Comic Review: Chief Wiggum’s Felonious Funnies #1

Chief Wiggum goes all Ready Player One in his first solo comic book.

Overview:

Springfield’s resident police chief becomes Future Cop in a dream filled with every sci-fi reference you could imagine.  Then, Wiggum shows his son’s class how great being a police officer is during career day.  Finally, the chief makes friends with the most unlikely of characters, Snake.  However, Snake may be using his new cop-buddy and have a much more devious plan than anticipated.

Our Take:

Chief Wiggum’s first solo comic book is a digital exclusive only available on the Simpsons Store app.  Despite not having the same appeal as other Simpsons titles like Treehouse of Horrors or Bartman, it may still be worth picking up.  The first issue is divided into three stories each featuring everyone’s favourite pig-faced cartoon officer.  While I was hoping for a return of Wiggum P.I.- the buddy cop drama with Seymour Skinner from the Simpsons Spinoff Showcase back in season eight- it may still be in the cards for a future comic, and I did not miss it.

The first story, Future Cop, was an epic way to kick off the series.  It is hard not to compare the story to the hit novel and upcoming film, Ready Player One.  The 12-page plot may even be a contender of the Ernest Cline novel for fitting in the most pop culture references in one story.  I am not even going to try and count how many sci-fi films made an appearance in the comic, but it includes everything from Alf to Power Rangers to The Fifth Element, just to name a few.  Needless to say, I loved it- any nerd would love picking out all of the background characters squeezed into these panels.

Career Day, was a quick two-page piece but has much of the same humour we have come to love from Simpsons comics.  Chief Wiggum’s presentation at his son’s career day goes pretty much as bad as you would expect it would.

In the final story, The Oddest Couple, Wiggum makes a connection with Springfield’s most wanted criminal, Snake.  It makes sense that the unintelligent cop would be easily susceptible to Snake’s charm, however, the plot is predictable and unimaginative.  I did enjoy the full-circle humour incorporated from front to back, but it’s not the best Simpsons Comic I’ve read- that honour may belong to the first story in this issue.

So far, in the first release day, Chief Wiggum’s Felonious Funnies has a perfect rating among readers.  Within the first few pages, it is easy to see why.  Unfortunately, the rest of the issue struggles in the shadow of the introductory story, which if extended to fill the full comic would have won a perfect score from me.

Score

8.5/10