Tuesday, February 7, 2017

Bongo Comics Group

Website: bongocomics.com

Style Classification: Matt Groening's Comics Brand

Notable Works: "Simpsons Comics", "Futurama", "Spongebob Squarepants"

Story: Matt Groening is not responsible for Spongebob directly, but his comic publisher is the holder of the license and uses the imprint United Plankton, which is amusing...

For "Style Classification" above it seems funny to label it specifically as Matt Groening's baby, but that is exactly what it is. Bongo is the name of one Matt's creations from "Life in Hell", and once the Simpsons started to take off, he was able to start his own imprint, and, as he calls it, realizing a lifelong dream.

Seriously, in 1993, Matt Groening could pretty much do whatever he wanted, and not much has changed.

They publish various Simpsons comics, Futurama comics, Spongebob content, as well as collections of Groenng's Life in Hell strip from alt-weeklies, which has since ended.

Anyway, I thought I'd highlight a cool shoutout from them to the makers of Valiant comics from back in the day:


In the panel from left to right are Ninjak, Bloodshot, X-O Manowar and Rai, and the names assigned to them are based on the real folks: Jim Shooter, Steve Massarsky, Jon Mitchell, and Bob Layton.

This is from an issue of Radioactive Man, number 106 specifically, when they were parodying the beautiful painted covers of Gold Key Comics:


The reach of the brand of humor found in the Simpsons is both global and as influential as you'd expect something like that to be.