In this photo released Friday by Playboy Magazine, the cover of the November 2009 issue featuring Marge Simpson is shown. It’s a first for the magazine, which has never featured a cartoon character before. It will hit the newsstands next Friday.

Chicago ? Aye Carumba!

Marge Simpson has done something that Homer might not like but will make Bart the proudest kid in school: She’s posed for Playboy magazine.

After more than a half century featuring women like Marilyn Monroe, Cindy Crawford and the Girls of Hooters on its cover, Playboy has for the first time given the spot to a cartoon character. And she’s getting the star treatment, with a data sheet, interview and 2-page centerfold.

The magazine’s editorial director, James Jellinek, won’t say how much of Marge will show in the November edition that hits newsstands on Oct. 16 — or whether she lets that big pile of blue hair down. But, he said, “It’s very, very racy.”

But he stressed that the mother of three — the youngest a baby — has a lot to be proud of. “She is a stunning example of the cartoon form,” he said Friday at the magazine’s headquarters in Chicago.

For Playboy, which has seen circulation slip from 3.15 million to 2.6 million since 2006, putting Marge on the cover was to attract younger readers to a magazine where the median reader age is 35, while not alienating older readers. “We knew that this would really appeal to the 20-something crowd,” said Playboy spokeswoman Theresa Hennessey.

The magazine also hopes to turn the November issue into a collectors’ item by featuring Marge, on a chair in the shape of the iconic Playboy bunny, on the cover of only the magazines sold in newsstands. Subscribers get a more traditional model on the cover.

Playboy even convinced 7-Eleven to carry the magazine in its 1,200 corporate-owned stores, something the company has only done once before in more than 20 years. “We love Marge,” said 7-Eleven spokesman Margaret Chabris.

Jellinek said putting Marge on the cover, while unusual, made perfect sense. For one thing, the cover celebrates the 20th anniversary of the TV show. Further, he said there was an episode in which “Marge bears all,” which suggested that she, or at least the people who drew her, would be comfortable with the Playboy treatment.

Perhaps most important, the idea seemed like a good one to the magazine’s founder, Hugh Hefner. “He’s a huge ‘Simpsons’ fan,’ Jellinek said. “He’s been on ‘The Simpsons.”‘