The Don Simpson Library, Part Two

Reviewing the Relatively Recent Renaissance of Reprints

In part one, I discussed how publications like Splitting Image 80-Page Giant (Image Comics, 2017), Border Worlds (Dover Publications Inc., 2017), Pink Lemonade (#2 It’s Alive 2019 and collection Oni Press, 2023), and War of the Independents #4 (Red Anvil Comics, August 2017) launched my “comeback” to print comics over the past decade.

For the most part, these were reprints of inventory material—carefully scanned, remastered, and restored—that set to right certain faults I found in the original editions. Already, they marked a gratifying milestone in my career.

But there was more where that came from.

2021

Sometime during the pandemic, an Italian comics publication reached out to me for permission to reprint “In Pictopia,” the story I illustrated in 1987 with crucial assistance from Mike Kazaleh and Pete Poplaski, colored by Eric Vincent, from the script “In Fictopia” by Alan Moore—our contribution to the fund-raising anthology Anything Goes #2. The story would go on to rank as a fan-favorite (#94 in The Comics Journal’s list of the 100 Best Comics of All Time, for example).

I replied to the Italian publisher that I would not stand in the way of a reprint but that I could not assist in any way, owing to several unhappy experiences I had encountered “curating” the story over the years. When I mentioned this on social media, no less a light that Gary Groth contacted me and offered to issue what turned out to be the definitive edition of the story, with oral histories from the contributors (except the author). Fantagraphics managed to wed my scans of the original art with Eric Vincent’s original airbrushed-painted coloring in a lavish treasury size.

In an afterword, I detail my travails with the story—which was a delight to participate in initially but let to decades of unhappy reproduction by double-crossing publishers who knew better than the artist(s)—including the author requesting his name be removed from the cover and promotion of the new edition because of a decades-old, incomprehensibly cryptic grievance he seems to hold toward Steve Bissette (who never had anything to do with “In Pictopia”).

The paradox is that now the Fantagraphics Underground edition of In Pictopia bears my name as its author—and I’m not sure whether to be flattered, embarrassed, or simply relieved that my shared IP ownership with the real author amounted to only thirteen pages—not decades of work as in the case of Alan Davis or his many other, far more substantial, collaborators.

2023

I had been involved in another Alan Moore project that in some ways has since become his most legendary—Image Comics’ 1963 (Image Comics, 1993)—mostly because it was never completed. Midwifed by Jim Valentino, it was Alan’s big comeback to mainstream superheroes in collaboration with Swamp Thing colleagues Rick Veitch and Steve Bissette. I was just the letterer of about half of it—Alan dubbed me “Dubious Don” in his scripts, but permitted me to change that sobriquet to “Dandy Don”—a nickname that has stuck with me ever since—before being shitcanned by Rick for insubordination.

I had previously promised to attend a Dallas Fantasy Fair (promoter Larry Lankford had already sent me a non-refundable airline ticket) rather than stay at home and help get Steve’s lagging Fury back on schedule. This was my sin—and much to the detriment of the remaining issues of the extant six, I simply had to go.

Perhaps this was a portent of the ultimate fate of 1963.

The promised 1963 Annual, which was to have been illustrated by Jim Lee, never happened. Discussing this with Steve around 2014, I suggested we draw our own 1963 Annual—owing nothing to the plot or partial script allegedly written by Alan, since I was completely ignorant of its contents anyway—using Steve’s characters the Fury, Hypernaut, and Sky Solo—with parody avatars of Rick’s characters and simulacra of the Image Universe from Splitting Image.

This notion never went anywhere because of other obligations, but then it was announced that a group of younger creators had licensed Steve’s characters for something called Giant-Size ‘63—a project that at times seemed like it would never be completed, exactly like its inspiration. (It was completed and published by Cosmic Lion Productions in 2024, but I understand is now sold out.)

In the meantime, slightly perturbed that such a project had initially been my idea—more or less—I hauled off and penciled a cover to express my thoughts.

This little gesture went semi-viral on social media, with so many people asking, “Is this real?” and “Where can I buy it?” that I kept adding pages until I had the makings of a story. Gary Groth, again, valiantly stepped in and offered to publish X-Amount of Comics: 1963 (WhenElse?!) Annual (Fantagraphics Underground, 2023)—we even managed to beat Giant-Size ‘63 by a year.

I should mention that my satirical completion of this fabled uncompleted series—actually, just an excuse to mash up characters from Megaton Man and Bizarre Heroes with lookalikes from In Pictopia and elsewhere—in no way precludes an actual 1963 Annual from still appearing. Even now, at this late date. (Clearly, the success of X-Amount and Giant-Size ‘63 proves that fan interest and support is clearly there.)

Jim Lee and Alan Moore could still make good on their promise of a 1963 Annual—and rectify one of the greatest crimes ever perpetrated on fans and retailers in the history of comics.

If John Byrne can get ElseWhen—his bootlegged alternate ending to the X-Men Dark Phoenix saga from the early 1980s—into print, having already made a fortune selling the original pencil art—what exactly is Jim Lee’s excuse?! Too many Batman commissions?

Among the guest stars I threw into X-Amount of Comics were the Victory Folks, a super-team composed of Golden Age characters that had fallen into the public domain. Partially inked by Jason Moore and dialogued by Bill Loebs, the first ten pages appeared in Yeet Presents #50 (Cost of Paper Comics, , lettered by no less a personage than Tom Orzechowski.

First of all, when I got the initial idea, I was unaware that reviving Golden Age public domain characters had already become a cottage industry. Everybody had been doing it, all the way back to Bill Black and his “bad girl” reprints and revivals in Americomics back in the twentieth century (I was aware of those). But my hope was that the contributors to Yeet might carry on the story after the initial chapter, kind of a round-robin, improvised jam—after all, nobody owned these characters.

However, nobody expressed a particular interest to carry on Victory Folks. Due to other obligations, Jason, Tom, and Bill all dropped out before a second ten pages, which I had proceeded to pencil, could be completed, and I was facing the prospect of another potentially unfinished project unless I took the reins. I relettered and touched up the dialogue of the first ten pages (so it would match my own lettering), scripted and lettered the second part, and created an additional twelve-pae conclusion, rounding out the story to 32 pages.

To date, I’ve only sold Victory Folks (Fiasco Comics, 2023) at personal appearances and as add-ons to crowdfunders, but it marked my “soft” return to self-publishing and that of my Fiasco imprint.

I should also mention that while anyone can use the various public domain characters who comprise the team, the concept Victory Folks is my intellectual property. So, there!

2025

After Victory Folks, I got the idea to reprint my vast inventory of 1980s material, beginning with Megaton Man, in approximately 120-page paperbacks comprised of a few issues at a time. I didn’t get very far along with scanning the more than five hundred original art pages and a score or two of sharp photocopies and films in the summer of 2023 before Gary Groth, once again, stepped in and offered to publish The Complete Megaton Man Universe, Volume I: The 1980s (Fantagraphics Underground, 2025).

I was more than happy to let the publisher of In Pictopia and X-Amount of Comics do the heavy lifting on this mammoth tome, the first of two volumes contracted for (the second will collect the 1990s Fiasco Comics Bizarre Heroes—more on that in the next post), although their painstaking efforts came at the cost of a prolonged production schedule.

In early 2024, as I patiently awaited progress on Complete Volume I, I was approached by emissaries from Cosmic Lion Productions—who at that moment hadn’t yet inherited Giant-Size ‘63—about an anthology of indie creators doing their takes on my characters. Long story short, this quickly became another project to which I was compelled to take the reins, otherwise face the ignominy of … incompletion!

From a “side project” that I hoped might fill the interstices between Complete I and II, Megaton Man: Multimensions (Cosmic Lion Productions, 2025) ballooned into a major crossover event with some sixty contributors. As fate would have it, Multimensions arrived at almost exactly the same time as the first volume of The Complete Megaton Man Universe—and I’m sure there are fans out there who still don’t realize they are two completely different projects!

2026

Last but not least, I pulled together The Lost Art of Don Simpson (Fiasco Books, forthcoming)—currently being printed overseas. Culled from hard-drives and hardcopy archives, the tome features a mash-up of my creator-owned IP (Megaton Man, Bizarre Heroes, and Border Worlds) and various commercial freelance jobs, with commissions and other rarities. It marks my “hard” return to self-publishing, if you will—and if you missed the crowdfunder, you should be able to score a copy at a personal appearance during the upcoming 2026 show season.

Next: Even More Where That Came From!