Don Simpson

Don Simpson has spent over forty years building one of indie comics’ most distinctive and interconnected universes, but his career arc is anything but conventional. He debuted at age 23 with the satirical superhero series Megaton Man through Kitchen Sink Press in 1984—a rollicking parody of superhero conventions starring Trent Phloog, a hapless everyman who transforms into the outrageously muscular “Man of Molecules” and joins the dysfunctional Megatropolis Quartet (See-Thru Girl, Yarn Man, and Kozmik Kat). What started as a Not Brand Echh-style spoof evolved into a surprisingly rich character-driven mythology across ten issues, miniseries like The Return of Megaton Man, and cult-favorite one-shots, all collected in Fantagraphics’ 608-page deluxe hardcover The Complete Megaton Man Universe Volume I: The 1980s.

Simpson expanded his creative range with Border Worlds, a mature-readers science fiction saga that debuted as a backup feature in Megaton Man and spun into its own seven-issue series. The moody space opera followed Jenny Woodlore, a space taxi driver navigating life on a domed station at the edge of known space, showcasing an art style deliberately distant from Megaton Man’s bombast. In 1994, he launched his own Fiasco Comics imprint to publish Don Simpson’s Bizarre Heroes, weaving his Megaton Man cast together with characters he had been creating since junior high school. His collaborations read like a who’s-who of late 20th-century comics: he co-created In Pictopia with Alan Moore for Fantagraphics, inked a Gil Kane Green Lantern serial, drew for Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor, contributed to Mirage Studios’ Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise, illustrated Al Franken’s 2003 bestseller Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, and even wrote and drew an official comic adaptation of King Kong.

After stepping away from comics in the late 1990s, Simpson earned a PhD in History of Art and Architecture from the University of Pittsburgh in 2013 and spent a decade teaching writing and cartooning at universities in Western Pennsylvania. But the 2020s brought a remarkable second act. Fantagraphics Underground published X-Amount of Comics: 1963 (WhenElse?!) Annual in 2023, followed by the Complete Megaton Man Universe hardcovers and Megaton Man: Multimensions—a treasury-sized crossover anthology featuring contributions from over sixty artists including Alan Davis, Stephen Bissette, and Jim Rugg. Simpson continues creating new work, including Megaton Man and the Doom Defiers and the Victory Folks Golden Age public domain supergroup. He received the Ithacon Turner Trailblazer Award in 2026 and remains a regular on the convention circuit.

Follow Simpson’s ongoing projects through his blog, his Substack newsletter, and his Comic Art Fans gallery. Commission inquiries are welcome via email.

Perfect for fans of The Tick, MAD Magazine, and the character-driven indie superhero work of Dave Sim’s Cerebus or Erik Larsen’s Savage Dragon.