Good news, everyone! You can start your Monday off just the way your employer likes: by sitting at your desk and reading a free online comic instead of getting your work done!
As posted over the weekend by James Harvey, the first volume of his incredibly ambitious “Bartkira” is now online. For those unaware, “Bartkira” is a massive re-imagining of the classic comic “Akira” by Katsuhiro Otomo, except replaced entirely with characters from The Simpsons (and starring Bart as Kaneda and Milhouse as Tetsuo). The first volume features almost 100 different artists, all of whom have taken a few pages and re-imagined them with the cast of Simpsons characters as dictated by Harvey.
Having read a fair chunk of this (but not all of it, yet), I do have to note that it’s a very interesting if slightly uneven read. Those that have read “Akira” will likely be astounded at the various recreations, as there are quite a few stunning interpretations of the original material. Your mileage will probably vary in terms of the art as it is quite a diverse line-up, ranging from the hyper-stylized and detailed to the decidedly less so, but I’ll note that the transitions between artists is sometimes very rocky; from Dennie Bright’s rendition of the kids as teenagers (with Milhouse’s helmet saying Thrillhouse being an incredible addition) into Jared Weiss’ rendition of the kids as kids again, with cruddy bikes instead of future motorcycles, is a particularly noticeable one early on. It seems the nature of the beast more than anything that things would be “on” or “off-model” as James Harvey notes in reply to Bright’s remark about changes to his work in the comments, but it’s still a very fun read overall.
What’s cool about this as well is that all proceeds from the Bartkira exhibition, which is visible now at Floating World Comics in Portland (including the sale of the “Bartkira” art book, are being split between two charities, Naka-Kon (a charity for Katsuhiro Otomo’s home prefecture of Miyagi, which was decimated during the 2011 Tohuko tsunami) and Save the Children (a charity of choice from Simpsons co-creator Sam Simon).
