Simpsons Comics Barn Burner

Thanks to a trip to a funky Wilmington, NC used books shop, I found a couple of treasuries devoted to Matt Groening's comedic genius. I reviewed the Futurama find a few days back. Now, I wanna talk about America's favorite dysfunctional family- The Simpsons!

Five issues from the late great Bongo Comics series are reprinted in this volume. Stories include Bart running afoul of Jimbo and his cronies after getting ratted out to Chief Wiggum, Homer winning the services of Smithers in a poker game with Mr. Burns, and then Homer running for mayor after Mayor Quimby bans beer on Sundays. There's also a clever entry in the long-standing Burns vs. Lisa storyline when the nuclear mogul attempts to turn protected woodlands into an exclusive golf course. 

And then there's the 5th story...

In that tale, Homer sees dollar signs when he creates a boy band made up of Bart, Ralph, Nelson, Rod Flanders and cool guy Roy. Hmmm... This sounds an awful lot like an episode of The Simpsons. And it is!

If you are a longtime fan of the show, you might remember the episode in which Bart, Ralph, Nelson and Milhouse were recruited to form a boy band. Their big hit 'Yvan Eth Noij' turned out to be a ploy by the US Navy to up recruitment rates. While this print story doesn't follow the plot of that episode- and no NSYNC doesn't make a cameo either, its awfully similar to that classic episode. 

So which came first?

 It turns out that the episode beat the comic story by about 2-4 months. I'm not 100% sure as comic books often are released 2 months prior to the cover date as a sort of sales trick with retailers. The Bongo story was released June, 2001. But I am not sure if now defunct Bongo Comics released it's books out of date or not. 

You might want to say that the Bongo story was a rip-off of the cartoon. But in this case, with how close the release dates are to each other, I really don't know. Maybe writer Eric Rogers learned that such an episode was in the works from Fox and so he took inspiration. But based on my knowledge of comic book production history- this whole event could very well be a coincidence!

I loved this collection. As with any grouping of Simpsons comics, the fun was over way too soon. It was a fast read and I was completely to blame as I just can put these fun times reads down. But it was so worth it!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.