Saturday, October 16, 2010

PJ's Halloween 2k10 - Heebie-Jeebie-Hullabaloo

Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror
Heebie-Jeebie Hullabaloo

The Treehouse of Horror started in a Simpsons episode dedicated to Halloween. Homer went to check on the Simpson kids who were up in their treehouse. Once he made his way up to there, he discovered they were peacefully coming along, telling each other ghost stories.  Later on, the episodes moved out of the treehouse and in to other places, eventually even dropping the storytelling mechanic. All the while it still retained the Treehouse of Horror name.

Matt Groening’s Bongo Comic’s Group began to release comic books based on the happy family, meaning that they too received a Treehouse of Horrors comic every Halloween. Once the Bart Simpson comics started to roll along, he too received a ToH which was then, as usual, bundled. Three issues were bundled in to one and thus came the first Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror bundle entitled: Heebie-Jeebie Hullabaloo.

Photobucket

The three issues that were bundled were the one from 1995, 1996 and 1997. Like with the TV show, each issue contained three stories that were non-cannon so that the writers could pretty much do whatever the fuck they wanted. Well, at first anyways because only the first issue had three stories.

Issue 1: Little Shop of Homer’s

Homer becomes the proud owner of a plant that bears an uncanny resemblance to him. It’s a parody of the Little Shop of Horrors and it does it fairly well. Personally, I liked this one, but it could have been done a whole lot better.

Issue 1: Call me Homer
Basically this is a retelling of the story of Ishmael and Homer’s “ancestor” takes up the role of the captain. Whilst it is a good enough parody of Moby Dick, I still wanted it to be over so that I could move on to the next story.

At this point I’m starting to wonder if Bart is even a main character in this Bart Simpson comic.

Issue 1: Bart People

Bart becomes cursed so that he transforms in to a black panther. Now this one was a good story. Not as good as Little Shop of Homer’s, but it was passable none the less.

Issue 2: Sideshow Blob

An obvious homage to The Blob, Sideshow Bob is transformed in to this humongous all devouring blob that is after Bart Simpson. It was good enough to keep me interested but by now I was really longing for this comic to end so that I could do better things than to read this.

Issue 2: The Exorsister

Lisa get’s possessed by the ghost of Madonna. Yeah … Based on The Exorcist and all that junk. MOVING ON.

Issue 3: The Immigration of the Body Snatchers

OH MY GOD, YES! A good comic once again! For crying out loud, this is becoming ridiculous. This is an obvious homage to The Invasion of the Body Snatchers where the people of Springfield are slowly being replaced by Pod People.

Issue 3: Fatal Reception

Halloween has come and Homer is experiencing hallucinations (OR ARE THEY?!) of his favorite things in the world being tortured in some way from his television. Average at best and by now I was glad this bundle was over.

Besides these stories, the bundle also came packed with these idiotic fillers that were two to five pages or so of the writers trying to be funny. I tried reading them like I meant it but I couldn’t help but skim passed these in fear of being extremely and utterly bored.

Whilst in the show, the Episodes are either good or bland, these comics tend to go from either good or really boring. Bland I can work with. Just because something is bland, doesn’t mean it’s not good. But boring is something you absolutely have to avoid. Besides this, some of these comics are just plain uninteresting to read and you want to skip them.

Like with the rest of the The Simpson’s comics, the art is very well done and I honestly don’t have anything to complain in that department.

It looks like the Simpsons and it is The Simpsons. Problem is, this is Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horrors and he is barely in it.

This bundle is certainly not worth your effort. Go out and buy one of the earlier seasons of The Simpsons and enjoy that Treehouse of Horrors. Skip this.

No comments:

Post a Comment