Kang and Kodos, Old School?
Mark Justice, who hosts Pod of Horror, the most informative and entertaining horror podcast out there, is also an avid collector of comic books and old pulps – Doc Savage, The Shadow, old crime noir, superheroes, and much more. His blog, I Was A Bronze Age Boy, always has interesting content, whether it’s Justice’s informed reviews of vintage novels, or some of the strangest, and the most interesting, old comic book and paperback covers. These alone make stopping by his blog well worth the visit. After all, he posts everything from Lois Lane covers (with her having, for some strange reason, hairy and clawed feet) to westerns and old sleaze – which was written in the 1950’s, with a 1950’s sensibility of things that just make their “Scandalous” nature utterly hilarious.
On his blog, however, I found something truly fascinating, as it relates to The Simpsons. Matt Groening, if we sit through enough of Fry and Bender’s adventures in Futurama, must have loved old-school science fiction. It goes much further than that, however. Kang and Kodos, those lovable aliens who want to take over and dominate Earth in most Tree House of Horror episodes had their predecessors and precursors. Notice, in the graphics posted below, the striking similarity between the pulp aliens and the ones from the cartoon. Remarkable, isn’t it? Of course, I can’t prove that if any of the Simpsons creators saw this cover at any time in their life. Still, I like to think of this as further proof as to how deep, sometimes into obscurity, that the Simpsons ventures with their satire.
The Simpsons, science fiction, sci fi, aliens, Kang, Kodos
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