Welcome to the Bongo Comics Box! Today’s feature: Bartman #1! The first issue of another Bongo series in the early days when the creative team was actually ambitious! Then, eventually, they would just abandon most of these projects after a handful of issues!

It’s a shame, though, because other than the main Simpsons Comics line, this was my favorite. Itchy & Scratchy Comics were lame, and Radioactive Man, while pretty fun and hilarious, made me a little antsy with the lack of actual Simpsons characters.

Bartman was the best of two worlds: the Simpsons universe combined with superhero stories. Outlandish, yes, but that’s the fucking point! Get over yourself

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Bongo Nostalgia Corner

It took me a long time to actually find this issue proper in a store, but I had read the story in the trade paperback that covered the first two Bartman issues and then the mini-crossover event between Itchy & Scratchy #3, Simpsons #5, and Bartman #3 (which was awesome).

When I found this particular issue in a shop, I was blown away by the glossy sheen of the silver ink vat on the cover. It was all shiny! I didn’t know they could do that! Oh wow, my little eight-year-old balls were blown!

Gross. Let’s read the issue.

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Bartman, Issue #1 [December, 1993]
Written by: Steve Vance
“The Comic Cover Caper!”

Steve Vance got a lot of good stories in at the beginning. I wonder if Matt Groening bothered to write even one sentence of dialogue for any character. Like, he probably spelled “d’oh” wrong and they told him to go back to his mansion.

“NOOOO!!” Bart screams, very obviously upset. We don’t see what he’s upset about yet. Gotta turn the page!

Bart got another F on a school paper. That doesn’t sound like something Bart would care one hill of beans about! Nonetheless, an F it is and Bart is in agony over it. “Your little story about Radioactive Man was not what I had in mind when I asked the class to write about ‘our friend, nuclear energy’,” Ms. Krabappel rebukes, arms crossed, looking like decades of teaching has once again taken its toll farther than whatever toll limit she thinks she has.

Bart tries to plead his case, but Krabappel will not hear Word Two! Even if it means summer school, which nobody wants! But Krabappel is crammed with integrity, jaded as she might be, so summer school it is.

Later on the bus, Bart projects this sadness toward his favorite stoned adult friend, Otto. “Summer school? Oh yeah! I forgot I’m s’posed to drive the school bus this summer!” Otto smiles. “Good thing you said something – I was gonna take off and drive a bus for the Hurling Pinecones on the Pastafazoola Tour!”

Imagine wasting a great pun like “Pastafazoola” on an issue of a Comic Book no one read but me and maybe your older brother’s weird friend. Sad.

Of course, at home, Lisa cannot fathom why Bart would be so upset about an extra couple months of taxpayer-funded public education! Knowing Lisa, she’d jump at the opportunity to be rewarded by ruining a summer with extra math homework and Civil War-related term papers.

Nah, this version of Lisa doesn’t want any of that learning business. “Me? Give up my summer? Just because I’m smart doesn’t mean I’m crazy.”

Nevertheless, Bart’s mood is picked up a little by Lisa’s advice to just lean into it and make the most of it. That doesn’t make Lisa’s morning trip to Mt. Splashmore any more devastating to the spiky-haired one on the very first day of summer school. Marge tells her son to get the fuck over it and actually learn something from this whole shenanigans-based ordeal! “Mom, it’s bad enough that I have to waste precious days of my youth in summer school,” he complains. “Don’t make it worse by asking me to actually learn something.”

YOU LITTLE HELLION! lol out loud! Does your tendency to be a wisenheimer smart-aleck know no bounds?! I hope you don’t plan on bringing that attitude to school, young man! You’ll have to go to winter school next!

Hey, look at that, Milhouse is going too! Bart cozies up next to him on the bus. Milhouse passed fourth grade, but his mother doesn’t want him stinking up the house all summer. I’m inclined to side with her on this one. “She says having me around the house all summer makes her plants die.”

Jimbo, Dolph, and Kearney, three students who almost certainly couldn’t have passed even if they cheated, mock Bart and Milhouse as they ride by on the bus. “Ha ha! We got summer jobs, man! We’re almost making minimum wage! Have fun in class, babies!”

Look who else is fucking here at school. Martin Prince, the only nerd even nerdier than nerdy Lisa, is excited to spend his summer voluntarily blowjobbing education. Bart and Milhouse crack him across the mug and continue into the school. Wendell is there too. He looks dizzy.

Krabappel certainly isn’t interested in being there either, but she’s got to earn her $31,000 a year somehow. The classroom has eight kids in it, including Nelson Muntz and then Sherri or Terri and a kid that looks like Rod Flanders but not Todd Flanders.

“Good morning, class. I can tell how thrilled you all are to be here,” Krabappel drawls with tired eyes. “Believe me, I know how you feel. I wouldn’t be here myself if I didn’t need the money.”

No time wasted here! Krabappel assigns a term paper before any of the class can say “boo”. Topic: THE WONDERS OF THE MARKETPLACE.

“Boo”

Well, school was shitty! Day 1 was a complete suck on the ol’ nuts. Time to visit the comic book store to take one’s mind off of things like “term papers” and “public education”. Bart and Milhouse look upon the shelves and shelves of new issues from series with names like “Z-Men” and “Mylar Man” and “Lockjaw Legion” and “Z-Babies” and “Captain Steroid” and “Snarl Squad”.

“Milhouse, I ask you – is there a more awe-inspiring sight on God’s green Earth than an overflowing comic book rack at the peak of summer glut?”

The answer is a resounding “no”. ‘Tis not. Even Martin arrives to join in on the splendor! They marvel at the gimmicky issues! Milhouse holds an issue of Iron Skull where the cover is embossed with skull-shaped rivets! Martin holds an issue of Deathblood that will destroy the comic if you try to open and read it!

In the display case is a recent Captain Squid selling for $50. Why? Because it’s defective. This drives the price up because of simple WONDERS OF THE MARKETPLACE! Also, supply and demand. Small supply of bullshit comics, high demand for them. Any collector worth his salt will gladly spend a ton of money on this dumb stuff. It’s called being a nerd, kid. A horrible, horrible nerd. And only 50 copies didn’t get foil-stamped out of 500,000. Do that math, that’s 1 out of every 800,000,000!!

Martin decides that this elevated value of the unenhanced comic will likely drive the price higher for the regular comics. Bart and Milhouse agree, and they buy out all the issues of Captain Squid #472. But something fishy is going on! It stinks like so many barrels of easy-to-shoot fish.

Comic Book Guy gets on the horn with a mysterious man of business. “So – you got any more error comics?” he asks the man on the other end.

“Just wait – you’ll have more soon.”

SOMETHING IS FISHY. THIS SOUNDS LIKE A CUNTING SCAM to the likes of me, myself, and I! But let’s see how this plays out…

But first: another day, another mind numbing session of summer school. Today they will be taking a field trip the the paper printing company! Doesn’t that sound exciting, kiddos? You get to see Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute doing the dougie in front of you in order to sell you on the exciting world of paper and whatnot.

“Hold onto your seats, kids,” Ms. Krabappel warns as the bus barrels through the paper company’s gates. “Due to school budget cutbacks, we couldn’t get the brakes fixed.”

And they all died. The end. Bartman never even shows up! Crazy, huh? Absolutely nuts.

As you can imagine, the paper company field trip is terribly boring. It’s basically a ripoff of the episode where Bart’s class takes a field trip to the box factory, only Bart doesn’t escape and become a TV star! Here, they watch a nice educational film starring Troy McClure (who you may remember from such exciting motion pictures as “Calling All Lumberjacks” and “The Day Paul Bunyan Cried”). Now, in his best role since his Halloween afterschool special “Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s a Skeleton”, McClure intends to take all the students through a magical journey through the exciting world of wood pulp!

*muffled cheers and occasional clapping, punctuated by snoring and Wendell throwing up in the back of the room.

Bart and Milhouse groan and boogie on out of there like a couple of truant delinquents! Ms. Krabappel the Mr. Wood Pulp Assistant Supervisor Man also sneak out to do some lewd sex acts on each other, probably. Krabappel is easy and she’s an inspiration to us all.

Every room in the place appears to be full of really dull goings-on, such as storage closets stuffed with boxes of Gutenberg Bibles and seedy mafia men printing out counterfeit money. It’s almost a lost cause to find some real dang adventure…

…that is until Bart discovers the motherload…

Gideon Bibles! Also, a warehouse dedicated to printing comic books. It doesn’t look that exciting to me; a bunch of teamsters hauling stacks of books with their fat-assery. Issues of Radioactive Man vs. Captain Squid! The comic book crossover sensation of the summer! Gee whiz and oh boy!

“What do you think you’re up to, punks?” an intimidating voice says behind our heroes Bort and Milhorse. Why, it’s none other than Jimbo, Dolph, and Kearney! Those cuddly bullies who were held back at least six grades. They tell Burt and Milthoose to vamoose! They’re a couple of comic book nerds who probably want to place their dicks in the pages and then hump the pages Ha ha ha!

So they run away. These guys are scary!

Meanwhile, Krabappel and Mr. Wood Pulp Assistant Supervisor Man hang out in Security Camera Command Central! He freshens her drink.

Well, that was quite an adventure. After school, Milhouse moseys over to the comic book store and spots Jimbo conversing with the Comic Book Guy. Our favorite blue-haired nerd doesn’t want to get a wedgie, so he lays low outside the shop.

Jimbo leaves, Milhouse enters, and Comic Book guy places another defective comic in the display case. How very, very coincidental! Something is fishy and it smells like fish. Bartman needs to get involved. Any day now…

And, ah yes, Milhouse sends over the Bartsignal in the sky. It’s like the Batsignal, only it’s the Bartsignal. It’s Bart’s spiky head. Bart sees the Bartsignal and takes action! Putting on his purple hood and cape, he LEAPS AND BOUNDS over to the treehouse where his smelly friend awaits.

“Hmmm… So Jimbo was in the comics shop, eh? And at the same time as the new error comic appeared? I’d better investigate further,” Bart says, TAKING ACTION.

Yes yes, investigate further. Good idea. This seems incredibly important. And, thus, Bartman swings across town on ropes tied to nothing as he makes his way to the paper company. He enters. The security guard is sleeping. This is easy.

Looking over the rails of a catwalk above a giant room, Bartman discovers thousands upon thousands of issues of Radioactive Man vs. Captain Squid that have already been foil-stamped. What a waste of time! When he gets back home he’s going to send Milhouse to the moon with a powerful wedgie.

Uh oh, the Three Amigos are heard coming out of a door up on the catwalk! Bartman better skedaddle before he gets his own wedgie! He climbs up another conveniently-placed rope and watches from the ceiling as Jumbo, Doolph, and Kearnt open up a locker and retrieve a stack of “defective” comics. Aha, the plot thickens! Purposely squirreled-away issues! The scam of the motherfucking century, here! The FBI is going to come slobber Bart’s knob with gratitude over this.

Too quick! Bartman swoops down and grabs the stack right out of Jimbo Jones’ hot little hands! Cover blown, now he has to really book it out of there before he gets killed and/or molested! Chasing ensues, and eventually Jimbo grabs the comics and pushes Bartman over the rail! The suspense! The action! Oh, the humanity!

“Who do you think you are dressed up in that stupid costume?” mocks Jimbo as he stands there taunting Bartman with his stack.

“I’m Bartman–” he answers, knocking the stack right out of Jimbo’s hands and into the vat of ink below, “–and don’t you forget it!”

Hell yeah! High octane! Beefy superhero badassery! Hoot hoot holler!

As the threesome panic and attempt to grab the falling stack, they all tumble over the rail themselves and hang on for dear life: Kearney hangs onto the rail, Jimbo hangs onto Kearney, and Dolph hangs onto Jimbo. They pull each other’s pants down. Dolph’s pants slip down on their own and fall right into the vat, and this is where eight-year-old me laughed the hardest.

Bartman climbs his purple ass back up to the catwalk, brushes his hands off, and tells these losers that he’ll smell them later! The security guard shows up and laughs at them because he can see their dang underpants. This is comedy at its very finest.

THE REST OF THE STORY AWAITS! Somebody cut out a big rectangle from the front of Homer’s newspaper. It’s one of the many clippings Bart has saved from his Bartman stints, all in a nice, big scrap book. “COMICS CAPER FOILED: WHO IS BARTMAN? Caught silver-handed: Police Chief Wiggum with three unidentified juvenile suspects”

Hell yeah, that’s the stuff.

Remember Arnold Leach, the publisher-in-chief of Boffo Comics? He reads the newspaper in anger! Foiled! FOILED! His phony error comic ring has been squashed! “Beware Bartman!” he growls, crushing the newspaper up into a ball. “When next we meet, I shall have my revenge!”

Bart and Milhouse travel to the comic book store one last time, where Comic Book Guy is placing a very rare collector’s item indeed into his display case: an all-silver copy of Radioactive Man vs. Captain Squid!

“Since it cannot be read, it will stay in mint condition forever,” he proclaims, keeping the comic away from the childrens’ grubby little Squishee-covered hands, “and since there are only six copies in existence, the price is proportionally higher.

The issue is going for $200, and this gives Bart and FANTASTIC IDEA!

Final Thoughts

Woop woop! Good stuff, and it holds up very well. I like the part where Bartman did the thing. See you next time, Bartmanophiles.