The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror Omnious Omnibus, Vol.1: Scary Tales & Scarier Tentacles

The premise behind the Ominous Omnibuses is to collect all 23 volumes of Treehouse of Horror annuals that were issued from the now defunct Bongo Comics. This is to occur with the publication of 3 slipcased hardcover editions. Though whether this will happen in just a few months or annually until 2024, I just don't know. 

Along with the material found in the Halloween annuals, these collections are supposed to house horror themed material from other Simpsons related holiday titles and some never before published material. But right now from a collector's standpoint, all I've got is a massive headache.

Let's do a little comic book math. There's 23 total ToH books in existence and I don't own any of them. These comics aren't very easy to find and when I do stumble across them, they're selling for an average of $15 per book. So $15x23=$345. If all 3 omnibuses retail for the $40 MSRP of this issue, I should only have to pay $120 plus tax. Overall, going this route seems the most economical, even if I have to wait a couple more years. Yet, because of how this book was edited, I can't mark anything off of my wish list yet.

Instead of collecting the comics whole, publisher Harry N. Abrams decided to cut all the books into pieces and catalogue the stories based on genre type! There are stories about aliens Kang and Kodos, frights about alternate realities and legends of things that go bump in the dark. Plus, there's a whole lot of shorts, parody ads and vignettes about life in Springfield that I've read in many a Simpsons regular series comic book.

While I am unhappy with how these stories have been collected, I have been thrilled with many of the surprises in this book. There's Simpsons yarns written by Star Wars' Mark Hamill, The Goldberg's Patton Oswalt and Doug TenNapel (Cardboard). I had thought that celebs didn't appear in Simpsons comics, but we get visits by Alice Cooper, Lemmy Kilmister and the living embodiment of Ned Flanders, Pat Boone! in a trio of stories written by the stars themselves.

My favorite story in this collection was an EC Comics tribute that featured inks by Al Willamson (Weird Science, Weird Fantasy) and pencils by John Severin (Two-Fisted Tales)! I never thought I'd ever see the Simpsons rendered by a pair of EC legends! But I did and it was fantastic. The story might have been a bit disjointed. But it was a visual dream come true!

Over 400 pages of Simpsons frights. A great way to start off my Halloween 2022 reads. I just wish this book could have been in order like an actual omnibus and not a mix-matched catalogue of titles organized by genre. I really wanted to get a few volumes off my wish list and right now, I now have 2 future editions of omnibuses added to it.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.

Dark Shadows

Though my mom watched the original series and I watched the 90s remake, I’m in no way an expert on Dark Shadows. I’m not sure how faithful the movie was to those projects.

The film takes a little while to really get going and at times, you wonder where it’s going next and how long will it get there. The scenes which actually move the plot forward are quite good, but to make a 2 hour movie on a 1200 plus episode soap opera, it’s not wonder things happen suddenly coming from far left field or that some plots threads are left dangling. For instance, when one characters transforms into another creature in order to fit the main villain, you scratch you head because there really wasn’t any plot development leading to the transformation.

Also, some characters pop up for no really purpose, like a 60 some odd year old Alice Cooper performing a trio of hits while heavily made-up to look like he was in his 20s. Sure, the songs used are motifs for parts of the movie occurring at that time. But, why not just have his music play during a montage- he’s not really needed in person.

Yet, the acting is what really makes this film. Johnny Depp is both charming and aloft as the suddenly out of his time period vampire Barnabas. He brings a wisp of magic to the film. Michelle Pfeiffer is a chameleon, making you think she’s a Joans Collins type character but is in fact a true matriarch who knows blood is thicker than water.

Then there’s the always wonderful Grace Chloe Morentz playing her usual bratty and way too smart for you rich girl with problems role. And the girl who plays the witch, Angelique is crazy good with her perverse devotion to Barnabas while trying to single-handedly bankrupt the Collins family. There’s times I thought to myself “She’d make an awesome Harley Quinn.”

Yes, it’s a Tim Burton film. But at times, you feel like he’s given up his normal film style to make a film as close to the original. The movie doesn’t suffer because he’s a faithful fan of Dark Shadows, but it’s easy to forget it’s one of Burton’s film.

Though it wasn’t a huge it, it had lots of laughs and a really good soundtrack, that’s strangely limited of Danny Elfman pieces. Not too scary, but a little too sexualized for my tastes.

Wicked fun though.

Worth Consuming.

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars