Writing on Ed and Life

It feels like I've written about 10,000 words since the passing of Edward R. Piskor, Jr. (1982-2024) on April 1, and it's only April 12, less than two weeks. I've been gratified to hear from several people, both friends and strangers, who have found some comfort in those words. Of course, I've been writing for completely selfish reasons, to process my own feelings about the tragedy.

Eroticism in Don Simpson’s Comics, Part I of II:

Megaton Man, Border Worlds, and The Return of Megaton Man

           Proceed to Part II: The Megaton Man One-Shots, Anton Drek Comix, and Bizarre Heroes

          Note: A gallery of 22 archival covers and comic book pages appears below, following the text.

Megaton Man #1-10 (Kitchen Sink Press, December 1984–June 1986)

Eroticism was always a prominent subtext in the Megaton Man comics from the very first Kitchen Sink Press issue in December, 1984. The cover of #1 set the tone for the series: On it, a sexy Pamela Jointly, reporter’s notepad in hand, kneels barefoot next to a spread-eagle Megaton Man, draped only in a torn, red dress that threatens to fall from her bare shoulders. Although she’s fixated on what she’s writing and not his diminutive crotch, a bulge, nearly lost in the stretchy wrinkles of his trunks, is clearly in evidence.

Eroticism in Don Simpson’s Comics, Part II of II:

The Megaton Man One-Shots, Anton Drek Comix, and Bizarre Heroes

          Go Back to Part I: Megaton Man, Border Worlds, and The Return of Megaton Man

          Note: A gallery of 42 archival covers and comic book pages appears below, following the text. 

Whereas the ten-issue Megaton Man and three-issue Return of Megaton Man series both appeared in color, the next three Megaton Man comics appeared as black-and-white one-shots. In the economic and production-cost syntax of the time, color printing tended to be reserved for a wider, younger, more mainstream audience of superhero comics readers, and therefore necessarily hewed to G-rated or PG content. If Megaton Man was allowed to push those boundaries with illegitimate pregnancy, bulging male crotches and protruding female nipples it did so in the context of a humorous parody of superhero conventions, and the fact that it’s publisher has been a pioneer of adults-only undergrounds.