"The Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror XX" And "Deadman's Jest"

While the family-oriented take their declawed-Wolverine and webless-Spiderman sons and daughters and nieces and nephews out on the town to score their sugar fix; while the closeted freaks indulge their inner tranvestites; while the teen girls dress up as smarmy Hermiones and the teen boys pretend Halloween is not cool but they'll play along to spy up their Hermiones' schoolgirl skirt; while the ironic Halloweeners dress up as "Guy with An Alcohol Problem" or "Slutty Dental Assistant"; and while the vampires suck necks with impunity and the zombies behave more or less the same way they behave all week at the office, nerds like me cling into the wonderful Treehouse of Horror that the Simpsons have built for us. This 20th time around, we get 1) a very decent parody of Alfred Hitchcok movies; 2) an overly familiar "28 Days Later"/"Children of Men"/"I Am Legend"- etc etc; 3) and a slightly off-key nod to Stephen Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd."


Extra: "The Simpsons" comics are always paler than yellow, but they're a nice supplement when you're running as low on vitamin S as we've all been in the last few years (there WAS that movie.) The "Deadman's Jest" compilation has guest-writing by Rob Zombie, Alice Cooper, Gene Simmons and... use your psychic powers to anticipate this one: Pat Boone. Musical droppings aside, the ghoulish treat here is "Squish Thing", written and drawn by the legendary Len Wein/ Bernie Wrightson team that made "Swamp Thing" one of the most original comics of the '70s, before Alan Moore came in and made it one of the most original comics of ALL TIME.