From the Editor's Desk: Dave Schreiner and Megaton Man

Reproduced here is a two-page letter dated February 13, 1987 from Dave Schreiner (1946-2003), offering his assessment of the Megaton Man cast of characters. Dave was the editor at Kitchen Sink Press from 1983 to 1993, and was particularly crucial as a sounding board for me on Border Worlds (1985-1987); I've often said the recaps he wrote of the previous issues where more coherent than my comics. In this document, Dave is responding to a plot outline I sent to him (it may be this one or an even briefer synopsis of Megaton Man #11 and other comic book ideas I was cooking up at the time).

The Golden Age Megaton Man Meets the Uncategorizable X+Thems #1 roughs

These are the original roughs to Megaton Man Meets the Uncategorizable X+Thems #1 (Kitchen Sink Press, April 1989). These were penciled on 8 1/2" x 11" bond paper, then blown up on a photocopier and light-tabled (traced) onto Bristol board for lettering and inking. (All the images here are scanned from the original small roughs except the front and back cover.

Megaton Man Minus the Dragon! File Photocopies

 These are some of the file photocopies of my portion of the art and lettering from The Savage Dragon vs. The Savage Megaton Man (Image Comics, March 1993) before finishing by Erik Larsen and letterer Chris Eliopoulos (although some of the layouts here were started by them). I will leave it to the discerning art lover as to which layouts were mine and which were Erik's; we each did a dozen in the book and the other guy added their characters, lettering, and backgrounds. But it should be obvious as Erik has a distinctive sense of layout, storytelling, and body language to his figures (although I was trying my best to "Image it up"). Looking back, it's shameful the way I ballooned Megaton Man's proportions, almost to Giant Man-size, but I hadn't at that point had much experience drawing the Man of Molecules interacting with more "realistic" superheroes (although Erik later beefed up the Dragon considerably as a response). This is probably as close as you'll get to a second printing of this fan-favorite story, so enjoy!

More Lost Megaton Man Comics Art from the 1980s!

See Part One: The Megaton Man #2 That Might Have Been!

Here are a few more unearthed pages, some from the "lost second issue" of Megaton Man, others rejected from #6.

The Megaton Man #2 That Might Have Been!

In early 1984, Denis Kitchen of Kitchen Sink Press offered to publish Megaton Man #1 and even requested that I consider making it an ongoing series (all I had in mind hitherto was a one-shot). I jumped at the chance, and after the contract was signed, was soon floundering with too many ideas than I knew what to do with.

Luckily, Kitchen Sink was in the process of finding a different color publisher, so most of 1984 was spent with the first issue chronically delayed, which gave me all summer to stew in my juices. By August, which in Detroit was sweltering, I had something like 64 pages of comic book material in varying stages of completion. The problem was it was completely incoherent.

I remember going for a long walk on a bright, sunny day; it was cooler so it was probably closer to September. I walked from West Forest Avenue around the Wayne State University campus as far north as the New Center area (the Fisher and General Motors buildings) and back. By the time I got home, I had a completely new plot idea for Megaton Man #2: Megs joins the Megatropolis Quartet.

I drew (wrote, penciled, inked, lettered) the new second issue in about six weeks, as I recall. But I still had 64 pages of mess. Over the next several months, a carved out chunks of material (sometimes literally, cutting up and rearranging panels on new pages) for sequences that ended up in issues #3 and #4.

But there were still several pages, mostly unfinished, leftover. Those are reproduced here. For those familiar with the original ten-issue run of Megaton Man, much of the material will be familiar. The landing of the Partyers from Mars (inspired by The Day the Earth Stood Still), the pregnancy of the See-Thru Girl, the appearance of Uncle Farley (the Original Golden Age Megaton Man), Sgt. Sterankovich (who would later appear in #4), and many other characters, elements, scenes, and ideas appeared in altered form in later issues (particularly #9).

These pages in their unfinished form give a good idea of how I worked, and how my mind worked, at the time. The lettering is complete in most case, and the penciling is somewhat loose (I pencil much tighter these days, like I did as teenager before I started inking).

Note: A few of these pages may not be from the 64-page aborted #2; some may be later rejects generated during the production of the actual second issue and subsequent issues.

A page with panels cut out, perhaps intended for the second issue.

A rejected page reworked for the second issue of Megaton Man in which Yarn Man turns into a bikini.

A page probably rejected from the actual Megaton Man #2 (compare the way I ink Pammy's hair with the published splash page for #2). The bottom panels are cut out; where those missing panels went is anyone's guess, but probably to some of the pages in the published second issue.

This page is composed of cut-and-pasted panels that were rearranged. This sequence was redrawn for Megaton Man #6.

This page was also redrawn for Megaton Man #6.

In this unfinished page, a blond (or redheaded) girl reporter replaced Pamela Jointly in the newsroom of The Manhattan Project; she never appeared in the published series.

Sgt. Sterankovich appears (prior to his appearance in Megaton Man #4?), along with Orson Welles as President Harry Foster Lime, as the Partyers from Mars land in Central Park.

A dream sequence, part of the black-and-white sequence that appeared in Megaton Man #3, with heavy Zip-A-Tone. This page was reproduced in a special portfolio section in Return of Megaton Man #3 (Kitchen Sink Press, September 1988).

Another penciled page of the Partyers landing, with Uncle Farley watching from Skid Row.

Uncle Farley, the Original Golden Age Megaton Man, grabs his old garb and appears in Central Park (this sequence was later redrawn and reworked for Megaton Man #9).

Great lettering, but I'm not sure what I would have drawn except something like Klaatu's appearance from The Day the Earth Stood Still; at the time, I'm not sure I knew what the Partyers even looked like.

Pammy and Stella on the road; a sequence reworked for the actual second issue.

 

Continue to Part Two: More Lost Megaton Man Comics Art from the 1980s!

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All characters, character names, likenesses, words and pictures on this page are ™ and © Don Simpson 2021, all rights reserved.

A Lost Megaton Man Story from Before #1!

I drew this six-page Megaton Man story (scroll down for images) in 1983, before embarking on Megaton Man #1. It was something of a trial balloon for the character and an effort to reconcile all the myriad impulses and influences I was experiencing at the time.

Kiss Me, Deadly: A Retro Reject Returns!

This is a cover concept I had that went unfinished for a number of years. It dates from probably the early 2000s, and I was apparently pondering taking the Megaton Man Weekly Serial strips and collecting them into a print comic (newsflash: print has been a problematic prospect since the late 1990s!). For whatever reason, I inked only the Megaton Man and moll figures and completed the lettering at the time; I left the generic bad guys on the periphery uninked until just recently.