Posted By Dan Greenfield on Oct 27, 2025 | 2 comments

MORRISON MONDAYS!

By BILL MORRISON

About a year ago, I wrote a MORRISON MONDAYS column about one of my favorite issues of Bongo’s annual Halloween treat, Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror #11, featuring Bernie Wrightson, Gene Colan, Marv Wolfman and Len Wein. At the end of that article, I promised to tell the story of another issue, one that guest starred rock legends, Alice Cooper, Gene Simmons, Rob Zombie, and Pat Boone! So, keeping true to my word, here’s that terrific tale!

One day in 2004, while sitting in my Bongo Comics office, procrastinating about reading through the slush pile of scripts that towered on my desk, the phone rang. I picked up the handset, and on the other end of the line was Chris Yambar. You may remember Chris from his popular indie comics, Mr. Beat, el Mucho Grande, and The Fire Breathing Pope.

Chris had been writing stories for our Bart Simpson comic, but that wasn’t why he was calling. His reason for ringing me up was to try to talk me into letting him write a story for our annual Treehouse of Horror book. I patiently explained to Chris (for probably the fourth or fifth time) that we had a tradition of inviting only writers and artists outside Bongo’s regular stable of creators to contribute to the annual Halloween special, in other words, guest stars, and since he was one of the regulars, he wasn’t eligible. But Mr. Yambar was like a dog with a very meaty bone and he wasn’t about to give up. He pitched me a what-if scenario, saying, “If I can get Gene Simmons from Kiss, will you let me write a Treehouse story?”

Naturally, I was intrigued, but responded, “Wait, Gene Simmons isn’t an artist. If you’re writing a story, what is Gene going to do?” Chris said, “Well, we would write it together, and you can get someone else to draw it.” I realized that we were discussing a very unlikely scenario, so I shot back, “Hold on, do you even know Gene Simmons?” In his cool, matter-of-fact manner, Chris replied, “Well, I know someone who knows someone who knows him.” Four degrees of separation sounded like a non-starter to me, so to get him to stop pestering me, I said to Chris, “Sure, if you can get Gene Simmons on board, you can write a Treehouse story,” and to myself, “Never gonna happen.”

A few weeks later, my office phone rang again. Of course, it was Chris, with two words: “Gene’s in!” I said, “What do you mean, ‘Gene’s in’?”

“Gene said he’d love to do it,” he replied. “I just got off the phone with him.”

“You just what??!”

Dammit! Yambar had successfully called my bluff! But now I had a horror book in which the rock and roll demon himself would be a guest! Possibilities began to race through my head, and I needed time to contemplate it all. I said goodbye to Chris and started thinking. Soon, I hit on the idea of a theme issue with a who’s who of spooky rock stars as guests. I started a list: Alice Cooper, Rob Zombie, Ozzy Osbourne, Marilyn Manson, Insane Clown Posse, Gwar…

I called Yambar back and asked, “Do you happen to know someone who knows someone who knows Alice Cooper?” He said “Let me work on it. But if I get Alice, you have to let me write with him too.” I agreed, and a few weeks later, Chris phoned again. “Alice is in! He’s a huge Simpsons fan!”

Holy headless bats, Batman! Could I possibly get Ozzy for a shock rock trio? I needed at least three stories for the issue, and it made no sense to have two major music stars and a third guest with no rock connection. It had to be an all-out monsters of rock issue!

Chris didn’t have even a remote connection to Ozzy or Manson, and neither did I, so those guys seemed like longshots. But I knew that Rob Zombie was a comics fan, and the year before he’d come out with a horror comic anthology series with CrossGen, Rob Zombie’s Spookshow International. That put him soundly in my world, so I figured I had to know someone who had a connection to him.

Without too much trouble, I got his phone number and called him up. An assistant answered, and when I introduced myself as the editor of Simpsons Comics, she put me right through to Rob. Like Alice and Gene, Rob was a big fan of The Simpsons and readily agreed to write a story. He even pitched an idea on the spot, a sendup of his own film, House of a Thousand Corpses, but with Krusty the Clown in the Sid Haig Captain Spaulding role, and a slightly altered title, “House of a Thousand Donuts.” How could I say no to that?

So, we suddenly had our terrible trio, and Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror #10 was on track to be our most memorable issue yet! Chris was working with Alice and Gene on scripts, and I decided that I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to get in on the fun, and took on the role of penciller for the Alice Cooper story. We enlisted Ken Wheaton to ink my pencils and called upon Tone Rodriguez to draw the Gene Simmons tale, with Andrew Pepoy inking. Then we got Ty Templeton on board to pencil and ink the Rob Zombie story while we waited for a script from Rob.

As show-biz would have it, Mr. Zombie called and told me that he would regretfully have to bow out. He was deep in the production of his film The Devil’s Rejects, and realized he had bitten off more than he could chew. I suggested that we let Ty run with the idea that Rob had pitched, and give him a cameo in the story so he could still be included, and he happily gave his blessing to that.

But my tidy anthology of three tales of tuneful terror was not to be. Once the scripts were in and I counted up the pages, I realized that we had room for one more story!

At the time, I had purchased and was listening to an album by squeaky clean ’50s pop idol-turned-band singer, Pat Boone. It was a collection of rock songs like Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water,” and Ozzy’s “Crazy Train,” arranged in Pat’s swingy big band style titled, “In a Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy.” By this time, Ozzy’s reality show, The Osbournes was on the air, using Pat’s version of “Crazy Train” as its theme song. Given Boone’s rock-and-roll origins, I felt that a story by him would make a great addition to the project. Plus, Pat had a comics connection! He had been the star of his own self-titled DC Comics series back in 1959 through 1960, and even guest-starred in Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane #9!

I honestly don’t recall how I got his number, but I did, somehow, and spoke to him directly on the phone about the book. He was very friendly and told me that although he wasn’t a regular viewer of The Simpsons, he had seen it and liked it, and accepted my invitation to join Alice (with whom he was friends), Gene and Rob as the fourth celebrity guest star in the issue. I decided to take on co-writing chores for Pat’s story, and we came up with a tale in which Bart sneaks a Ouija board into church camp and accidentally summons a hoard of demons. Pat emerges from a nearby cabin, deprived of sleep from the uproar, and due to his closeness to the Almighty is called upon to deal with the problem. I recruited C. Scott Morse to handle the art, which he did with his usual brilliance.

My final contribution to the issue was a painted cover that features Bart jamming on a spider-web adorned electric guitar, surrounded by the floating heads of our rock-royalty guest stars.

In the midst of the excitement of producing this book, my one regret was that I had one of my teen-age idols, Alice Cooper, working on a book that I was editing, but I hadn’t actually met him or even talked to him. I expressed this frustration to Chris, and a few nights later while watching TV with my wife, our phone rang. Kayre picked it up and asked who was calling. After a moment she calmly handed the phone to me and said “It’s Alice Cooper.”

Are you freaking kidding me? Alice Cooper was calling me at home? This surreal moment surely came courtesy of Yambar! I was suddenly 14 years old again and took the handset. I think my voice actually cracked when I said something lame like, “Hi Alice. Great to hear from you!”

He put me right at ease, confirming that Chris had told him what a big fan I was and gave him my number. We talked for about 10 minutes, mostly about The Simpsons and Detroit. Alice’s current album at the time, The Eyes of Alice Cooper, had a song titled “Detroit City,” and I told him how much I loved it and related to it. If I haven’t mentioned it before in this column, Detroit is my hometown, and it was Alice’s as well, and he talked about the early days of the Alice Cooper Band, and how they had risen to prominence in the clubs and former movie palaces of the Motor City.

Because of my last name, we also talked about Jim Morrison with whom Alice said he had been very close. Alice also expressed his great love of The Simpsons, telling me that he had three items on his bucket list: to play golf at Augusta National Golf Club, to portray a villain in a James Bond Film, and to be on The Simpsons. Although being in a Simpsons comic book isn’t exactly the same as being on the show, Alice seemed to feel that it was close enough, and he thanked me for helping him to check one thing off his list, adding that it gave him “bragging rights”! Imagine that. With all he’s done in his career, I gave Alice Cooper something to brag about!

Alice was on tour around the time Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror #10 was on sale, and he requested a supply of books that he could have for sale alongside T-Shirts and CDs at his show’s merch tables. And, he graciously invited everyone at Bongo to come to one of two Los Angeles-area concerts with full backstage privileges. Most of the Bongo crew went to the first show in Orange County, but Kayre and I opted for the second one, which was closer to our home in Ventura County.

The day of the show there was a torrential rainstorm in the area, and I got a call from Alice’s tour manager, telling me that the backstage portion of the old theater in Ventura had a ceiling leak and was unusable, so we would be meeting the king of shock rock after the show on his personal tour bus! The bus was actually a big, deluxe motor home, and we were invited on board to sit with Alice at his kitchen table for a chat while he signed a handful of copies of the Treehouse issue for me.

Again, I reverted to my 14-year-old self and couldn’t think of much to say, but lucky for me, Kayre, being an actor, was not starstruck at all and carried on a conversation with Alice, performer to performer. She confessed that she had never seen one of his shows before and when he asked how she liked it, she said she really enjoyed it and that it reminded her of vaudeville (which he was very enthused to hear). They also discussed comedy legend Mel Brooks. At the time, Brooks’ production of The Producers was a huge hit on Broadway, and Kayre asked Alice if he’d heard that Mel was working on a follow-up show based on his film, Young Frankenstein.

She suggested that based on his performance, she thought he would be wonderful in a cameo as the blind man, a character that was sure to have a spotlight song. Alice loved that idea and said, “I know Mel Brooks! I should give him a call!” As we exited the motor home, Kayre said to me “OK, if Alice Cooper ends up playing the blind man in Young Frankenstein on Broadway, that was me!”

This issue remains one of my all-time Bongo favorites, not only for the great stories and art, but also for the vivid memories of its creation. Sadly, Chris Yambar is no longer with us, having passed away in 2021. I owe him a great debt, for without him and his tenacious desire to write a Simpsons horror tale, none of it would have happened.

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