Simpsons Comics: Dollars to Donuts
There’s a mix of good and bad in this selection of Simpsons comics, though the good outweighs the bad because the best stories are the longer ones that were originally published as anchors to individual issues.
So, for example, the first story is 27 pages long and it follows a $5 bill through various adventures around the town of Springfield as it passes through several hands. There are giant, radioactive hamsters at the nuclear plant and a revolutionary group plotting in an ice cream shop and everything loops around with Professor Frink traveling back in time to stop the assassination of President Lincoln. It was a lot of fun. But then it’s followed by a 4-page quickie about an award ceremony for local anchorman Kent Brockman that was just a brick. Next up is another entertaining portmanteau effort that is 27 pages with Homer sitting around the Employment Office swapping hard-luck stories with other job seekers like Sideshow Mel, Groundskeeper Willie, and Police Chief Wiggum. Then another 4-page dud about Homer trying to make money as a panhandler.
To give credit where it’s due, most of the longer stories are written by Ian Boothby. He’s worth whatever Matt Groening is paying him. Or maybe more. As I’ve wondered before, I don’t know why Groening is on the masthead on every comic here. Is he even executing any kind of editorial function? The job titles he’s given (“The Great Anticipator,” “Beloved Employer,” “Bad Apple”) are all gags. I figure it’s just a legal requirement that he be named.
So overall a good time, even as there is a leitmotif of failure running through the stories selected. I already mentioned the line-up at the Employment Office, a bunch of losers who are only saved by Mayor Quimby rehiring all of them on a “Gross Incompetence Amnesty Day.” Then Old Gil, the perennially down-on-his-luck salesman, shows up several times, always falling on his face and begging for a break. Mr. Burns loses his power plant and is left lying around Smithers’ house all day eating junk food while Smithers tries (unsuccessfully) to find a job that will support the two of them. Superintendent Chalmers loses his job, again temporarily, and Homer becomes principal at the Springfield High, where he starts a group called Junior Underachievers that brings in people “to talk about how they screwed up their lives.” Speakers include Krusty, Dr. Nick, and Old Gil.
Like everything about the Simpsons though we mostly laugh with these guys, not at them. Failure is part of the human comedy.
