And so, it’s another month, and another issue of Bart Simpson. What’s the verdict? Click to find out!

Spoilers Below

“Carpool”

In a story where a boiling hot redneck’s dream comes true, Bart and Homer are at home, roasting from the heat. Marge intrudes on their viewing of a McBain movie, and asks why they aren’t at the pool. After a retelling of how food trucks ruined the public pool, Bart has a plan. Now, we see Bart and Homer rolling down the road in a dumpster fitted for a pool on wheels. Bart charges the neighborhood kids $5 to come in. Homer is forced to be the only driver, and he almost passes out from the heat. So, he does what any normal person would do: park the pool, and go swimming in the Quik-E-Mart parking lot. However, Snake steals the truck, and starts a slow-speed chase, that the cops ignore in favor of a barbeque. Well, the cops get a nice surprise when the dump-truck pool ends up in their lake.

“Bart  Speaks Spanish!”

What the hell? Did I time warp back to 1989? The art for this seems like this is season one Simpsons, which is something I was not expecting. I guess it isn’t all that bad, it was just different. So, Bart and Homer are sitting on the couch, and Bart is out of pastry puffs. Marge barges in, and tries to make Bart eat veggies. In a funny twist, he uses a vegan argument against eating veggies. Marge then throws him out.  Bart is on the look for some junk food, and he finds a kid’s party, with a pinata. As he blindly walks to the pinata, he gets cracked in the head with the pinata stick. This causes Bart’s language section of his brain collide with the Spanish, causing him to be instantly fluent in Spanish. His inability to speak English, causes him to get transferred to East Springfield Elementary, where there are a lot of Spanish speaking children. He makes friends with Pepe, who’s dad is Bumblebee Man. He takes the kids to see some Lucha Libre. Bart gets the urge to jump in, and be El Barto. El Barto helps Bart not speak English, but he ends up speaking fluent Klingon.

This issue didn’t have the silly 1 page stories. However, the two stories we did get, felt meatier. There was a lot here. The contrast in the art direction between the two was a great touch as well. I think the stories were better than recent runs. That says something, because I have been getting more and more impressed by the issue. So, the bar has been raised. Keep it up.

Overall: 8.5/10