BONGO COMICS REVIEW: SIMPSONS ILLUSTRATED # 1

Bongo launches this new quarterly title featuring the best stories from the combined Simpsons comic titles with a flash from the past of not only the residents of Springfield as Principal Skinner opens up the elementary school’s permanent record room but also a look back to the very beginning of Bongo Comics with a classic tale from Matt Groening’s first comic book offering, Simpsons Comics & Stories #1.

Spoilers Below

THE PERMANENT RECORD ROOM

This is really just a setting for Skinner to give us a couple of his stories. The first one:

“PRANKS BUT NO PRANKS”

Gives us the low-down one of Bart’s greatest pranks, where he turns Skinner, Willie, and Sheemus into superheroes/supervillians and they just go at it for a while!

“AND THE BEATINGS GO ON”

Tells the humble beginnings of Jimbo Jones, and how at one point Springfield Elementary was overrun by nerds until one group of kids made a stand. And beat the shit out of anything that moved!

“TRUANT OR FALSE”

Gives us the background stories of Homer and Principal Skinner as children, and what started them off to their respected paths to “success”.

“WHAT ABOUT IF SKINNER WAS SCOTTISH”

He’d beat the hell out of Superintendent Chalmers.

LISA SIMPSON IN READING NIGHT

A short strip on Lisa trying to get the rest of the family to read more but fails.

HILL OF BEANS

Ralph gets a record amount of lima beans shoved up his nose and when he is up for a World Record, he gets to be a little local celeb with his own TV coverage. As such, the rest of the town also want to be record holders and try various different events to put both themselves and Springfield on the map.

LO, THERE SHAL COME…A BARTMAN!!!

Springfield Comic Con is happening and the news story of the day is the potential cancellation or Radioactive Man by a guy named Leach who owns Boffo Comics, the company that signed away the publishing rights from strip-creator Morty Mann. All seems lost for our fabled hero, that is until BARTMAN comes to the rescue!

A great collection of stories for people who are JUST getting into Simpsons Comics or old-school guys who want to relive classic tales had even BEFORE we had a Bongo Comics! Pretty cool, right?

(8.0 out of 10)