The Human Meltdown™, from Megaton Man #1 (Kitchen Sink Press, December 1984), a character who was featured in Megaton Man Meets the Uncategorizable X+Thems #1 (1989), but otherwise has remained under-utilized. ™ and © Don Simpson 2018, all rights reserved.

Clarissa James, before she became Ms. Megaton Man, and Trent Phloog, after he lost his Megaton Man powers, re-enacting a scene from Return of Megaton Man #1 (Kitchen Sink Press, July 1988). This shared look has yet to be sufficiently explored. ™ and © Don Simpson 2018, all rights reserved.

Getting to know you: Potential licensors of the Megaton Man property balked when they actually read the comics, particularly sequences like the one immediately below showing Megaton Man's secret identity, Trent Phloog, living with the unwed but pregnant mother-to-be of his child, and a slightly salacious young female roommate, in a communal house in Ann Arbor:

Clarissa and Trent meet, from Return of Megaton Man #1 (Kitchen Sink Press, April 1988). Panel three is the image I expanded upon in the 2018 pencil sketch above. ™ and © Don Simpson 2018, all rights reserved.

Ms. Megaton Man, backed by Simon Phloog (son of Megaton Man) and Deirdre face off against a Megacontraptoid and an evil ventriloquist dummy. Clarissa James pencil drawing, 2018. ™ and © Don Simpson 2018, all rights reserved.

Ms. Megaton Man™, Simon, Deirdre, and Kozmik Kat™ welcome Megaton Man. Tight rough with Sharpie pen over a scanned printout of the original pencil drawing (below). ™ and © Don Simpson 2018, all rights reserved.

Original pencil sketch of the above. The composition is actually an homage (or, in the vernacular, a swipe) of C.C. Beck and Nick Cardy's cover to Shazam #1 (DC Comics, 1972). ™ and © Don Simpson 2018, all rights reserved.

Clarissa clobbers a Right-Winger in a pose swiped from Joe Simon and Jack Kirby's Captain America #1 (Timely Comics, 1940). Rough tightened using a Sharpie fine-line writing pen. ™ and © Don Simpson 2018, all rights reserved.

Friday, November 16, 2018

Clarissa James, Social Justice Warrior!

Update: April 11, 2020:

Here's the inking and coloring of a drawing that began as a sketch in 2018, and conceptually as something of a rueful inside joke to myself. We Ms. Megaton Man kicking the shit out of a robot. What we don't see is her tackling everything bothering me at the time, including bogus "closed-curtain" non-profits and their night-flight "Not My Presidents," white-male-supremacist Comics-Gay-Haters, and genuinely indifferent privileged assholes or all stripes, investing this image with some really positive energy. On the level of a nice drawing and colorful megahero illustration, I hope you enjoy!

Clarissa James, robot shit-kicker!

Original Post: November 16, 2018:

Let's hear it for the Social Justice Warriors - Rod Serling, Stirling Silliphant, Gene Roddenberry, Norman Lear, Larry Gelbart, Stan Lee - without whom we wouldn't have many of the historic mid-century entertainment and enduring media franchises we know and love today. (Why, if The Mighty Thor were being launched today, Dr. Don Blake would be a legal abortion provider in an under-served region of the U.S., fighting regressive politicians with reason and religious hypocrites with Norse Neo-Paganism!)

It's times like these I wish I had an inker to pass off these pencils to ...

In that spirit, Clarissa James is also a progressive activist fighting for social change - okay, she's just kicking robot ass in this pencil sketch - but she was ahead of her time in the 1980s, and is still committed to making the world a more inviting, inclusive, tolerant and loving place. If that's token suburban armchair liberalism, I find it preferable to the looks-like-me Occupy Utopia - or sterile, low-hanging fruit crass propagandistic scrawling that passes for political cartooning these days - or the phony-populist Redneck separatist extremes on tap today. We've got to first imagine a better world before we can realize one, and that should be art and entertainment's laudable if humble goal.

(And I'm keeping a Blacklist of anyone associated with Comicsgash - they will never work on Ms. Megaton Man, Social Justice Warrior or any of the Megaton Man or Bizarre Heroes universe titles!)

Read the YA prose Ms. Megaton Man™ Maxi-Series! New chapter every Friday!

Monday, October 29, 2018

Sketching After Squirrel Hill

I probably know the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Squirrel Hill and the surrounding East End (Shadyside, Oakland, Point Breeze, Polish Hill, Friendship, Wilkinsburg, et al) better than any place I've never actually resided. For many years, I taught cartooning workshops at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, bought art supplies at Artists and Craftsmen and other places, footwear at Little's Shoes, and on and on.

I must have walked by and certainly driven by the Tree of Life Congregation countless times between the main drag on Murray and Forbes and PCA - although I didn't know what it was called. I almost walked out there last Friday, before the awful events of last Saturday.

Clarissa James (Ms. Megaton Man) with Deirdre Denton, flanked by Simon Phloog, Preston Percy, and Kozmik Kat. Stella Starlight and Trent Phloog (Megaton Man) are in the background. Rough sketch; I'll pencil something tighter soon.

I keep thinking about how close it is to Halloween, and how awful it must be especially for kids in that surrounding neighborhood. I drew this with that in mind - a quickie before class. I seldom get much time to draw during the school year, as I teach college for two schools. But the thought came to me of my characters walking their children through the Squirrel Hill neighborhood, past the Tree of Life.

This is a very rough sketch and on every level a completely inadequate response, but what I have in mind is a time in America that now seems quaintly nostalgic in so many ways - when Rob and Laura Petrie had Jewish neighbors - Millie and Jerry Helper - and I grew up with at least four Jewish families on my block - the Freemans, the Tolchins, the Bornsteins, and the Sandubraes.

That ecumenical mid-century America seems almost a lost utopia now, but it doesn't have to be. Every time I pick up my pencil, I want to make it real again.

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Cape Catch-Up: CJ Soars!

This sequence from the all-new fifth issue of Megaton Man: Return to Megatropolis (which I plan to release as a graphic novel, not individual issues, publication details TBD) features Clarissa James, Ms. Megaton Man (who has the distinction of having the most nicknames of any of my characters -- Missy, Sissy, CJ) coming to the rescue of the beleaguered Man of Molecules. I began penciling this sequence in summer 2015, and finished in February 2016. Some adjustments were made, primarily on tier 4A, in which I altered the background. (More previews over on the Megaton Man blog!)

Light blue Col-Erase and graphite pencil (with some Pilot Razorpoint pen) on bond layout, 11" x 14".

Original figure with background penciled in; the action in the background, however, no longer seemed appropriate considered the way the preceding tiers worked out.

New background penciled today!

Foreground and background fused together in Photoshop. The tiers will be inked on Clearprint Design Vellum over printouts of the roughs.