Welcome to the Bongo Comics Box! Today’s feature: Simpsons Comics #2! We’re really rolling on these fast, aren’t we, ladies and gentlemen? Like, one every six fucking months. I’ll finish these completely when I’m 170 years old.
Bongo Nostalgia Corner
A rare issue! One of the only classic pre-Issue #50 Simpsons Comics that I didn’t own until much later simply because I never could find it. I chased it down while I was in college, I believe, along with the two or three others I didn’t have either. The copy I got was in what I would call moderate condition, and I probably only read it twice.
Ergo, I’m going in this one half-blind and I’ll probably hate it purely because I don’t have any rose-tinted nostalgia goggles for it. Let’s get it over with quick before I change my mind on the whole Bongo Comics project altogether!
Simpsons Comics, Issue #2 [January, 1994]
Written by: Steve Vance
“Cool Hand Bart”
The cover, on the other hand, I know very well. Blue bricks, scared Bart, a Sideshow Bob shadow. Certainly, this is going to be another adventure with everyone’s favorite Kelsey Grammer-voiced murderer! Or, rather, attempted murderer. The only thing Sideshow Bob ever murdered was our sides! BECAUSE HE SPLIT THEM! Hee hee hee!!
We think Bart’s getting chased off-panel by the vengeful Krusty sidekick, but it’s Principal “I Am a Weiner” Skinner chasing Bart down the halls of the school after defacing the beloved school puma statue with the spraypainted words “Puky Puma sez Skinner is a weiner”.
Bart decides to try laying low in the cafeteria where Groundskeeper Willie is vacuuming up a drum of radioactive freeze-dried gruel. “She’ll get rid o’ more toxic waste afore breakfast than any lead-britches-wearin’ bunch o’ mama’s boys can flush down the sewer in a fortnight!”
So, certainly, Skinner barrels right into Groundskeeper Willie’s vet-dry vac and gets himself tangled up and hanging from an overhead fluorescent light. The end of the vacuum sucks on Skinner’s hair, and Bart is astute enough to point out that Skinner in fact does not wear a toupee. Unlike that space nerd William Shatner!
Skinner gets himself down and grabs Bart by the scruff. A simple detention won’t do it this time, oh no. Perhaps a ritual caning on Bart’s supple buttocks is in order! Barring that… uh, well, he doesn’t really know you. Also, Milhouse has detention too for being an accomplice and looking like a geek. “Let this be a lesson to you, young man – we’re judged by the company we keep,” Skinner says walking away. “Besides, arbitrary punishment is a prerogitave of power.”
Agnes Skinner, famously a fountain of good information.
Skinner regroups in his office and gets out the ol’ glue. During a small pow-wow, Willie inadvertently gives him an idea. Skinner’s eyes point in different directions, the universal illustration for maniacal ideas. “Make room in the trophy case – the award is in the bag! I’m sending those boys to… SCARED SPITLESS.”
And lo’ it shall be done. Bart, Milhouse, Nelson, Jimbo, Dolph, and Kearney are bussed over to Springfield State Prison the next morning! DON’T DROP THE SOAP! AHAHAHAHA!!! “You’re here to participate in the toughest anti-delinquency program known to man! It’s called Scared Spitless!” Skinner smiles.
In charge of Shitted Shitless will be Chief Clancy Wiggum, coming in at a respectable 304 pounds! “We have a saying in law-enforcement, boys: ‘a frightened citizen is a law-abiding citizen.'” This fucking cop is eating a fucking donut. Typical. Bart imagines himself in a standoff with the police: “You’ll never take me alive, coppers! I’ve seen the inside of a cell – I’d rather die than do time!”
“Wow!” Bart jubilates. Bart has a bright future ahead of him if he has anything to do with it! What do we think his crime was? Passion? Dismembering children? Embezzling money from GE Electric?
Wiggum sits all the kids in chairs and presents them with Snake, their guest speaker for the day. He’s going to provide all the no-poppycock ins and outs of life in the slammer! “C’mon, Seymour, let’s hit the guards’ lounge before all the crullers are gone!”
Yeah, uh, is this a post-Futurama FOX?
Snake provides an enriching learning experience. “…and another thing – if you’re stealing a getaway car, be sure it has gas in the tank.” He’s just about to explain how he stole a spoon from the cafeteria to make his tattoos when Chief Wiggum returns for the next phase of the Shitted Shitless program: getting locked the fuck up. “Take ‘em away, boys!”
Two boys to a cell. We see Nelson and Kearney beating up their cellmate. We see Jimbo and Dolph gambling with theirs. Bart and Milhouse appear to be alone in theirs…
KZZZZZZIIIIKKK! The power in the prison goes out. “Whoa! Somebody must be getting the chair right now!” Jimbo says in awe.
Wiggum overloaded the circuit with his coffee pot. BUT, this provides an opportune time for Bart and Milhouse to sneak around the cell to get a handle for their cellmate. Springfield Review of Books Magazine. Ed’s Really Big Shoe catalog. Shakespeare sonnets. A dart board with Krusty the Clown’s face on it…
A list on the wall:
THINGS TO DO:
1. Kill Bart Simpson
2. Hire New Attorney
“Eep!” Bart swallows while the shadow of his palm-tree-haired nemesis approaches the cell.
And if you haven’t guessed who it is yet, it’s Fran Drescher.
Bart and Milhouse attempt to escape through the barred window. “Hurry, Bart!” Milhouse goads. “He hates you for sending him to jail all those times. If he catches you, he’ll kill you!”
Thank you, Exposition Dialogue Vehicle.
Not even Simpsons Comics, Issue #2 which guest stars a devilishly handsome prison inmate??
Bart is able to scramble into a van that’s heading out of the prison… to a work farm… where Sideshow Bob is also heading… and, like, oh no, man, that’s not cool news.
There are a lot of Cool Hand Luke references from this point forward that I bet was just totally dope with the kids back in 1994. I’m going to ignore them.
“Looks like we got an extry man here, boss!” yells a guard as he grabs Bart by the scruff.
“Reckon this one makes up fer the feller we lost in Festerin’ Swamp yesterday,” says Mr. Boss. They add Bart to the chaingang right next to…
EEP!
SIDESHOW…
EEP!
BOB.
“Hello, Bart,” he says icily while Bart poops his shorts.
So they get to work. The chaingang sings with awful grammar, which causes Kelsey “Grammar Spelled Wrong” Grammer to complain about the grammar. And, in a fantastic plot hole, Sideshow Bob runs to a dump truck with Bart still chained to his leg and steals it. The guards don’t stop him. And they get away.
At one point, they hop on a train. It doesn’t go well for one of them.
Now that’s what I call a TRAIN OF THOUGHT! Loll loll loolll
“This just in,” Kent Brockman blares over the TV. “Celebrity convict Sideshow Bob escaped from the Springfield Maximum Security Work Camp just minutes ago, along with an unidentified accomplice.”
Homer is eating pork rinds. He’s all like “woo hoo d’oh”. Let’s move on.
Sideshow Bob continues to try killing Bart in broad daylight, but ol’ Smart Bart wisely tells him that he’ll be dragging Bart’s dead weight all over town. And he’ll be caught for sure. Bob thinks about this and agrees that it a sound reason to keep the boy alive. For now!
The police are seen blaring down the road, so Sideshow Bob, with Bart in tow, starts hoofing it to the swamp. “It’s full of hideous dangers, but perhaps we can lose them there!”
So they make it through the hideous dangers and lose the cops there. On the other side is a street with a hardware store: “ANNUAL HACKSAW SALE!” What luck. Maybe they can get a few hacksaws for fun, and, oh yeah, they can cut off the chain too while they’re at it I guess.
Since the police are chilling out in front of the hardware store, Bob grimaces at his misfortune and decides to try to OUTSMART THE COPS. But how can he do that when Springfield has the most cunning cops in the tri-state area?? I’m askin’!
Bart and Bob round the corner to an alley and ditch their work shirts in the dumpster. Bob finds a hat and celebrates his serendipitous chance to hide his wild hair, but he does his classic Sideshow Bob shudder when he sees that it declares one’s love for Krusty the Klown. Certainly embarrassing to say both the least and the most.
Sideshow Bob’s lucky. Usually you need about 400 Pepsi Points to get that hat.
While Bob shops for the perfect hacksaw, Wiggum and Lou enter the store. “I need to borrow one of those thingies to open a car door. We locked our keys in the patrol car, and that siren’ll run down the battery if we don’t hurry,” Wiggum mumbles. The 14-year-old pimple-face behind the counter says that the owner will have to charge them if it happens the fourth time this week.
Wiggum confronts Bob and tells him… that… there’s an escaped convict on the loose, so watch yourself. OK, sir, thank you. Suddenly, Bob’s cover is blown, or sucked rather, when Bart takes a wet/dry vac and sucks that hat right off of Bob’s noggin! Looks like Springfield is safe once again!
“Nice work, kid!” says Wiggum. “I heard about that little mix-up that got you stuck on the chain gang, and, on the advice of the department’s lawyers, I’d like to offer a sincere apology.”
Bart is grand enough to accept the apology, and now we can all go home knowing that everything is back the way it should be!
Except that Milhouse is still in jail! Ha! The end.
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