bongo comics

October 17, 2018

A Fond Farewell To Bongo Comics

Peter Paltridge bongo comics, comic books, comics, matt groening, The Simpsons 0

Bongo Comics, the publishing company founded by Matt Groening that mainly printed Simpsons-related material, exits the comic book market this month. It’s sad to see them go, but you couldn’t ask for a better sendoff than the tribute FilmSpringfield put together. The eulogy consists of brand-new interviews and comments conducted by the site, from a wide swath of current and former Bongo workers, among them longtime veterans Bill Morrison, Ian Boothby and Eric Rogers. Bongo is the place where a lot of the industry’s current stars were given their first chance (like Gail Simone!) and many of them are in positions today they wouldn’t be otherwise. Morrison is the current editor in chief at MAD. “It was like a big clubhouse, you know? There was a Simpsons video game in the main room that led to everyone else’s offices. There were always toys around. Designs everywhere for all of Matt’s different projects. You couldn’t help but be happy and enjoy your work in that environment. Matt made that place a

July 25, 2018

Simpsons Comics Prints Its Final Issue In October

Peter Paltridge 20th Century Fox, bongo comics, comics, matt groening, simpsons comics, The Simpsons 0

D’oh! Bongo Comics is turning out the lights and calling it quits. The comic publisher, founded by Matt Groening, mainly existed to publish comic books based on his Fox creations — Simpsons and Futurama. Alas, Bongo will not be around to comic-ify Netflix’s Disenchantment. Back in the early 90s when the Simpsons became mega-popular overnight, it seemed like they were everywhere BUT in comic books. Fans like me couldn’t understand what the holdup was, until Groening revealed he’d been saving the rights for his own separate comic book company. The original line of Simpsons Comics first appeared in 1993. Since it was the height of the collector boom, Bongo could afford to launch with a vengeance and blanket the market with separate titles for anything tangentially related to the show: Bartman, Radioactive Man, Itchy and Scratchy…and the main book itself. Soon the speculator market crashed, all those extraneous titles fell away, and Bongo stuck to its solitary “Simpsons Comics” output, with rare deviations. Various citizens of Springfield were given one-shot