Bartkira — a crowd-sourced reimagining of Katsuhiro Otomo’s “Akira” with the characters from Matt Groening’s The Simpsons — has reached its next stage of evolution. A year ago, it popped up as an ingeniously wacky Tumblr project by James Harvey and Ryan Humphrey. Since then, the project has exploded both online and IRL, with over 500 participating artists and recently, the project was shown at Portland’s Floating World Comics. Available at the show was a 96 page limited edition print book, now available on the store’s website for $15.
The Simpsons and Akira are much alike in ways – Both The Simpsons and Akira are creations of the 1980’s, both were to become influences in cartoon, and popular culture, and both are beloved around the World.
And isn’t Springfield just like a post-World War III Neo-Tokyo, populated by dissident revolutionaries, secretive government projects and psychotic psychic children, awaiting another end of the world? (Images: Bartkira)
