I’m confident the six voice actors had the comic books included in their study about how profitable the franchise has been for News Corp. At number 17, Treehouse of Hour is back on track and could make it to 20 years.
This year the opening story is a silent-movie parody of Nosferatu with Mr. Burns as the infamous vampire. It was fair but loses its effect due to the TV show doing a Dracula bit years ago. The middle story features the guest author, musician/singer Jane Wiedlin of the Go-Go’s (I need to research the punctuation). She did a pretty good job for despite it drifting into the worn-out zombie genre while demonstrating her Star Wars fandom I’ve read about in the now defunct Geek magazine. Treehouse wraps up with an EC tribute, the publication HBO’s Tales from the Crypt is derived from.
Overall I wouldn’t recommend a casual fan buying it. Diehards? Maybe. Completists? Do I have to ask? Was I disappointed? Not really. This was better than last year’s yet I think the Halloween tales are pretty tapped out, maybe Bongo should retire the comic for a couple years.