By Artists James Harvey and Ryan Humphrey have concocted what may be the greatest artistic mashup ever. Somewhere these guys came up with the brilliant idea of retelling the story of famed Japanese manga and anime Akira … with The Simpsons characters. So brilliant. Harvey and Humphrey want to cover all six volumes (!) of the original Akira manga (which is to say, Japanese comic book, duh) with all of the participants completing about 5 pages each. Which means they needed 768 people. And 768 people have already signed onto the project, no big deal. Harvey and Humphrey have cast the entire story with Simpsons characters, with Bart as Kaneda, Milhouse as Tetsuo and Ralph Wigum as Akira.
You can check out some of the images from various artists that have already begun to circulate online below and man, I am so in love with this idea. I think that this is a way better idea than that possible live-action Akira movie remake. The live-action, westernized remake will have a very uphill battle to climb if it’s going to be any good. Bartkira, as the project is called, however is a wonderful appropriation of some beloved cult characters, and it’s using the good old citizens of Springfield in a totally new and refreshing way. I hope they make this into a book or something because I already want to read Bartkira over and over.
*Beware, moderate spoilers in the images below.*
[via The Fox is Black]