Opinion BY Armin

Bongo Comics Loses Some Bongo-Ness

Established in 1993 by Steve and Cindy Vance, Bill Morrison, and Matt Groening (creator of The Simpsons and Futurama), Bongo Comics is a comic book publisher devoted to off-shoots of Groening’s two popular TV series that has included fan favorites like Itchy & Scratchy, Radioactive Man, and Krusty titles over the years. Its most current roster of titles focuses on The Simpsons and Futurama, as well as carrying Mad magazine genius Sergio Aragonés’ Funnies. Since most comic book publishers are rebranding this start of 2012 Bongo Comics is introducing a new logo for itself and its titles, designed by their in-house designer Serban Cristescu.

The previous logo was pretty great, with the big, shadowy lettering at a dynamic angle and the type-in-a-circle slightly off-center giving it a nice energetic look. Probably hard to reproduce at smaller sizes with the thin white stroke, but that could have been easily fixed. The new logo, while simpler, lost all of its personality and now looks more like the logo for a comics store in a strip mall in the suburbs than the logo for successful publisher. The bouncy, tiki typography could have used some more customization to make it more proprietary and anything other than Helvetica would have been a better choice for “COMICS”.

The title-specific logos are more successful, creating a more unified look despite their differences. It’s interesting that they’ve moved away from just repeating the TV version of The Simpsons logo, probably to make sure people don’t expect a rehash of what they saw on TV the week prior but that it’s a new experience worth plunking down a few dollars for. Overall, the covers look much better and the new logo doesn’t get much in the way.

Cover of an insert received by comic retailers announcing the new look. See the full insert here.

The new family of logos, above. Sample before/after covers, below.

Thanks to Warren for the tip.

Many thanks to our ADV @ UnderConsideration Partners