The Raunchy Return of the Slick!

The Slick will soon appear in the Ms. Megaton Man™ Maxi-Series.

One of our favorite Bizarre Heroes is The Slick, a roof-running, stream-spewing, sticky-fingered megahero in the more perverse Steve Ditko tradition. With his prick-pistol brimming with Slick-Stick™ and always about to pop, our priapic protagonist starred in his very own issue (Bizarre Heroes #15, Fiasco Comics Inc., January1996), and was memorably parodied by Dave Sim in his Guys story arc in Cerebus the Aardvark #209 (Aardvark-Vanaheim, August 1996), who rendered more graphically the onanistic subtext of the character.

The Slick eyes Darkcease in an unpublished splash page, circa 1998.

Pencil and ink artwork, circa 1998.

The Slick’s liminal adventures always bordered on the explicit (he was voted most likely to cross over with Wendy Whitebread, Undercover Slut), and his nocturnal missions more often involved fending off the groinal gropings of perennial groupie Mooncat or escaping the entangled restraints of predatory Rose Shark than fighting evildoers, strictly speaking.

Dave Sim parodies Bazaar Heroes in Cerebus #209 (Aardvark-Vanaheim, August 1996).

The Wanker, ready to repel using the protean ribbon from his propulsion nozzle.

An unpublished sequence from circa 1998, following his penultimate Bizarre Heroes climax, depicts an amorous encounter with Clarissa James, alias Ms. Megaton Man. However, when our boy follows Missy back to her lair, the contumely chimera turns out to be none other than Dark-Cease—one of the more fulminating femmes fatales among the evil Project Mainstream Megaclones—in disguise. In this newly-colored splash page, the igneous enchantress obviously desires Our Friendly Neighborhood Backdoor Surfer to douse her smouldering shunt-chute with lugubrious lubricant.

The Slick’s pseudo-solo issue capped his comic book capers and brought his Bizarre Heroes appearances to a head.
From Bizarre Heroes #15 (Fiasco Comics Inc., January 1996).

Mooncat wants to paw our pistol-packer’s pump-gun.
From Bizarre Heroes #4 (Fiasco Comics Inc., August 1994).

Rose Shark revels over her prone opponent.
From Bizarre Heroes #4 (Fiasco Comics Inc., August 1994).

The Webbed flicker writhes and flails to wriggle free.
From Bizarre Heroes #4 (Fiasco Comics Inc., August 1994).

The Slick will soon be making his literary debut in an upcoming chapter of the Ms. Megaton Man™ Maxi-Series, as none other than the leading lady’s nyctophilic lover, in prose that promises to be the most purple yet in that barely-YA narrative experiment.

B-50 has already appeared in the Ms. Megaton Man Maxi-Series, but the Slick’s shot has yet to come.
From Bizarre Heroes #3 (Fiasco Comics Inc., July 1994).

The Slick demonstrates his seminal attachment to Ms. Megaton Man.
From Bizarre Heroes #3 (Fiasco Comics Inc., July 1994).

Read More: Eroticism in Don Simpson's Comics, a two-part text essay with 64 unedited covers and comic book pages!

Catch the Sensational Slick’s upcoming guest shot in the prosaic Ms. Megaton Man™ Maxi-Series, the weekly serialized YA novel by Don Simpson! New chapter every Friday.
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All characters, character names, likenesses, words and pictures are ™ and © Don Simpson 2020, all rights reserved.

Fanny's Fanny and Other Sketches!

A mixed bag of some recent art, starting off with me swiping a piece of art another artist drew of my character! I was dumbfounded when I stumbled upon Bobgar Ornelas' winsome rendition of the Phantom Jungle Girl online; I had to see if I could capture that subtle body language and carefree expression. I still like Bobgar's version better!

My swipe of Bobgar Ornelas' rendering of Fanny! I liked the body language so much, I had to see if I could capture it. But I still like his better!

Bobgar Ornela's original art! I love it so much.

Clarissa's legs are a bit too long here; more like a showgirl's (Ms. Megaton Man is only supposed to be about 5' 6"). Anyway, just a warm-up.

Clarissa is a bit too leggy in this one; she's shorter and stouter, but it's still a nice drawing, I think.

Simon Phloog (the Son of Megaton Man) and Gower Goose confront a Frog Girl on a floating disc; this was a sketch to help me visualize a scene and its characters that I am attempting to write in prose. More on that project another time!

Angelfrog menaces Simon Phloog and Gower Goose. Concept drawing for a story I'm currently writing.

Apropos of nothing, here is me at the easel at the 1993 San Diego Comicon, drawing Megaton Man and Fanny. I forget the occasion; presumably the piece was for a benefit auction. Who owns it now?!

Not a recent photo: Me drawing Megaton Man and the Phantom Jungle Girl at the 1993 San Diego Comicon.

Last but not least, I pay tribute to Whisper and Mars, two early 80s series that featured strong female leads! I got ahold of a few issues of each recently and used the inspiration as another warm-up!

Steve Grant and Rich Larson's Whisper, and Mark Wheatley and Marc Hempel's Mars.

Check out my new Don Simpson's King Kong blog!

Get Down, Get Down: Weird Cultic Rites of the Bizarre Heroes!

Here is a recent commission I created for the discerning Bizarre Heroes connoisseur Mr. Douglas Rednour, featuring two of his favorite characters, The Phantom Jungle Girl and the Asp. Doug requested a dance or athletic theme (no doubt inspired by Ms. Megaton Man's recent exploits in volleyball, posted on her blog), so I had to through her into the mix. I decided on a choreographic theme, with our trio of muses gathered 'round that ancient twentieth-century device, the 45 rpm record player! Groove on, ladies!

The original light blue Col-Erase and graphite pencil drawing on Strathmore 400 creme-colored drawing paper.

Crowquill pen (Hunt's #102) and India ink final.

If you would like your very own personalized, custom-made Don Simpson drawing,
please visit my commission rate page for some ballpark figures and contact me. Luxury you can afford!

Double Zero, Triple Action: The Unpublished Cover!

Here is the unpublished but digitally colored cover (by moi) for Bizarre Heroes #00 (double zero), which would have been a reprint of Pteranoman #1 (Kitchen Sink, 1989), one of my favorite comic books. It featured the first appearance of Pteranoman as well as Phantom Jungle Girl, Cowboy Gorilla, and the Brilliant Brain, as well as an intimate interlude between Megaton Man and Ms. Megaton Man. The issue was a real ground-breaker for me as I turned away from pure parody to a more general humorous take on costumed crimefighters. On the cover, photographs of Pittsburgh at Seventh and Liberty Avenue appear as the background.

Orders were insufficient to go to press, however, and dealers were given the option of taking actual Pteranoman #1's instead. Also below is the X-Ray Boy house ad that ran on the back covers of some later issues in the series.

The Slick vs. Darkcease: An All-Consuming Love Triangle

Note: This material is for mature readers.

In the Fiascoverse, context is everything. For example, when the Phantom Jungle Girl is teamed with the Brilliant Brain and Cowboy Gorilla, she’s an absurd parody of a white African queen of the type ubiquitous in American popular culture in the 1950s; when she’s with the brooding Meddler, she becomes a reasonably plausible dramatic character that could conceivably work well as a costumed detective. By the same token, Ms. Megaton Man, when she plays off of Yarn Man, Megaton Man, and my other humorous characters, is comically ribald; but she could pass for a “serious” adventure character in one of the big-company universes if she wanted to.
     The Slick is another character with a lighter and a darker side. When he is among other mismatched oddball characters in the Fiascoverse, his exaggerated angst is for the most part played for comic relief. But when he is a solo character, as in Bizarre Heroes #15, he becomes a relatively straight crime fighter of the Silver Age mold, with all the attendant hang-ups, whose demons take on a decidedly darker tinge.
     In this unfinished sequence from the mid-1990s, not too long after the demise of the print Bizarre Heroes series, I continued to explore the character’s darker side, and as you can see, began to really let myself go. I drew these pages oversize, 14 ½" x 21", allowing my figure drawing to be freer and more sensual, which was especially important for this piece. Although I was pleased with the way the artwork was turning out, and felt I had achieved something important in the psychological insight it offered into the Slick’s attraction to Clarissa, and of her essentially sexually aggressive personality (truthful but in this case deceitfully appropriated by Darkcease), I had misgivings about taking the character into such frankly erotic terrain. Not that I particularly feared “ruining” the mainstream marketing potential of the character, but I suppose I set this sequence aside among other reasons because the Slick’s tortured metro-sexuality was a place I was not ready to go into any further at the time.

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

More: Some of the above Slick sequence, colorized!

Plus: Eroticism in Megaton Man, Border Worlds, Bizarre Heroes comics to the Anton Drek comix and back again! A two-part pseudo-scholarly essay in the Philip Jose Farmer tradition, with over 60 unexpurgated covers and pages from the comics!
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All characters, character names, likenesses, words and pictures are ™ and © Don Simpson 2020, all rights reserved.