Bongo Comics announced in an e-mail that its Simpsons Store app, which enabled consumers to purchase Simpsons comic books digitally, will be shut down on April 30:
To our dedicated fans:
We regret to announce that, after more than a decade, the Simpsons Store app has come to an end across all platforms and devices.
We are no longer accepting any new purchases or downloads, but the app will still be available for use in its current state (which may include technical difficulties) until April 30, 2024, at which point the app, all in-app comics, and all other app-related content will no longer be available for use. Please enjoy the app until the servers shut down on April 30, 2024.
Thank you for supporting the Simpsons Store.
Its companion app, Futuramaland, will be shutting down on April 12.
Bongo previously sold its titles digitally on ComiXology before announcing it would be moving to its own proprietary service in 2015. Amazon killed off ComiXology’s standalone app late last year.
The news is the latest blow for Simpsons creator Matt Groening’s publishing ventures. Groening, who owns the show’s publishing rights, launched Bongo Comics Group in 1993 with four Simpsons titles. Its flagship series, Simpsons Comics, ran for 25 years and 245 issues before being discontinued in 2018, when the company ceased publishing monthly titles (it remains unclear if this had anything to do with Disney’s aquisition of 21st Century Fox). The following year, Groening debuted a new company, Bapper Books, which was to publish comics based on his Netflix series Disenchantment as a digital-first series. That ended up not happening, and the comics were not released until late 2023 by Titan Comics, shortly after the show had ended. Currently, old Bongo material continues to be republished in book form, with the third volume collecting the Treehouse of Horror series set to be released by Abrams Books in August.
The news is also an unwelcome reminder that you do not own the digital content you purchase.
Simpsons creator Matt Groening added yet another company to his only robust portfolio last year, a mysterious entity known as “Bapper Entertainment.”