The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror Ominous Omnibus Vol. 3-ageless, subversive              

Subversive is a fabulous adjective isn’t it? In the case of The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror Ominous Omnibus Vol. 3: Fiendish Fables of Devilish Delicacies it’s playful subversion twice removed. The source material is an older television show that produces a silly, surreal, violent, edgy, and relevant Halloween special that produced a different story, in the same vein, for its comic book.  The result is an omnibus of some of the most creative, absurd, varied, chaotic, and entertaining graphic novel madness that you’ll experience, that is, if you’re a fan of The Simpsons.

That’s a lot to take in, so let’s back up a bit so that those who don’t know, but need to know, can discover this gem of a collected graphic novel, or an omnibus. Bongo Comics was the comic book publisher behind The Simpsons (among others) in their monthly comic book form and existed from 1993 to 2017. Treehouse of Horror is the annual television episode of The Simpsons that consists of three different, absurd stories featuring those characters in zombie, comedic horror, or ironic science-fiction stories and started in. Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror was the annual comic book version, featuring new stories not shown in the television show, which ran from 1995 to 2017. That annual comic book was renamed to The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror after the 13th issue in 2008.  The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror Ominous Omnibus Vol. 3: Fiendish Fables of Devilish Delicacies is the third collection of stories from those annual comic books.

It took me a while to warm up to the television version version of Treehouse of Horror. It took me even longer to warm up Bart Simpsons’s Treehouse of Horror. The art was different, the appearance of the characters varied from story to story, at times having more in common with black-and-white 3D than what I’d grown to appreciate in comic books or television. However, those differences I now see as variety and the artistic changes I see as creative.

It helps that our oldest son and I have started an unofficial tradition of watching older episodes of The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror in the end of summer and beginning of fall as a welcome harbinger to cooler weather.  Thus, when he saw The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror Ominous Omnibus Vol. 3 he was as enthusiastic as I was. It gave me a chance to tell him all about the glory days of Bongo Comics and their various publications. Needless to say, he dived into this collection of deranged stories with a Simpsons backbone and became a fan too.

The love and care that went into this collection is impressive and start with its presentation. The book is stored in a die-cut slipcase that has familiar characters taunting the main family on the book’s cover, which glows in the dark. Its 414 pages represent dozens of stories, some of which are only one page, but all of them are listed in the table of contents by their title and the original issue that they appeared in.  There’s a fun disclaimer in the book’s publishing notes that reminds readers that some of these short stories were first published in 1995 and reflect the sensibilities of its time.

It’s not that the mid-90’s were lawless, drug-addled times devoid of redeeming characters. But it was a time when humor was a bit more fearless and not afraid to offend. The humor in Ominous Omnibus Vol. 3 isn’t offensive, it’s fearless. Selma smokes, Kang and Kodos joke about cavity probing some humans, Todd Flanders wants reassurances that the person under the sheet at their front door is not the Holy Ghost, Bart is drawn as a Rastafarian, and many more that have the potential to offend those who are looking for reasons to be so. Reading Ominous Omnibus Vol. 3 reminded me of just how gleefully subversive The Simpsons has the potential to be.  If you’ve never seen a comic book issue of Treehouse of Horror, but are a fan of the television version, this is something that you want to see. If The Simpsons were never your jam, but you can appreciate wild creativity, a very high laugh-to-page ratio this is still worth your time. It could be a case where the stories caught you at the wrong time or you were too caught up in the ‘classic’ version of the characters. This collection is the third collection in the trilogy of Ominous Omnibus’ that brings back the stories you forgot, never knew about or just didn’t appreciate as much as you should’ve.

It’s worth stating that we do regularly watch The Simpsons. Granted, it’s streamed and the episodes that we view are older, but we still watch them and that habit has trickled down to our children and crossed over to Futurama too. If you’re not watching either of those, they’re worth checking out, either again because you might’ve thought that they lost their edge, or if you just want to see if nostalgia television can hold your interest longer than a three-minute YouTube short. Sorry, I got all middle-age, get-off-of-my-lawn for a moment.

The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror Ominous Omnibus  Vol. 3:  Fiendish Fables of Devilish Delicacies is available on Abrams ComicsArts, an imprint of Abrams Books.

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