Thursday, October 15, 2015

CENSORED SIMPSONS

Another mini-blog...

My son Eddie and I are fans of The Simpsons TV show and I’m a fan of Simpsons Comics and other Bongo Comics titles. I probably have most of those issues, but, as with so many of my books and comics, they are scattered throughout a hundred or more boxes. When I come across them, I log the issue numbers, read them, bag/board them and put them in the drawer box that will be their future home.

Simpsons Comics #39 [1998] cover-featured “Sense and Censorability” by Scott M. Gimple with Phil Ortiz (pencils), Tim Bavington (inks) and Nathan Kane (colors). As you can see from the image above, the  blurb “Comic Book Legal Defense Fun!” is above the issue's logo.

The premise: Bart Simpson has been playing fast-and-loose with the truth in his history reports. He basically makes it up. While the Bart versions are way cooler than reality, Principal Skinner isn’t pleased. As punishment, Bart and dad Homer have to write a history report to be read before the entire community. Alas, father and son do their research by buying “mature readers” comic books that show Thomas Jefferson as a cannibal, Billy Carter as a werewolf and so on. Their report so horrifies the community that both Homer and the Comic Book Guy are arrested for possessing obscene material. It’s a fun and wildly inventive story.

The story was followed by a text piece extolling the virtues of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fun. Remember when the CBLDF was focused on actual comic books instead of joining cases that often have very little if anything to do with comic books and graphic novels? Those were the days. I miss them.

On the flip side of the issue, the fourth chapter of a Radioactive Man serial was heralded with a homage to a classic Nick Fury cover by Jim Steranko. That was fun as well.
  
Lots of recommendations for this issue. Simpsons Comics and other Bongo titles are always fun reads. If you collect comics that deal with censorship issues, that’s a reason to track down this issue. If you’re a fan of Jim Steranko - and who isn’t? - and super-hero parodies, then those are two more reasons to add this issue to your collection.

I’ll be back soon with more stuff.

© 2015 Tony Isabella

2 comments: