Every now and then, my local Sacramento Comics Convention will have an artist I’m interested in meeting. Sometimes, a local shop, A-1 Comics, will offer to split the bill to get the artist in question to come out, so that Saturday, this person is at A-1, and Sunday they’re at the con.
I met Brent Anderson, Bill Morrison, Darrick Robertson, Trina Robbins, Steve Leialoha, and Mark Waid at these smaller local events. I had the opportunity to meet Paul Smith and James Robinson, because I was at the store on the day they were signing together. But instead of going over to meet them, I just went through bins and bought comics. James Robinson actually noticed me, with my big stack, and commented on my stash. But I still didn’t talk to him. This was years before I planned to self-publish, and at that time I was only interested in buying a bunch of junk on sale.
I think this was around 2002. When I learned Bill Morrison was coming, I went through my Simpsons comics and picked out a couple for him to sign. I thought it might be fun to get a pin-up of Dick Hammer or Dr. DeBunko in the Simpsons style. I had heard that Bill Morrison had also spent some time doing work for Disney, and was the artist who had drawn the infamous Little Mermaid poster. I went to his website and saw he was doing a new comic called Roswell.
He was at A-1, signing and doing sketches. The rule he told everyone was that he could only draw Simpsons characters if we brought in Simpsons merchandise for him to sign it on. So for example, he would draw a Homer sketch inside a Simpson’s book, but he wouldn’t draw that same sketch in someone’s notebook. He said it was a licensing agreement with Fox. If you didn’t have Simpsons merchandise for him to draw on, he would just draw a sketch in his own style. Of his Roswell comic, for example.
He said that when Matt Groening put together his contract for the Simpsons tv show, he was given permission to keep the copyright for all merchandising, and Fox has kicked themselves ever since, because he’s made a fortune off his merchandise, and they haven’t. Now Fox will never offer a deal like that again. They present very different contracts now, and keep their hands tightly entwined in their shows’ merchandising. Bill isn’t involved with the animation of the shows, but in addition to basically being in charge of the Simpsons comics (directly under Matt Groening) he’s done a majority of artwork for all the merchandising, be it toys or games or waffle boxes or whatever.
He was very kind, and drew great sketches in all my comics. I brought a Radioactive Man comic, and he drew a nice little Radioactive Man in it. I brought a Simpsons comic that was styled after the cover of Fantastic Four #1, and he drew the Thing in Simpsons style inside that one.
I asked him, So tell me about the Little Mermaid poster. He looked at me without a readable expression or tone in his voice, and he said, “What about it?” For those of you who don’t know or remember, there was a huge controversy about his picture, because it’s a family Disney poster, and the sand castles in the background looked like rock-hard, shining, erect golden penises jutting majestically into the air. Of course I’d heard rumors that whoever the artist was, he’d been upset with Disney for whatever reason, and this was going to be his last job for them, so he covered the picture with penes (that’s the plural of penis. Look it up in the dictionary) as a final fuck-you-farewell.
The way Bill described it, Disney had released The Little Mermaid, and had had a poster with NO multiple hard-ons in the background – for the movie release. But for the video release, if I understood correctly, it would be cheaper for them to hire a commission redrawing of the poster than to pay for the re-use of the original. Or maybe they just needed a different piece of artwork for formatting and size or whatever. So they contacted Bill, and basically asked if he could do something really fast. Like maybe in a day or something. And if I remember, he might have even said he was really sick. And he’s whipping out this poster as fast as he can, and abbreviating shapes and forms just to try and get the piece done in time. And so, simplifying the forms of the towering castles, he somehow gave them shafts, bulbous tips and even a hole that looks like it’s made for peeing out of. Uncanny and disgusting coincidence, but that’s what he said: that it was a complete accident that he was entirely unaware of. He said, after he turned the project in, someone called and told him to look at the background. Okay. Look at the castles. Okay…wow! When he realized, of course there was a big uproar from Disney, who was furious, and he had to have a number of his business acquaintances vouch for him, that he wasn’t that kind of guy.
Next day I saw him at the Sac Con and asked about possibly commissioning him for a pin-up. He said he’s allowed to draw in his own style, but not in the Simpsons style. Naturally a let-down, but still I liked the idea of getting a pin-up from him. He’s one of those names I don’t get the feeling many fans know, but within the industry I think he must be well-respected, if nothing else for running the Simpsons books. I got his contact info.
I felt bad, because he gave a really interesting talk on doing Simpsons animation. He brought and handed out character reference sheets, showing the specific proportions and details of all the Simpsons characters. He said these were copies of the actual sheets all the Simpsons animators used, to insure accuracy and continuity from artist to artist. The reason I felt bad is that I had to cut out early from the talk, because earlier, I’d found a comics dealer who was representing the Kirby foundation and selling Jack Kirby original art. I didn’t have enough money on me, and had to run home (a half hour away) to get my checkbook, and get back before the con ended, so I could buy a couple of very affordable pages from Justice Inc, which I don’t think many comics collectors, or even Kirby fans, particularly appreciate, but that I love, since they’re pure pulp. I explained to Bill afterward, and even showed him the pages I bought. But I always wondered if he just thought, Yeah, whatever, jerk.
I emailed him at least once, and maybe twice, and never heard from him. I did bump into him at some other conventions though, and continue asking him about the possibility of getting a pin-up whenever I see him. Whenever I do see him, he seems open to the possibility.