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Description
I drew this back when I was in school. The character is Simon Garth, the Zombie. In the 1970s, Marvel Comics began publishing tons of horror comics and Simon here was the star of his own black and white magazine comic that also covered zombie and horror related stories.

For those who don’t know him, here’s his back story: Simon Garth was a rich Louisiana coffee manufacturer who basically abused and belittled everyone in his life and only concerned himself with making money. When he caught his sleazy gardner Gyps spying on his daughter who was skinny dipping in the family pool, Garth beat the man and then fired him. Later that night in a drunken rage, Gyps stabbed Simon with his rusty gardener shears and killed him. Not satisfied because Garth didn’t suffer enough, Gyps dragged the man’s corpse through the swamps to a voodoo ceremony where he had Garth resurrected as a zombie through Voodoo magic.

The voodoo priestess gave Gyps and Garth matching amulets which enabled Gyps to control the zombie. Unknown to either men, the Priestess was a secretary in her day job that worked for Garth and secretly loved him, thus as part of his resurrection she enabled Garth to keep a fraction of his soul intact. Later, when Gyps put his amulet down and began drunkenly bragging to the zombie about his intentions to rape Simon’s daughter and have Simon himself kill her when he was finished, the zombie immediately strangled Gyps and snapped his neck.

Afterward Gyps medallion passed through several hands and all of them managed to use the zombie to do their bidding, though if it was something other than noble intentions the zombie would eventually cause their gruesome death. The zombie himself longs for the peace of the grave but can never really know any permanent rest, thus Simon Garth walks the earth as penance for the evil he did during his previous life.

In one issue and in the Marvel Handbook entry on him, the zombie is stated as having walked along the floor of the ocean for weeks from Haiti to Louisiana. That always stuck in my head and I thought it would be fun to draw him during part of his journey.

I drew this with pen and the pose itself came directly from the handbook entry with a few alterations. I colored it with markers and highlighters and layered it over and over again with blue highlighter for a week to give it a layered look and to get the right hue of blue on top of the scenery and the zombie himself.

If you like the Zombie, Marvel has released the original 70s comic magazines in an Essential Collection and recently a new more Resident Evil version of the character was recently given two limited series from Marvel’s uncensored MAX imprint.

Description
I drew this back when I was in school. The character is Simon Garth, the Zombie. In the 1970s, Marvel Comics began publishing tons of horror comics and Simon here was the star of his own black and white magazine comic that also covered zombie and horror related stories.

For those who don’t know him, here’s his back story: Simon Garth was a rich Louisiana coffee manufacturer who basically abused and belittled everyone in his life and only concerned himself with making money. When he caught his sleazy gardner Gyps spying on his daughter who was skinny dipping in the family pool, Garth beat the man and then fired him. Later that night in a drunken rage, Gyps stabbed Simon with his rusty gardener shears and killed him. Not satisfied because Garth didn’t suffer enough, Gyps dragged the man’s corpse through the swamps to a voodoo ceremony where he had Garth resurrected as a zombie through Voodoo magic.

The voodoo priestess gave Gyps and Garth matching amulets which enabled Gyps to control the zombie. Unknown to either men, the Priestess was a secretary in her day job that worked for Garth and secretly loved him, thus as part of his resurrection she enabled Garth to keep a fraction of his soul intact. Later, when Gyps put his amulet down and began drunkenly bragging to the zombie about his intentions to rape Simon’s daughter and have Simon himself kill her when he was finished, the zombie immediately strangled Gyps and snapped his neck.

Afterward Gyps medallion passed through several hands and all of them managed to use the zombie to do their bidding, though if it was something other than noble intentions the zombie would eventually cause their gruesome death. The zombie himself longs for the peace of the grave but can never really know any permanent rest, thus Simon Garth walks the earth as penance for the evil he did during his previous life.

In one issue and in the Marvel Handbook entry on him, the zombie is stated as having walked along the floor of the ocean for weeks from Haiti to Louisiana. That always stuck in my head and I thought it would be fun to draw him during part of his journey.

I drew this with pen and the pose itself came directly from the handbook entry with a few alterations. I colored it with markers and highlighters and layered it over and over again with blue highlighter for a week to give it a layered look and to get the right hue of blue on top of the scenery and the zombie himself.

If you like the Zombie, Marvel has released the original 70s comic magazines in an Essential Collection and recently a new more Resident Evil version of the character was recently given two limited series from Marvel’s uncensored MAX imprint.