Review by Frank Plowright

There’s little variance overall to Bart Simpson collections. It’s an exceptionally rare story that fails to capture Bart’s personality and that of the other Springfield inhabitants, and almost every artist approximates the visual style of the TV show. Some, like Michael T. Gilbert and Peter Kuper don’t subsume their own styles completely, but only the one and two page wordless gags from Sergio Aragonés are in his own style. Very good they are.

It means the overall quality rating rests on the number of stories in each collection that rise above or fall below the median quality line, and Suckerpunch has rather too many stories where there’s a viable concept, but it’s dragged on too far. An example is Michael Ausenker’s idea of Bart eating so many sweets they affect his dental health, where too much time is spent setting things up.

Every volume has a supporting character that sparks the imagination of multiple writers, and this time it’s Montgomery Burns and his unscrupulous ways. He features in the opening satire of sports professionals taking illegal substances, comes a cropper when a gold rush unearths his illegally dumped nuclear waste, and features again as Lisa’s school class tours the power plant.

Phil Ortiz draws more pages than anyone else, and it’s his polished art on Paul Kupperberg’s tale of the mayhem caused in Springfield by Bart wanting revenge of Nelson Muntz, and fooling him into believing there are gold deposits in the town. It’s among the highlights here, another being Carol Lay’s story of Milhouse’s fantasy of the life he’ll lead after making a fortune from being a stand-in wedgie victim. It’s unusual to have a Jimbo and Dolph solo, but Ted May and John Delaney pull it off with Jimbo’s mother supplying him with eggs. It’s such a vast quantity, though, he contracts a bout of delinquinitis, a form of brain freeze brought on by considering the monumental possibilities.

Any Bart Simpson collection can be read without reference to other volumes, but Bust-Up is next.