Simpsons comics writer to appear at store

BOARDMAN — Youngstown native Chris Yambar, a writer and artist for The Simpsons comic books, will appear at Barnes & Noble Booksellers, 381 Boardman-Poland Road, at 7 p.m. Saturday.

Yambar will sign copies of this year’s Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror comic, which is entitled “Dead Man’s Jest.”

Everyone who purchases a copy of the Halloween annual will receive a gift from Yambar.

What sets the 128-page “Dead Man’s Jest” edition apart from past Treehouse of Horror offerings is that much of it was organized by Yambar.

He gathered some “monsters of rock” stars to co-write it, including Alice Cooper, KISS bassist Gene Simmons, White Zombie frontman Rob Zombie ... and crooner Pat Boone.

“I met Gene [Simmons] and the boys during my pop-art painting days and just rang him up with the idea,” said Yambar.

“He was all for it. At first he had a lot of ideas that ... well, let’s just say they were never going to see print. Then we hit on the idea of making Bart the illegitimate son of a famous rock star with bat wings and a bass of mythological power. Throw in a complete demonic Springfield makeover and an alien invasion and you’ve got the makings of one really ‘off model’ Halloween story.”

Yambar said working with Alice Cooper was more a dream than a nightmare.

“He wanted to parody the original ‘Halloween’ movies, so we cast Homer in the roll of Jason and set him loose wearing a mask of donut batter and sprinkles to kill all the other characters at camp, which he did by stuffing them to death with donuts as Batter Face. I gave Alice a little surprise by having him get killed by Homer as well. At first he was silent. Then he laughed out loud and clapped, saying, ‘Today I have become a man!’

“It doesn’t get better than that.”