The Comics Journal

One of the innovative features planned for the new cutting edge online Comics Journal is a load of stuff from the old, stodgy out-of-date Comics Journal under the rubric Funnybook Roulette Archives. The plan is to go back to the antediluvian origins, but events give the following item reason to jump the line. A momentous cultural event like the 20th anniversary of The Simpsons raises many questions. One such question is, “How can it be the 20th anniversary when the first episode was a Christmas special?” Another is, “How can I personally exploit this manufactured media event?” In my case, it provides the opportunity to pull the following chestnut out of the open fire, an article in response to a previous media event manufactured around the 300th episode of the series. It originally appeared in one of the bedsheet issues of the Journal (the one with the Simpsons article in it). The series remains in the same state of equilibrium it was in when I wrote it, reminiscent of Krusty the Clown in the episode where an omnipotent Bart makes him stay on the air 24 hours a day. It still has its moments and I still have yet to be seriously tempted to stop watching it.