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One of the great mainstays of comics over the last two decades has been Bongo Comics, the company founded by Matt Groening to publish the Simpsons comics and beyond. They’ve been quietly turning out quality comics for a long time, without much fanfare, but with continued sales here and abroad. And one of their flagship […]

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Ryan Humphrey posted this fantastic Simpson/Akira mash up comic on his tumblr last night and it’s been picking up a healthy number of notes since. The comic (which you can see below) is really striking, mainly, I think, because of those splashes of colour against that rich cream background, in the sense of drama and dynamism Humphreys evokes, and also in seeing the usually effusive Simpson’s characters strangely non-committal. The comic also struck a chord with artist James Harvey, who picked up the ball and ran with it, proposing to recreate the whole of Akira with The Simpsons cast, with artists who want to take part signing up to do particular sections. Here’s more from Harvey:

I took this idea to him (Ryan Humphrey), he gave it the go-ahead. Milhouse is Kaneda. Lisa is Kei. Bart is Tetsuo. Let’s do it.

I figured it all out. If you’re down, email the address below. In a few days, I’ll send you the cast list (which character from the Simpsons is which Akira character, though the minor characters will be left up to you) and I’ll tell you which 5 pages you’ll be working on. You can request a particular page, but it’s first come, first served.

If 468 people take part, we get to do all six volumes. Even if only 78 are down, we’d still get the entire first volume.

Since it’ll be non-profit, parody/satire, crowdsourced and distributed peer-to-peer, I feel like it’s juuust on the right side of the legal grey area it inhabits. If not- let’s do it anyway. I’ll take the rap.

if you want to be a part of this, drop me a line at  [email protected]

I’m interested to see how this goes: it sounds hugely fun. Often comic jams on the internet throw up some fantastic stuff, with artists putting their own interpretations on things and a host of styles and techniques on display. If you’re  interested in taking part, contact James at the email address above. Or just enjoy the comic like I did.