REVIEW: The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror: Omnibus #2
Closing in on October, boys and girls of all ages sit close to their tv screens to watch the much anticipated Halloween Spectacular. The Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror is a collection of short animations featuring our favorite cast of yellowed-skinned cartoons in thrilling, horrifying, and gruesome stories. This in many households is a tradition not unlike that of the carving of the pumpkin, however with the advent of streaming services, you no longer have to wait for Halloween to come. Now you can watch the Treehouse of Horrors all years long and be joyfully caressed by the sweet bony hands of the Grim Reaper. To make matters even better, Abrams Comicarts has put together a beautifully bound hardcover of 300+ pages of spooky comic stories for you to enjoy. This marks the second volume in the Treehouse of Horror Omnibus and features over 70 artists, writers, and inkers that together have created 57 horror-filled stories. This will be a different review from our usual one-issue reviews, as it would be too long if we sat down and reviewed each tale. Instead, we will focus on the general aspects of the book and perhaps touch upon two or three really cool stories that stood out for me.
This book comes in beautiful packaging. It comes inside a hard cardstock box with an hourglass cut out in the middle that reveals the cover of the actual book. The cover of the book features many of the characters of the Simpsons (created by Matt Groening) in ghostly form and is printed with UV ink which makes it glow in the dark when it sits inside its hourglass casing making for a really awesome effect of having the Simpsons family as ghost form trapped inside an hourglass. Which serves as a metaphor that tells us, just how timeless the Simpsons are. The inside of the book is printed in high-quality color glossy paper that makes the art appear incredibly vibrant and quite stunning to read through. Throughout the whole of the reading experience this book feels really though-out and even the inside section breaks are sprinkled with fun activities, fake advertising using the alien characters we know and love, Kang and Kodos, and extra bits of stories and novel-type writing in the voice of characters like Lisa Simpson, and Captain Horatio Mcallister, amongst many others. This feels like a true labor of love and the art and writing speak to that very well. It is no doubt that the collaborators in this book are all huge fans of the Simpsons because their stories all take into account the personalities, character designs, and voices of the characters whilst still managing to throw their own spin into it. The book is filled with many different art styles, and a plethora of easter eggs, from Ghostbusters to RatFink, from Halloween movies to EC Horror Comics, this is a wonder trove of fantastic horror entertainment. Some stories are darker and scarier than others but all of them manage to keep the spirit of the Treehouse of Horror series alive and well. It is a wonderful addition to any and all comics collection both for its beautiful bookbinding techniques and innovations as well as for the amazing art and storytelling.
Whilst I enjoyed all of the stories in this book, I am particularly a fan of three specific stories; “The Walking Ned”, “Chtulhu? Gesundheit!”, and “Murder He Wrote”. The Walking Ned is as you might have already guessed a reference to the Walking Dead series and features our favorite duo of neighbors Ned and Homer Simpson battling against each other and the hordes of the undead. Written by Max Davison, Penciled by Tone Rodrigues, Inks by Phyllis Novin, Coloring by Nathan Hamill, and Lettered by Karen Bates this wonderful story is awesome right from the start. It closes off the first section of the book ” The End of the World” and starts with an awesome full-page illustration of Homer and Ned standing back to back against the citizens of Springfield turned into Zombies. Duffman looks especially gnarly on this cover. In the story, we get many references to The Walking Dead from Homer wearing the classic Rick Grimes cowboy hat as well as some really awesome action panels of zombie slaying reminiscent of the gory show. The reason I liked this story so much is because I am a huge fan of The Walking Dead and I think this story does a great job to reference another piece of media whilst still being able to tell a whole new story with characters we all know. Without trying too hard they are able to create drama, excitement, and fear whilst still playing around with essentially doughy yellow blobs that are not realistic at all in terms of the theme of the story. There is a really awesome half-page illustration of Frank Grimes (from the Simpsons) jumping out of his grave and craving at Homer that just looks awesome and even though Homer looks as dopey and goofy as always it still manages to transmit genuine fear onto us readers. For that and more this is one of my top three stories in the Omnibus.
Next, we have “Cthulhu? Gesundheit!”Written by Lein Wein, Art by Dan Brereton, and Lettering by Karen Bates. This is an awesome story unlike many of the others ones in the book. It is all about Lovecraftian horror and has a very creepy painterly art style that looks intense and insane in contrast to the simple character designs of the Simpson’s cast. It follows the story of Bart and Millhouse being thrown into detention for their shenanigans and as punishment, they must clean and organize a very old wing of the school library that has been closed down. Inside the library, they find the mystical book of Lovecraftian horror, the Necronomicon, and inside its pages they find the magic words to invoke the elder horror Cthulhu. Such power should never fall upon the spiked hair menace we know as Bart Simpson and yet using Cthulhu’s power Bart wreaks havoc on Springfield. First, he takes care of his school bullies Jimbo, Dolph, and Kearney by having Cthulhu drag them down the sewer and then he disposes of Principal Skinner by having Cthulhu eat him. This in turn makes Cthulhu go crazy and he begins to devour the rest of the town, of course all but Ned who tastes a little too holly for our tentacle-faced friend. The story ends with a twist that not even M. Night Shyamalan would see coming, and I have to give huge props to the artist because they managed to hide the twist literally right up to the last page in a very innovative compositional way. This story in particular is probably my favorite in the whole book and for that, it sits on the Top Three for me.
Lastly, we must talk about “Murder He Wrote”. Written by Ian Boothby, Penciled by Nina Matsumoto, inked by Andrew Pepoy, and Lettered by Karen Bates. This story is all about Bart finding the “Death Note” from the equally named anime and manga and basically killing anyone and everyone he hates in Springfield. This is probably one of the most gruesome stories and it features some panels that are very reminiscent of art by horror manga artist Junjo Ito. It is drawn purely in black and white and uses anime techniques and turns all the character designs into anime equivalents, and I just think it’s awesome. It’s creepy, it’s dark, it’s stylish and it features Krusty as the demon Ryuk and it’s fantastic. I really think the character designs in this story elevate the art of the Simpsons to all new heights because it not only turns them into more realistic (albeit stylistic) versions of themselves but they all still are as recognizable as they have ever been. From sideshow Bob to the newscaster Kent Brockman, Lisa, Marge, Homer all the way to Chief Wiggum they all look very cool and incredibly recognizable even in such a different style. The writing in this story is also really cool and the pacing is fantastic, huge props too for the lettering by Karen Bates who brings a masterful technique to both word balloons and sound fxs throughout the story. A masterpiece all on its own.
All in all this Omnibus is a must-have and a must-read for anyone that enjoys comics or enjoys the Simpsons. I personally don’t think you have to be a big fan of the Simpsons to enjoy this book, because even though they are using the Simpsons characters to populate the stories, the wide arrange of art styles and storytelling techniques are so entertaining that there is a huge chance that you will enjoy at least 30 of the stories in this book. I doubt at this point anyone doesn’t know how the Simpsons are but in the case that they don’t this is still going to be a very enjoyable book to read. I am blessed to have received this book to review and I am truly grateful that whilst reading it, I had nothing but fond memories of sitting in my family’s living room watching the animated tv show throughout my life. This is one of those books that you will definitely pass down to your children and it’s also a great book to read to them during those spooky Halloween nights. I myself do not have kids but I can see a proud mom or dad introducing their kids to the wonderful world of comics through reading this book one story at a time during the month of October, it’s just one of those books that is a staple of any collection and will no doubt create core memories for many people this year. A true delight. Oh, and it also features stories written by some really cool people like Gene Simmons who gave the plot for one of the comics, Brian Posehn who wrote one of the coolest stories in this book and Jim Valentino of Guardians of the Galaxy fame and co-founder of Image Comics.
Writing: 5 Stars
Art: 5 Stars
Colors: 5 Stars
Overall: 5 Stars
Written by; James W. Bates, Ian Boothby, Max Davison, Kyle Baker, Chuck Dixon, Gerry Duggan, Glenn Fabry, Pia Guerra, Sammy Harkham, John Kerschbaum, Peter Kuper, Carol Lay, Ted May, Jesse Leon McCann, Gary Spenser Millidge, Terry Moore, Steve Niles, Troy Nixey, Brian Posehn, Dean Rankine, James Robinson, Scott Shaw!, Gene Simmons, Will Sweeney, Matthew Thurber, Jim Valentino, Jon Vermilyea, Len Wein, Shannon Wheeler, Jane Wiedlin, & Jim Woodring
Art by; Max Badger, Hilary Barta, Dan Brereton, John Delaney, Tom Hodges, Kevin Huizenga, James Lloyd, Nina Matsumoto, Bill Morrison, Phil Ortiz, Tone Rodriguez, Chris Roman, John Adam, Norm Auble, Bryan Francis, Christianna Lang, Abel Laxamana, William Mahoney, Istvan Mojoros, Scott McRae, Kevin M. Newman, Joey Nilges, Robert Oliver, Ryan Rivette, Aaron Rozenfeld, Horacio Sandoval, & Alberto Santiago
Inking by; Terry Austin, Tim Bavington, Phyllis Novin, Andrew Pepoy, & Mike Rote.
Coloring by; Nathan Hamill, Joey Mason, Rick Reese, Robert Stanley, Dave Stewart, Cristopher Ungar, & Art Villanueva
Lettering by; Karen Bates, & Mike Sakamoto
Cover art by; Jason Ho, Mike Rote & Karen Bates
Published by; Abrams ComicArts
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