BONGO COMICS REVIEW: SIMPSONS COMICS #189

Maggie Simpson becomes a pop cultural prophet when her musings and missives hit the ‘Net in a Chatter account called ‘Poop My Baby Says.’ Who is pulling the strings behind the orally-fixated oracle? When the world finds out, the poop will definitely hit the fan.

Spoilers Below

Poop my Baby Says

South Park did a great episode a few weeks ago about internet memes and how the passing fads usually send the internet crowd into a frenzy from time to time. This month’s issue of Simpsons Comics was similar in showing how absurd internet fads can become but probably in a bit more detail for one specific type of fad. Obviously, anyone who reads this site knows that I love me some Twitter, but the site features some silly parody accounts that sometime just devalue the real thing. Enter Lisa Simpson, the usually unpopular sister of Springfield’s out of control Bart, is annoyed at the fact that she has no friends. Thankfully, Bart gets quickly bored with a ‘U-Phone’that he founds on Milhouse’s face and gives it to Lisa who decides to start her on “Chatter” account. Similar to Twitter, Chatter lets you post status messages of whatever is on your mind. Lisa sees this as a opportunity to be popular and as such creates her own Chatter account.

Unfortunately, for Lisa she doesn’t gain much of a following, so Lisa re-brands her profile “Chatterbaby” with her sister Maggie assuming the new face of Lisa’s profile. Now, if you didn’t know any better, you would swear that you are reading intricate pieces of knowledgeable insight that would make Maggie look like a genius. But, really its just Lisa pulling the strings helping Maggie become a local legend and even getting the attention of a talent scout looking to take Maggie’s Chats and turn them into a musical! Eventually, Bart and Milhouse find out the truth but in the end Lisa ends up making the right choice.

Overall, I thought this was a great issue of Simpsons Comics. Similar to the TV series of the same name, its great to see Simpsons story lines center around tech gadgets nowadays or at the very least feature them. Some cartoons can get dated by not making those same changes but Homer and crew have done plenty of viral videos, Facebook pages, and now Chatters to give guys like Sean Parker a half a chub. Also, typical Homer tries to profit off any situation and this issue was no different, having put offers out there to actually sell his children on national TV. The only downside for this issue was Marge. For an issue that was all about Maggie, Marge’s take on the situation seemed a bit stoic at times and really reminds me of Marge Simpson of the early 90’s instead of the Marge with a bit of an edge that we know and love her for now. Having said that, #189 will be an issue “chatted” about for quite a while.

(8.0 out of 10)