Comic Review: The Simpsons Summer Shindig #9

Spoilers Below:

This was an odd issue to analyze (of course, because it’s my first Simpsons comics review). There were four stories, and their quality was all across the board. Let’s start by breaking down each segment.

“Pie Man Meets the Pi Man”

Borrowing Homer’s Pie Man superhero persona from season 15’s “Simple Simpson,” this story found Homer fighting to clear his name after a similarly-named villain started wreaking havoc around town with math-based robberies. It was a pleasant surprise to see the “Mathamagician” from season 8’s “Grade School Confidential,” and writer Ian Boothby did a wonderful job of adapting such a small character into a star supervillain. Boothby also nailed the tone of most of the regular Simpsons characters, which made for a much more enjoyable read. My only gripe is that some of the bolding ruined a couple jokes, as it felt like a few subtle dialogue gags ended up being spoon-fed to the reader, when it was completely unnecessary. However, the best lines still came from this story.

“Stretch Bob and Sideshow Clobber”

I was a bit apprehensive about seeing Sideshow Bob sans the Kelsey Grammar voice, since so much of the character’s character comes from the actor. However, this was by far the strongest segment of Issue #9, as well as the funniest. It involved Bob receiving a large dose of radiation courtesy of Dr. Nick, causing the ex-clown to split into two super-villains that mimicked the powers of Bart & Lisa’s “Stretch Dude and Clobber Girl” from Treehouse of Horror X. In addition to some great jokes from the main players (especially Sideshow Bob and his gripes) there was also a hilarious non-sequitur cameo from Groundskeeper Willie (“Giant roaches? Yeah, I’m gonna have to write this up,”) and a reference to the Simpsons’ “Tapped Out” video game. Ian Boothby did it again!

“Biclops vs. The Diplopian Duo”

It’s no secret that I love Milhouse. LOVE him. Which makes it even harder for me to say that this story was an absolute mess. Not only was the animation oddly cheap-looking (the other three segments were fine in this regard) but so was the writing. It was super corny, and made it appear almost as if the writer had never watched a Simpsons episode before. Or maybe just a couple. At one point, Nelson dissed Milhouse in front of Lisa by saying, “Go study math or something,” and Milhouse called after Lisa, telling her, “If you ever need a test to cheat off of, call me!” Not only is Lisa the smartest kid in school, Milhouse is notoriously dumb, so this doesn’t even make sense. Even from a joke standpoint. There’s also a scene featuring “zombie jocks” that just look like regular jocks, with no zombie characteristics whatsoever, and an obvious typo when Double Vision shouted, “No so fast!” Really, guys? A story about a superhero Milhouse wasn’t nearly enough to save this dud.

“One Gigantic Mess”

Despite the title, this one wasn’t a complete disaster – just completely flat. There was a lot of explanatory dialogue (like you’d find in a regular, non-comedic comic book) and only a few lame attempts at jokes. It wasn’t quite as awful as the previous segment, but it wasn’t good by any stretch of the imagination. The story involved Bart and Lisa battling a Comic Book Guy monster, with some help from Professor Frink, and the only highlights were an appearance by Señor Ding Dong (remember him from season 10’s “Maximum Homerdrive”?) and a nice breaking of the fourth wall on the last page (“I learned that adults shouldn’t read comic books! Nothing good can come of it!”) Still, it was nothing to write home about.

Best Bits:

1) Kent Brockman: “We interrupt this terrible program to bring you breaking news!”

2) A disguised Smithers as a contestant on Mr. Burns’ Billionaire Bachelor.

3) Bart to Homer: “We’re going because of the burgers, right?”

4) Krusty’s strict rules on outside food.

5) “Those Bongo Comics folks’ll publish anything they don’t have to pay the rights for!”

6) The Walking Ned.

So, what to do about two strong segments and two week ones? I hate to penalize the quality ones for the sins of the stinkers, but the only fair approach appears to be an averaging of all the scores. I have them at 8, 9, 5, and 6, respectively – leading to an average that is, well, average. Buy Simpsons Summer Shindig #9 for the first two stories, read the last one, but (and again, this pains me to say it) skip the Milhouse bit.