Not a bad collection of The Simpsons comics, but somehow, the humour just plays better on the television screen. Perhaps it's the short, disposable form of the stories in a digest comic, but for the most part, it made me smile but not laugh.

The topic of the first story, "Big Fat Trouble in Little Springfield," made me cringe from the outset, since it's all about making fun of Uter's weight and then turning that back on Bart by cursing him with extra poundage of his own. He does learn his lesson by the end, but still, I'm extremely uncomfortable with how a lot of comedy still goes to the well for fat jokes and simplifies it down to "fat people eat too much."

That was followed up by "Grrrl-Whirl," which was a largely forgettable tale of Bart hating girls -- in his media, sports, and comics -- then falling for a new girl who ultimately chooses Nelson over him. It could be argued that Bart's tirade on female TV characters is an amusing parody of the kind of garbage you hear from a certain demographic of consumer/TV watcher who is pandered to almost 100% of the time and becomes threatened and enraged by any diversity at all, but given where the story ends up, with Bart returning to his girl-hating ways, it falls fairly flat.

From there, though, the collection improves significantly, even if it doesn't ever hit laugh-out-loud funny. My favourites were almost exclusively the ones penned by Gail Simone, such as "Terror on Trioculon!" (Parts 1, 2 and 3), a cute little Lost in Space parody; "Battle of the Boy-Bands," a silly send-up of specific boy bands from the past as well as the trend in general; and "Who Wants to Win a Pocketful of Quarters?" (by Scott Shaw), which included a ton of nods to events throughout The Simpsons TV show.

The art was probably the most reliably pleasing part of the collection, as it is all firmly in line with the post-Tracey Ullman Show aesthetic, the rough, wobbly lines of Groening's early art having already given way to the smooth, simpler lines and bolder colours. There's also a lot of pleasure to be derived from spending time looking at the backgrounds of each panel, as there's plenty of detail and activity going on behind the foregrounded characters.

In the end, it was a pleasant enough diversion, but overall it felt much simpler than the stories you get from the TV show itself. I think one of the reasons I liked "Terror on Trioculon!" so much was that it was spread over three times the space given to any of the other stories, which gave it far more room to develop a narrative and breathe. I think I'd probably give the next collection in the series a try, and see if the stories gain some of the more incisive snap of later Simpsons parody before giving up on this one. ( )

I like to read this because it's funny and I like yellow people! ( )

The Big Book of Bart Simpson is a comic book with fifteen mini-comics. My favorite comic in this book is Bart’s Day at the Zoo. He goes to the zoo feeling like he lost the class clown gig. But, he finds himself trapped in a cage nude. The Big Book of Bart Simpson is a great book filled with comics. I would recommend this comic book to pre-teen kids who might find this humor funny.

Lolza McGolza this book was so minted. My favourite stories were the ones were bat gets dead fat in a dream and "BART SIMPSON SPACE CADET" where they get captured by the triclopses and their king is Sideshow Bob! ( )