Lonnie MF Allen made his start in comics in the ’90s DIY zine culture. Since then, his work has appeared in The Westword, Birdy, and Out Front magazine. He has done comic book writing for Image Comics, and was named one of Westword’s“100 Colorado Creatives.” He has won a DiNKy award for the best Colorado Comic, and was called one of the best cartoonists around by the Denver Post. He regularly illustrates for the Colorado Sun and both illustrates and art directs for Suspect Press. His latest project, Chrome Seoul is a Korean cyberpunk comic book series.
The Babelord Project (affectionately known as Babecorp™) is a fledgling Denver multimedia artist collective. Centered around the music created by Babelord, an alien princess from the planet Galactar, the project hinges on a surrounding narrative told through video, staged productions, milk cartons and whatever else we can get our mitts on. In 2019, Babelord released her first batch of singles and music videos, along with a slew of other narrative video and photos. Babelord continues to pursue her mission of advancing our race through emotional transcendence, in hopes that humans will one day be welcomed into the intergalactic community. Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6NerlSdkW1ro4l5Ng7fohI Instagram: @babelord.tv Bandcamp: https://babelord.bandcamp.com/ youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJoUDGAjuGuxu4mNGUNEtow
A Eulogy to Marissa Lehto, my dear friend, in a manner befitting of Dr. Manhattan who we both liked.
January 27th, 2020: I think about drawing, how it’s both a noun and a verb. A thing that does. How I was drawn to you and how I drew you. I think about how the story of you and me begins with a drawing.
June 10th, 2009: I am sitting at Leela’s drawing in my notebook. I see you walk in and sit by yourself. I am struck by your beauty. I decide that I will draw you and tell you that you are beautiful and that I’ve drawn you. I work up the courage to do this. Drawing you is the easy part.
March 24th, 2011: You have keys to my apartment, so you let yourself in. You’re there to hang out with me, but I’m asleep and my son is awake watching Transformers in his room. So you watch Transformers with him and leave me a note telling me you were there.
June 15th, 2011: You are watching the Justice League cartoon in my bed, and you laugh when they bring in Aquaman to the fight. You say, “Aquaman?!?”
June 10th, 2009: I work up enough courage to show you the drawing I’ve completed of you and I go up to you and say, “I noticed you sitting from across the room, and thought that you were beautiful so I drew this portrait of you.” You say, “Does that line usually work for you on girls?” I am flustered. I tell you honestly, “I’ve never done this before.” You nod and say, “Sure.” I leave deflated.
February 17th, 2015: We talk about dealing with depression and how the suburbs are awful.
July 20th, 2009: I see you again at Leela’s. This time, you’re sitting across from someone who is giving you a rose. I turn to my friend Michael Prince and ask him, “What do you think is going on at that table?” He tells me, “I think they’re having a fight.” I tell him, “I’m going to go over there and ask for her number.” He tells me, “I don’t know, Lonnie, that guy she’s with is pretty hot.” I get your number that night.
December 25th, 2013: We are at your mother’s place celebrating Christmas and she has made some delicious prosciutto.
November 16th, 2010: I’m climbing over the fence at your apartment so I can lay flowers and candy at your window. Your neighbors are yelling at me for climbing the fence.
April 22nd, 2010: We text each other days on end and all the time. We make each other laugh a lot.
March 27th, 2011: You tell me to meet you at a bar and that your friends will be there for me to be introduced to. Your friends and I drink and party together. You never show up that night. Your friends tell you later that you should keep me.
January 11th, 2011: We go to your friend’s New Year’s Party. You spend the night with me for the first time ever.
January 27th, 2020: I am sobbing as I tell your mother on the phone that I am so sorry for her loss, she tells me the same.
August 17th, 2015: We’re out with your friend Morgan at the art museum. You tell me you got your nice ass from your mother.
May 22nd, 2010: Bob shows us a comic that he’s drawn you in. I’m jealous and possessive. As if I’m the only one who should be allowed to draw you. I never tell anyone about this until I write it in a eulogy for you in 2020.
January 27th, 2020: Morgan texts me and tells me you took your life. I can’t stop crying.
November 19th, 2010: You come to my place for a party and meet my friends. I’m so excited that you are there. Everyone who meets you has a crush on you.
October 3rd, 2010: Morgan is annoyed because she’s running late for a flight at DIA when I randomly see you at the airport and we talk too long.
July 20th, 2009: I tell you that I need your number because I want to invite you to an art show. It’s a lie, I just want your number to talk to you.
January 28th, 2013: I fall asleep while you watch Sucker Punch at my place.
February 16th, 2010: I send a third unanswered text which is my three unanswered text limit rule. I figure you’re mad at me.
February 14th, 2011: You invite me and we go to Valentine’s Day at the Mercury Cafe. You bring me flowers and write me a personalized poem before you go on stage.
December 31st, 2015: We have different New Year’s plans, but you’re dressed up to go to a party. You send me pictures. You’re stunning.
March 3rd, 2010: I randomly see you at a cafe and I don’t talk to you because after my unanswered texts I figured you didn’t want to see me any longer. You approach and tell me you lost your phone. This time, you ask for my number.
September 8th, 2015: You go up to the mountains with me as my plus one to Caryn’s wedding. Haley takes stunning pictures of you. Your dress is bright green.
January 1st, 2023: Plot twist–you’re Dr. Manhattan.
July 28th, 2015: I’m heartbroken over a relationship that ended. You’re in the same boat. After seeing each other again at Comic-Con, you invite me to Littleton to see where you work. It’s a really cute cafe.
October 4th, 2015: I’m out with you and someone has roofied you. I get you home safe and sound, but you lose your job for the next day’s missed work. I wait for days afterward at the bar where it happened to find the guy who did it to beat the shit out of him. Jake and Zak wait with me on one of the nights.
January 27th, 2020: I’m drawing you again like so many times before, possibly for the last time.
February 28th, 2011: You tell me how Captain Kirk is superior to Captain Picard.
January 5th, 2020: I see a new show called Picard and I wonder if you’re excited about it.
October 11th, 2011: You first invite me to what would be many performances by you reading poetry at the Mercury Cafe. I see you on stage and I am amazed.
May 24th, 2015: I see you at Denver Comic-Con. You’re dressed as Leela from Futurama. I haven’t seen you in years at that point. Neil makes fun of me later because he said I just abruptly stopped talking to him at his table to go up to you.
August 14th, 2009: We’re watching the Watchmen on DVD at your place. We both decide the graphic novel is far superior, but you point out how it’s nice that Dr. Manhattan’s dong is way bigger.
November 30th, 2019: I finally give in and watch the Watchmen TV show on HBO. I think about you when Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Dr. Manhattan is seen with an even bigger penis and without CGI!
January 20th, 2017: I’m helping you move your things leftover from out of my place and into your moving truck. We do it fast with the help of your soon-to-be fiance. It’s stressful, and it’s the last time I will see you in person.
December 25th, 2015: You move in with me for a short time. I’m pretty excited to have your company.
July 18th, 2011: You’ve made me dinner at your place. Some poached salmon with green peas and mashed potatoes. It’s hot in your place because the air-conditioning is broken.
January 27th, 2020: I think about drawing, how it’s both a noun and a verb. A thing that does. How I was drawn to you and how I drew you. I think about how the story of you and me ends with a drawing.
Lonnie MF Allen is an oft-published illustrator, writer, and graphic designer. He is an award-winning cartoonist and was named as one of Westword’s 100 Colorado Creatives.Lonnie is the cat-wrangler for the Denver Drink & Draw meet-up. His work has been published by Dark Horse, Image Comics, and he’s been nominated for an Eisner Award. Find his work at lonniemfallen.com.
Lonnie MF Allen is an oft-published illustrator, writer, and graphic designer. He is an award-winning cartoonist and was named as one of Westword’s 100 Colorado Creatives.Lonnie is the cat-wrangler for the Denver Drink & Draw meet-up. His work has been published by Dark Horse, Image Comics, and he’s been nominated for an Eisner Award. Find his work at lonniemfallen.com.
Lonnie MF Allen has long been a stalwart among Denver’s close-knit cartooning community. An oft-published illustrator, writer and designer, in addition being an award-winning cartoonist, and named one of Westword’s 100 Colorado Creatives, Allen is an organizer for the Denver Drink & Draw meet-up. His work has been published by Dark Horse, Image Comics, Colorado Sun, and he’s been nominated for an Eisner Award. He is the art director for Suspect Press. Find him at lonniemfallen.com.
[dropcap]I[/dropcap] was five years old when I first knew who Stan Lee was. In 1981, I would religiously wake up before my parents did on Saturday mornings to watch Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. Stan Lee would voice a preface for each upcoming episode, and I remember knowing that the sound of his voice would mean a quality show was to come. It was doubly so when they would later add the Incredible Hulk to make it a full hour of Marvel characters. The cartoon would lead me to read Marvel comics (as I imagine the cartoons were intended to do: be a marketing venue for the comics). Within most printed Marvel comics there would be on the opening splash page: “Stan Lee presents:” as well as “Stan’s Soapbox” which was his editorial that would be promoting a new series. Stan Lee is of course indelibly tied to Marvel comics.
As I grew into my teens, I never much thought of Lee besides that of an old hokey self-promoter. His comics weren’t edgy enough compared to much of the mainstream comics during the late ‘80s and early ‘90s (he tried an awful endeavor to reimagine DC characters with a darker slant). However, as I started to become a comic creator myself in my early twenties, I began to read and hear stories of Stan Lee that almost every serious cartoonist knows: Stan Lee fucked over a lot of people. Most people on the street know Stan Lee’s name, but most are also almost entirely unaware of the other comic industry giants that made all of Marvel’s characters possible. People like: Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Bill Everett, and Joe Simon contributed as much if not more to many of the beloved and iconic characters we know so well today. Stan Lee usually created narratives in interviews implying he was the sole creator of such characters as Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, or Black Panther while the truth was much more complicated.
Stan Lee taking full credit for most of the Marvel characters had deep repercussions for many of his co-creators and their families. While the Marvel business empire grew with merchandise and tie-ins which are still ubiquitous today, many, if not all of the co-creators did/do not see a dime for their creations and have their artwork plastered across t-shirts, lunch-boxes, and toy packaging. Even recently, many of the Jack Kirby’s creations go uncredited to him while they fill the movie screens across the world raking in billions. There is sort of a poetic justice that happened with Stan in the late ‘90s, he had departed from Marvel to create his own company that within a few years went bankrupt and he, like many of the co-creators he screwed over, had to sue Marvel to receive royalties from his characters in film.
Similar to Steve Jobs who is the face and name of Apple Computers, while only the ardent talk about Steve Wozniak, so too is it the way of Stan Lee. My twelve-year son and many of his friends are sad at the passing of Lee and see him as the funny guy who does cameos in the films they really enjoy and is the creator of all of the Marvel comics. Would Marvel be where it is today if not for Lee’s constant promotion? Undoubtedly not. The hard truth is that the Marvel comics we see today whether on the page or on screen would not exist without Stan Lee. He just didn’t do it alone.
-Excelsior!
Lonnie MF Allen has long been a stalwart of Denver’s comix scene. He’s an illustrator, writer, and designer. Lonnie is also the cat-wrangler of Denver Drink & Draw and was named as one of Westword’s “100 Colorado Creatives.” His work has been published by Dark Horse, Image Comics, and he’s a regular contributor to the Colorado Sun.
Lonnie MF Allen has long been a stalwart of Denver’s comix scene. He’s an illustrator, writer, and designer. Lonnie is also the cat-wrangler of Denver Drink & Draw and was named as one of Westword’s “100 Colorado Creatives.” His work has been published by Dark Horse, Image Comics, and he’s a regular contributor to the Colorado Sun.
Lonnie MF Allen found his comic-art stride as a high-schooler dabbling in zines and mini-comics, eventually coming up through the ranks in the local comix scene, where he’s long been a regular among Denver’s close-knit cartooning community. An oft-published illustrator, writer and designer in addition to his niche as an award-winning cartoonist, and named one of Westword’s 100 Colorado Creatives, Allen is an organizer for the Denver Drink & Draw meet-up. His work has been published by Dark Horse, Image Comics, and he’s been nominated for an Eisner Award. Find him at lonniemfallen.com.
There’s this skirt I always used to wear and sometimes still wear which sits all folded up in a tidy square in the bottom of my closet, in a drawer, in my dresser drawer, beside the socks. I pull it out every now and then, and sometimes it fits, and sometimes it doesn’t, and sometimes it’s too long, and sometimes it’s not, and it’s funny because I never know exactly what it’s going to be until I take it out and pull it on over my legs and up on my waist, which is sometimes just how I like it and sometimes not.
Today the skirt isn’t there. It isn’t anywhere, and there isn’t anything in my drawer or closet. I’m in my towel after a shower, after soaping dripping soaking the carpet in my room, with nothing to sop me up. I’m not sure how this happened, how the clothes disappeared, why they are no longer here.
I decide to call my girlfriend. She answers, at work. “Hello?” “Hey,” I say. I can barely hear. There’s a lot of noise on her end. “Where are my clothes?” “I’m sorry?” “My clothes!” I find myself yelling. “They’re gone!” “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” “You don’t know what I’m talking about! You don’t ever know what I’m talking about!” There’s silence. “I’m sorry,” I say. She sighs. I wait. “I’ll be home at five,” she says.
By the time she arrives, I’ve dried off and ditched the towel. My face looks sour, but it’s because I just ate a lemon, wedge by wedge. I prop my elbows on the table, wiping a yellow fleck from my exposed breast and curling my legs tightly around the chair.
“What are you doing?” she asks, standing in the door and sounding annoyed. “What are you doing?” I ask back. “Coming home from work. Looking at you, confused. Wondering why you aren’t wearing any clothes.” “Wondering? I already told you. They’re all gone.” She scrunches her eyes and scratches her head. “I don’t think you should really mind the fact that I’m not wearing clothes,” I say, slowly. “You should be happy. Right?” She walks over and climbs on me, spider-style, pulling her pant-covered legs over my bare ones. “I am happy,” she says, in a tone that would suggest otherwise. “I’m just stressed,” she says. I nod. “I can tell. And I’m sorry.” She nods back, then drops her head to rest in the curve of my neck. “I’m stressed too,” I say, stroking her hair. “To the point of disfunction, disuse. I mean, look at me. I can’t even get dressed.”
She lifts her eyes to meet mine, and lets out a laugh, which rolls across me like water, like taking a giant bath. I let my head fall back and find myself laughing as well.
“You’re ridiculous,” she says. “You are too,” I respond, but at the same time, she says, “I’m leaving. I’m sorry. I have to.”
I look down at the stack of our thighs, with hers on top of mine, and I’ve known for a few days now that this was coming. I wouldn’t say, but I knew it. I wrap my hands around her calves and grip them tight. “Is there someone else?”
She shakes her head. “No. But also, yes. In the way that I feel like I’m someone else.” My eyes are all wet, but I laugh. “You are so full of cheese.” She also laughs. Because she is, and she knows it. I’m still sitting there, with no clothes and an empty closet, when she leaves.
Rebecca Hannigan is a staff reviewer for Into the Void and junior editor for F(r)iction. Her work is forthcoming in Juked, and can be found in Stain’d, wigleaf, Queen Mob’s Teahouse, and elsewhere. For further reading, go to rebeccahannigan.wordpress.com.
Lonnie MF Allen found his comic-art stride as a high-schooler dabbling in zines and mini-comics, eventually coming up through the ranks in the local comix scene, where he’s long been a regular among Denver’s close-knit cartooning community. An oft-published illustrator, writer and designer in addition to his niche as an award-winning cartoonist, and named one of Westword’s 100 Colorado Creatives, Allen is an organizer for the Denver Drink & Draw meet-up. His work has been published by Dark Horse, Image Comics, and he’s been nominated for an Eisner Award. Find him at lonniemfallen.com.
Meow Wolf is a Santa Fe, New Mexico based arts and entertainment group that established in 2008 as an art collective. The company is composed of nearly 200 artists across all disciplines including architecture, sculpture, painting, photography and video production, virtual and augmented reality, music and audio engineering, narrative writing, costuming and performance, and more. Basically everything. Meow Wolf is in the process of expanding to other cities, including Denver as their next stop.
Lonnie MF Allen found his comic-art stride as a high-schooler dabbling in zines and mini-comics, eventually coming up through the ranks in the local comix scene, where he’s long been a regular among Denver’s close-knit cartooning community. An oft-published illustrator, writer and designer in addition to his niche as an award-winning cartoonist, and named one of Westword’s 100 Colorado Creatives, Allen is an organizer for the Denver Drink & Draw meet-up. His work has been published by Dark Horse, Image Comics, and he’s been nominated for an Eisner Award. Find him at lonniemfallen.com.
Zak Kinsella is a Denver cartoonist, and pro wrestling activist. He makes a pretty sweet comic called Outré Veil and has made a lot of tight posters for stand up comedy events. At different times in his life he has seen spooky ghosts, and UFOs…but not one Bigfoot. He does not believe the Earth is flat.
Lonnie MF Allen found his comic-art stride as a high-schooler dabbling in zines and mini-comics, eventually coming up through the ranks in the local comix scene, where he’s long been a regular among Denver’s close-knit cartooning community. An oft-published illustrator, writer and designer in addition to his niche as an award-winning cartoonist, and named one of Westword’s 100 Colorado Creatives, Allen is an organizer for the Denver Drink & Draw meet-up. His work has been published by Dark Horse, Image Comics, and he’s been nominated for an Eisner Award. Find him at lonniemfallen.com.
Rebecca Hannigan is a staff reviewer for 
