In a highly unexpected move, The Simpsons is ending… its business relationship with comiXology.
Bongo Comics Group, the publisher of Simpsons Comics, quietly took all their stuff off comiXology, the leading digital comics retailer owned by Amazon. Nobody seems to know what led to this decision, and both sides are remaining tight-lipped about it. Here’s what they told Tom Spurgeon of The Comics Reporter:
Chip Mosher of comiXology told CR, simply, “Bongo is no longer available on comiXology.” Susan Grode a partner at Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP, speaking on behalf of Bongo, said, “Thank you for your email. My client has no response regarding Comixology. Bongo has created the Simpsons Store app for its comics and trade books on iTunes, to be released shortly.”
It’s hard to say what’s a stupider name, comiXology or Simpsons Store.
Spurgeon says he was also told users who previously bought Bongo comics on comiXology will still be able to read their books, because that’s apparently a thing you have to worry about in the digital marketplace.
Bongo making their own app is a bold move for a company that didn’t even have a website until 2010. Grode’s terse statement does raise some concerns, though: she only mentions iTunes, with no mention of whether Simpsons Store will be available on Android, Windows Phone, or the web, like comiXology is. Also, calling it Simpsons Store (ok, maybe it’s a placeholder name?) leaves the digital fates of Bongo’s non-Simpsons output, like Futurama Comics and SpongeBob Comics, unclear. Because, come on, buying a SpongeBob comic from a Simpsons app would just be madness.
Ideally, the service would be under the Bongo name, and I’d love to see them digitally re-release stuff from their defunct Zongo Comics imprint, the underappreciated Heroes Anonymous, and maybe some uncollected Life in Hell stuff.
[The Comics Reporter]
Bad news, everyone! Hot off the heels of the announcement that Family Guy is doing a Simpsons crossover episode, executive producer Al Jean announced at Comic Con that The Simpsons is doing a crossover with its soon-to-be-deceased sister show Futurama. It will air next year as either the season finale of the upcoming season, or the season premiere for the season after that.
Simpsons creator Matt Groening added yet another company to his only robust portfolio last year, a mysterious entity known as “Bapper Entertainment.” 
Simpsons creator Matt Groening has apparently joined the advisory board of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, a non-profit organization that’s basically an ACLU for funnybooks. According to its 
Bongo Comics, makers of fine Simpsons comics and distributor of SpongeBob comics, is branching out again with Mylo Xyloto (get it, like xylophone??), a six-issue comic book miniseries thunk up and co-written by the band Coldplay. What’s it about? Judging from the book’s cover, it’s about some TRON-like cyberbabe who can emit magic beams from her fingers or something. I guess this is the band’s attempt at doing their own Yellow Submarine? (FUN FACT: A few Bongo Comics people were working on 
The most critically underrated component of the enormous Simpsons media empire is the Radioactive Man spin-off comic book series occasionally put out by creator Matt Groening’s Bongo Comics, which after 18 years is finally being collected in a deluxe hardcover anthology.
Bongo’s Bongoiest artist Sergio Aragonés, best known for his eye-straining cartoons in the margins of Mad magazine, has been given his own monthly comic book, Sergio Aragonés Funnies. Mad went quarterly two years ago, so obviously Aragonés has been left with a surplus of comics he needs to unload, and Bongo Comics has generously agreed to pick up the slack. 
Bart Simpson has had his fair share of enemies of over the years. Nelson Muntz. Principal Skinner. Sideshow Bob. The country of Australia.