In Pictopia Format: Paperback

In Pictopia is the legendary comic created in 1986, written by the era’s most adventurous mainstream comics writer and drawn by a bevy of indie cartoonists―helmed by Don Simpson, with Mike Kazaleh, Pete Poplaski, and Eric Vincent. Presented here for the first time, scanned from the original line art and full-color painted boards, in an appropriately oversized format. Pictopia is the allegorical city inhabited by old, forgotten, but once famous and iconic comics characters, now considered pitiable has-beens by the popular new comics characters who are cheerfully and inevitably taking their places in the pop culture pantheon of celebrity. It is both a paean to timeless, beloved comics characters and a scathing critique of the then-contemporary comics sub-culture.

Don Simpson is the author of the graphic novel Border Worlds as well as the comics series Megaton Man and Bizarre Heroes. Under the pseudonym Anton Drek, he created Wendy Whitebread and Forbidden Frankenstein. During the ‘80s and ‘90s, Simpson cartooned for almost every major and independent comic book publisher including Marvel, DC, Image, and Archie. X-Amount Of Comics marks his first work for Fantagraphics in slightly over 30 years. In 2003, he illustrated Al Franken’s bestselling Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. In 2013, Simpson earned a PhD in art and architectural history from the University of Pittsburgh. In 2023, he finally paid off his student loans without any government forgiveness.