"[1] After Lisa has a recurring dream involving the lockers at Springfield Elementary, Homer and Marge decide to seek a therapist.
Due to Homer having used all their insurance-covered counseling sessions for a stupid reason, they take her to see a shrink-in-training at Springfield Community College.
Comic Book Guy's unhappy wife Kumiko collects them and sells them at The Android's Dungeon and Baseball Card Shop as a graphic novel called Sad Girl.
At the Bi-Mon-Sci-Fi-Con, a panel is held by Roz Chast, with Alison Bechdel and Marjane Satrapi, but the public lauds Lisa and hurts Marge's feelings by not wanting to listen to her talk about her drawing work.
Soon thereafter, they meet a theatrical director, Guthrie Frenel, who has come by the house and wants to make an avant-garde Broadway show of the books.
She draws Lisa's face on a spotlight and shines it on the stage, enraging Guthrie, which causes a chain reaction that ruins the show.
He has three women to choose from; the friendly stewardess who winked at him 23 years ago, She-Hulk or the sexy ketchup bottle from the commercial he likes.
[5][6] Martin Short was cast as an eccentric theater director who turns a graphic novel written by Lisa and drawn by Marge into a musical.
[8] "Springfield Splendor" scored a 2.2 rating with an 8 share, and was watched by 5.25 million people, making it Fox's highest-rated show of the night.
Club gave the episode a B+ stating, "'Springfield Splendor'’s journey has a lot along the way to perk up the eyes and ears of the jaded Simpsons viewer.
The sequences’ lovely and evocative mix of the internal and external are impressive without being flashy, less a gimmick than an expansion of the show’s capabilities.