Somebody’s First Comic Book: Futurama Comics #54

Wondering what Somebody’s First Comic Book is all about? The explanation is on this page!

TITLE: How Much is That Mutant In the Window?

CREDITS:
Writer: Eric Rogers
Penciller: James Lloyd
Inker: Andrew Pepoy
Colors: Alan Hellard
Letters: Karen Bates
Editor: Bill Morrison
Publisher: Bongo Comics

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE: Wasn’t Futurama that science fiction version of the Simpsons from, like, ten years ago?

IMPRESSIONS: I guess it’s something like that, anyway. We start off with a dude named Fry, a robot named Bender, a one-eyed chick called Leela and a little monster-thing called Nibbler, visiting a planet where people are playing with all of their weird alien pets. Leela, who apparently is the one in this group with the brain, is kidnapped, and the others have their spaceship towed back to Earth, where they find themselves completely unable to take care of Nibbler. As it turns out, though, Nibbler is evidently super-intelligent, something that he says he’s revealed to Fry and Bender before, but he always erases the knowledge from their memory. As it turns out, Leela has been put in a pet shop for giant aliens, and Nibbler leads them on a rescue mission.

The story is pretty funny, but I definitely got the impression that I was being left out of the joke. There were a ton of comments and references that I think probably will make sense to people who watched the TV show or read the comic book before, but they went right past me. We don’t get to know the characters that well either. They come off much more as stereotypes, intended as a method to deliver jokes instead of telling a really in-depth story.

There’s also a back-up story…

TITLE: Rank Call!

CREDITS:
Writer: Eric Rogers
Penciller: Mike Kazaleh
Inker: Phyllis Novin
Colors: Nathan Hamill
Letters: Karen Bates
Editor: Bill Morrison

IMPRESSIONS: In “Rank Call” we meet an imbecilic space captain named Brannigan and his milquetoast assistant Kif. Kif saves the day during an invasion, gets promoted to captain, and is given a crew that’s equally wimpy. It’s funny enough, but like the main story, it doesn’t really give me a feeling for who these characters are or why I should care about them.

GRADE: C

Comic Book Guy:The Comic Book #5

February 20, 2011

Title: The Death of Comic Book Guy Part Five
Writer: Ian Boothby
Pencils: John Delaney
Inks: Dan Davis
Colorist: Nathan Hamil
Letterer: Karen Bates
Editor: Bill Morrison
Publisher: Bongo Comics

Let’s recap: Comic Book Guy is dead, Marge owns the comic shop, and the terrible reign of the Graphic Novel Kid has continued unabated… y’know, until he died too. Obviously, we know the CBG isn’t going to be dead by the end of this miniseries (of which this is the final issue), so I don’t think it counts as a spoiler to say that most of this comic book is concerned with unraveling the truly twisted array of plot threads, mistaken assumptions, and false identities that have built up over the previous five issues. In fact, that’s where the weakness of this issue lies. Almost the entire issue is one big wink at the camera, allowing Ian Boothby to painstakingly dissect the various ways in which the script misled and tricked us for four issues. It’s the sort of thing that’s fine as a climactic scene of a storyline, but to devote an entire issue to such a scene is massive overkill. It basically indicates that the first four issues were way too convoluted in the first place. There are still some nice jokes, gags, and Easter Eggs, the sort of thing that Simpsons fans will enjoy and comic book nerds (like myself) will find entertaining, but in the end, it feels like a long way to go to get there.

Rating: 6/10

Simpsons Winter Wingding #1

December 1, 2006

Quick Rating: Very Good
Title: Springfield’s Letters to Santa and other stories

A holiday-packed anthology of Simpsons goodness.

Writers: Paul Dini, Tony Digerolamo, Sarah Dyer, Evan Dorkin, Eric Rogers
Pencils: Phil Ortiz, Jason Ho, Joey Nilges, John Costanza
Inks: Mike DeCarlo, Jason Ho, Andrew Pepoy, Phillis Novin
Colors: Nathan Hamill, Chris Ungar, Nathan Kane, Art Villanueva
Letters: Karen Bates
Editor: Bill Morrison
Cover Art: J. Rote & Serban
Publisher: Bongo Comics

Picking up on the format of the popular Treehouse of Horror specials, the good folks at Bongo comics give us this first anthology of holiday tales from the world of The Simpsons – and for the most part, they’re pretty darn good.

Paul Dini gives us the first story, “Springfield’s Letters to Santa.” As Santa Claus goes through the mail from the worst town on Earth, he makes a drastic claim. This story is a lot of fun – in addition to the peeks into the desires of Springfield’s varied residents, Dini manages to work in several in-jokes. There’s an appearance by a character Futurama fans will no doubt find familiar, and although she’s never mentioned by name, Dini’s own Jingle Belle character plays a nice role in the beginning of the story.

Tony Digerolamo and Jason Ho come in next with an “Angry Dad” strip, based on the episode of the TV show where Bart became a webtoon mogul. This is basically an extended series of gags about Homer making a fool of himself in the winter, and for what it is, it works fine.

Digerolamo and Ho come back for “Hot Cider in the City.” When Bart discovers that Christmas Carolers often get free goodies from the people they sing to, he conjures up a scheme to milk Ned Flanders for all he’s worth. Lisa, as always, is the voice of reason, and although Bart doesn’t really learn a lesson, it’s still a fun story. Digerolamo and Joey Nilges come in next with “Homer’s New Year’s Resolutions,” another short story in which Marge goes through Homer’s past failures at bettering himself, and we see the results of yet another attempt.

Writers Sarah Dyer and Evan Dorkin, with John Costanza’s pencils, bring us “The Gift of the Maccabees,” with Krusty the Clown. On the “All-Singing, All-Dancing, All Shvitzing Krusty Hanukkah Special,” Krusty relates the sad story of a lost love, and how boneheaded gifts on each of the eight nights of Hanukkah led to his heartbreak. This is a twist on the old O. Henry story, but one of the most original twists I’ve yet seen.

The issue wraps with “Snow Falling on Cheaters,” in which a mysterious someone is stealing snowmen from all over town just hours before the town’s big Snowman Competition, and it’s up to Chief Wiggum and his mend to find the perpetrator. Wiggum and company, of course, aren’t the most adept police force in the world, and so it’s kind of a shock when one of their schemes actually works. Sorta.

Overall, this is a fun comic and a nice addition to the Bongo line.

Rating: 8/10

Comic Book Guy: The Comic Book #1

September 6, 2010

Title: The Death of Comic Book Guy Part One

Writer: Ian Boothby
Pencils: John Delaney
Inks: Dan Davis
Colorist: Nathan Hamill
Letterer: Karen Bates
Cover: Bill Morrison
Editor: Bill Morrison
Publisher: Bongo Comics

Springfield’s most disturbingly on-the-nose loser finally gets his own miniseries. The Comic Book Guy enters into a competition with the mysterious Graphic Novel Kid to become the new advertising mascot Lard Lad. The competition turns out to have much farther implications than just the chance to wear an ugly costume and carry a comically oversized donut, though – it’s a matter of life and death.

This story, like most of the Bongo Comics line, is pretty silly, but that works in its favor for the most part. Comic Book Guy is a parody of the worst aspects of being a geek, so while a lot of the readership (let’s face it) can recognize some facets of themselves in his behavior, we also get the catharsis of seeing those more destructive elements serve as his comeuppance. The ending is cute, but a bit of an anticlimax, since we know that in a comic like this one Status Quo is God, and by the end the seemingly irrevocable change will be somehow revoked.

Boothby and Delaney do have some fun with the Easter Eggs this issue, throwing in lots of gags about the greatest sci-fi and comic book death scenes, a fantastic double-page spread full of nerdtastic artifacts, and other amusing or entertaining nuggets throughout the issue. It’s fun to look at, and makes it a bit more fun to read, even if it doesn’t really give the book any added weight.

But then, nobody reading this comic book came in looking for Shakespeare either. Heck, they didn’t even come in looking for Stan Lee. They were looking for something goofy and geeky, and that’s what we got.

Rating: 7/10