Last week marked one of the greatest projects the internet has yet produced: BARTKIRA. Kaneda is Bart. Tetsuo is Milhouse. Lady Miyako is Lisa. And Akira? Akira’s Ralph Wiggum, of course.
Inspired by Ryan Humphrey and organized by James Harvey, over 300 artists have contributed to this effort to recreate Katsuhiro Ōtomo’s classic manga with characters from The Simpsons. Harvey established some guidelines and assigned character matches to keep things coherent…well…as coherent as Akira can be. But otherwise artists were simply encouraged to “make it awesome.” You can check out the art from the project on Tumblr, but we suggest that you block out some time, because you will not want to look away.
Rottenoak reimagines Akira’s covers:
Richie Pope gives us an even-scarier-than-usual Sideshow Bob/Tetsuo’s Aide:
Cameron Stewart brings the poignance:
And wyattcarroll hearkens back to that Butterfinger ad campaign from the 1990s:
