Posted By Dan Greenfield on Oct 21, 2024 | 2 comments

MORRISON MONDAYS!

By BILL MORRISON

Starting in 1995 and for the following two decades, Bongo Comics threw an annual Halloween party that was open to the general public. Well, OK, I’m not talking about an actual party. The shindig I refer to was in the form of a comic book known as Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror (later, The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror.) And though it wasn’t a party in the physical sense, it sure seemed like one to me.

In the first issue, we established the tradition of inviting guest writers from the comic book industry to craft their own spooky Simpsons stories (in this case, Mike Allred, Jeff Smith, and James Robinson,) and the results were so much fun we continued to invite our favorite writers to the annual Treehouse party for the next few years. By Issue #4 we decided it might not be a horrible thing to mess with the “on model” visual style of the book and welcomed guest artists as well.

As soon as we did this, our publisher, Matt Groening, told me that he loved seeing different cartoonists do their take on his characters. The only caveats were that the residents of Springfield had to retain their signature overbites and bulgy eyes. Otherwise the artists were free to exhibit their own styles. The potential guest list expanded, and so did the fun!

Marv, Len, Bernie, and me doing a signing at Brave New World in Santa Clarita, California, for Treehouse of Horror #11

So, we eagerly looked forward to inviting both writers and artists from our wish list of creators we wanted to work with each year, and I’m proud to say that in the history of Bongo’s Treehouse of Horror, not a single person ever turned us down. Some of the wonderful folks who partied with us in the Treehouse over the years were Sergio Aragonés, Scott Shaw!, Jill Thompson, Dan DeCarlo, Garth Ennis, Paul Dini, Gail Simone, Stan Sakai, Kyle Baker, Dan Brereton… it’s a long and illustrious list, and someday I’ll write an article that lists them all. But this article is about my favorite issue, 2005’s #11.

More often than not, the artists and writers who agreed to do Treehouse stories were squeezing it in between regular assignments from other publishers, so by Issue #11 we knew that it was best to commission more stories than we needed in case someone was unable to meet the deadline. But to our surprise, everyone we had working on the issue was ahead of schedule, and we found ourselves with enough material to make a double-sized issue!

THOH #11, Cover B

We also had two themes going. One was a full-length 1950’s EC Comics parody that saw Bart and Lisa entering “The Creepy Crypt of Horror Hotel” at Itchy and Scratchy Land and wandering through rooms that transported them to different EC genres such as horror, war, and science fiction! The other featured two stories that parodied 1970s Marvel and DC horror comics.

This double-themed, double-issue situation presented me with the opportunity to draw two covers, but instead of issuing variant editions as is common today, we flipped the book halfway through and gave each half its own cover. The Marvel/DC side of the book sports a cover with an original design, but for the EC side I chose to pay homage to the cover of Tales From the Crypt #41.

But the best thing about working on this issue was getting to collaborate with some of the artists and writers who created the stories they were parodying! For the Entertaining Comics pastiche we had EC veterans John Severin, Angelo Torres, and Al Williamson. (Al was ably assisted by Mark Schultz, and the story featured bookend sequences drawn by James Lloyd and Steve Steere Jr., with a script by Chris Bonham and Steve Ringgenberg.)

Angelo Torres

John Severin

Al Williamson and Mark Schultz

And for the two 1970s parodies we had Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan doing a sendup of their iconic Tomb of Dracula series, and Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson lampooning their quintessential creation, Swamp Thing! Len told me that this was actually the first time he and Bernie had worked together on a project since their original run!

Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan

Wolfman and Colan

Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson

Wein and Wrightson

I don’t think I’ll ever come close to the thrill I had working with these giants of the comics biz… unless it’s the time I got to create Simpsons horror stories with Rob Zombie, Gene Simmons, Alice Cooper, and Pat Boone! But that’s a story for another time.

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