The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror (2011) 17

A loving homage to the Universal staples of the golden age of horror on the cover open the perennial four-color Treehouse of Horrors.

Zander Cannon and Gene Ha craft Nosferatu a Simpsony of Horror to begin the begin.

The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror (2011) 17

The 1922 German vampire tale is retold as a choppy, organ-orchestrated story driven by dialog cards and expressionist art. Like many parodies, it does a tightrope walk between its inspiration and its destination.

Bart is coerced to sell his treehouse to help the family financially. He learns the truth under the hospitality of Mr. Burns, aka Nosferatu, but it’s his mother who saves the day in the final panels.

Nosferatu was a thinly disguised Dracula retelling that was eventually found out and the lineage of Braham Stoker reimbursed. All copies of Nosferatu were ordered to be destroyed, but at least one print survived. It became a blueprint for horror films to come.

Marge of the Dead takes a stab at the zombie craze. Jane Wiedlin and Tom Hodges pen and pencil the story with colors from Mark Hamill’s real life padawan, Nathan.

The Simpson family participate in a seemingly harmless cosplay event only to stumble onto the city-wide outbreak of zombies. Lisa’s big-brained overthinking brings the story to a happy close.

Finally, EC Comics receives a love letter as Bart delves into issue three of Harvest of Fear.

Both story and comic book title, Harvest of Fear is an admitted knock off of Bill Gaines’ comics from the 1950s.

Originally called Educational Comics, EC became Entertaining Comics after the death of founder Max Gaines. Son, William, reluctantly took the wheel and steered the floundering company out of debt with an unrivaled team of writers and artists.

Together the cadre crafted a series of comic books with horror, crime and science fiction themes that are lauded even today. Their success was not to go unnoticed and EC Comics became part of a larger investigation into the field of comic books. In the end, the witch hunt neutered the industry, leaving EC’s stable of titles as dead as so many of their stories heroes.

The one positive that did rise from the government raid was Mad Magazine. William Gaines had already begun publishing of the title, but moved it to a magazine format to keep it safe from the newly minted Comics Code Authority.