The Art Of 'Bartkira' At Portland's Floating World Comics

For the better part of the past year (and some change), Tumblr has beheld one of the most blissful art jams of the current millenium, a panel-for-panel recreation of Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira manga starring the cast of The Simpsons appropriately dubbed, Bartkira. Inspired by Ryan Humphrey, organized by James Harvey and featuring the work of a sprawling assortment of artists from all over the web, the project has finally reached a print milestone. On May 1 at Portland, Oregon's Floating World Comics, fans got a chance to take in 16 pages of the project's original artwork in a special gallery, and also pick up a 96-page exhibition book collecting a selection of the project's sequential pages. ComicsAlliance dropped by to see the epic of Bart-turned-Kaneda and Milhouse-turned-Tetsuo in print and on the wall. Neo Springfield may or may not have E.X.P.L.O.D.E.d.

Curated by Frans Boukas with design assistance from Matt Deans, the limited exhibition Bartkira collection contains the work of James Harvey, Danny Hynes, Marcel O’Leary, Michael Kim, Erica Henderson, Jacob Chabot, Cameron Stewart, Alejandro Bruzzese, Ben Ommundson, Rodrigo Bravo, Brenton Barnes, Luke Novel, Richie Pope, Jon Huddleston, Jason Rainey, Cory Tran, Bodie Chewning, Alchemichael, Frans Boukas, Tyler Patrick Boss and Ben Jelter. It's currently available for $15 through Floating World's online store.

The gallery, on the other hand, includes illustrations by Wyatt Carroll, Jeremy Arambulo, Areil Vergez, Jaime Munoz, Alexandre Ghostthead, Rawn Gandy, Nick Sumida and Humphrey. It will be on display at Floating World through the end of May.

You can get a look at Bartkira in action below. With any luck, one day fans will be able to read a full 2,200 pages of Bartkira goodness.

Anna Goellner