144 pgs. color | $25.99 hardcover | W: Various, A: Various
The Simpsons, created by Matt Groening, first appeared in 1987 as short animation segments on The Tracey Ullman Show and began appearing as a freestanding half-hour series on Fox in 1989. The latter is still running today and has been renewed through season 40, making it both the longest-running primetime animated series and the longest-running sitcom in the United States. Today, it’s a franchise, with components including comics, feature films, videogames, a theme park ride, and whole lot of merchandise.
I knew about the comics (thanks, Free Comic Book Day!) but had no idea there was also a syndicated Bongo Comics strip running in Sunday newspapers (because what’s a newspaper?). The Sunday comics ran from 1999 to 2004, and 126 of them are collected in this volume. Many different artists and writers worked on them, but you wouldn’t guess that if you didn’t read the credits because the stylistic consistency is remarkable from one comic to the next. The art and the general feel of the stories is also remarkably consistent with the TV series (at least in the early years, because I stopped watching it around 2000): family-friendly snark, self-contained stories, and lots of cleverness and cultural allusions that can be appreciated at different levels. So if you like The Simpsons in any other format, you’ll probably enjoy these comics as well.
Each Sunday comic is presented on a single large-format (12” by 9”) horizontal page. The majority of strips consisting of eight frames over four rows, with a few variations including single-frame strips (at least one of which is a tribute to The Family Circus) and twelve frames over four rows. The collection is introduced by Comic Book Guy and the first comic is a tutorial by Homer about how to read comics, which is a good beginning for a strip that is notable for the amount of variety it manages to pack into what is a remarkably consistent format.
Characters in The Simpsons don’t change or grow (you might say it’s Seinfeld with four fingers) yet never wear out their welcome either. Homer will always be a lovable doofus, Marge will always be the practical yet unappreciated Mom, Bart will always hog the spotlight, Lisa will always long for recognition that never comes, and we love them for it. Of course there’s several Itchy and Scratchy episodes, regular appearances by supporting players like Apu, Chief Wiggum, and Principal Skinner as well as more minor characters like Gil, Kodos & Kang, Jasper, plus cameos by real-life celebrities like Kelsey Grammer, Bill Clinton, and Teddy Roosevelt.
The sheer variety of these strips is astounding. Some allude to other creators, including Carl Anderson (creator of the comic strip Henry), Chris Ware (the first comics artist to be included in the Whitney biennial), Rube Goldberg (who was famous for drawing the eponymous, overly-complicated machines), and Jay Lynch (creator of Bazooka Joe and his Gang, which most famously ran on bubble gum wrappers. Other strips reference cultural touchstones like The Twilight Zone (the original series), Dennis the Menace, and Muppet Babies as well as Sunday funnies staples like the educational history strip. All in all, it’s a rich collection that rewards both browsing and re-reading and does the franchise proud. | Sarah Boslaugh
You can see a sample of the artwork for The Simpsons Comic Strip Cavalcade here. For more information or to order directly from Abrams ComicArts, click here.
