"Bartkira" - Volume 1 Has Landed!

(Via)

Finally! After an entire year of organizing and production the first chapter of the crowd sourced Simpsons/Akira mashup comic is now live. The quality of the illustrations vary, but it's to be expected with a collaborative project of this magnitude. We can thank the existence of this project to 'Neo-Britain' resident Ryan Humphrey and Harvey James, who initiated this bizarre, amazing mashup.

At it's peak, the project had over 700 artists collaborating to execute the full recreation of the 2,000 page, 6 volume manga. Due to the obvious legal ramifications, the book will never be on sale in it's entirety, and instead released online for free. However, you can purchase a highlight book, featuring some of the best work produced from the 6 volumes from Floating World Comics for $15.

That aside, I really hope you guys have a lot of free time on your hands, because the first 350 page Volume is now available online for you to read over here. Check out our other Bartkira article over here, featuring a few of our favorite pages from the WIP project at the time.

"Edge Of Tomorrow" Concept Art Reveals Some Surprising Details

Edge Of Tomorrow has been out for two weeks now, so it seems safe to finally pull the curtains on some concept art. It's been slowly trickling out, with some massive releases by industry concept artists Kev Jenkins and Tim Browning, who have worked on features including World War Z, 47 Ronin, Thor 2- The Dark World just to name a few. For anyone wondering, the movie was pretty decent- kind of resembling a mashup of Groundhog Day and Starship Troopers, in the best way possible.

Some of the early concept art revealed some truly curious information, including this pitch image above with a different name- All You Need Is Kill. This prompted a little research, which brought up some truly surprising information about the origins of Edge Of Tomorrow's intriguing concept.

Japanese Baseball Stadiums Have The Coolest Jumbotron Animations

Japan's love for all things Baseball never ceases to amaze me, the amount of love and dedication put into the sport by many citizens is unlike anything I've ever seen. With the amount of love received by almost the entirety of Japan, it's no surprise that the sport is far more of a visual spectacle than other places in the world. The above animation showcases a variety of visual indicators shown throughout the games of the Hiroshima Toyo Carp, and it's damn amazing. 

It's incredible to imagine an animation like this playing on a Baseball stadiums giant Astrovision screen, especially when compared to stadiums in the United States with simpler, less stylized animations. There's a few sporting events I'd love to see around the world, but Japanese Baseball has always sat comfortably at the top of my list.

The Kinect Powered Manga Creator

Another pretty damn cool use of the Kinect, created by some truly fun folks at Shirai Lab following the success of the Manga-Camera app (You've probably seen at least a few people post their creations on Facebook), which allowed you to turn any photo into an over the top frame from a manga. Using a mixture of clever pen and ink shaders and some on the fly compositing, this fun experimental application turns you into the protagonist. Practical application? Who knows, but it looks like these guys had fun creating it.

For a story created in advance, you take up your desired pose. Then, the shader runs in real time, converting the image to manga style. The biggest feature of this system is, it observes a person’s posture, chooses a background to match, and synthesizes the two. The real-time manga shader still has room for improvement, so we’re working to enhance the image quality. Then, there’s the issue of layout. We’ve made great progress on layout with text in the right places, and interactive stories. Some aspects of this research can be applied to e-books and interactive e-books.

The Curious Art Of Kaneoya Sachiko

(Via)

What is it about Kaneoya Sachiko that captivated us so? Perhaps it was her unnerving subject matter, featuring a doe eyed protagonist (Her alter ego) and his strange adventures with supernatural entities, the strangely retro anime aesthetic that she employs, or the abstract hint of narrative tying all these images together, something personal to her.

Everything about the Tokyo based artists work screams late 80's/early 90's anime/manga, ranging from the brash, bold color palettes down to the stylization of the characters, who seem to follow anime design trends which were present decades ago. Mix that with dashes of Japanese folklore and classical woodcut artists, and the result is truly striking in my opinion, although perfectly in line with the retro revival that has seen a resurgence as of late. Check out more of the talented artists work after the break.

Jojo's Bizarre Adventure - All Star Battle Gets A Shiny New Trailer

Another new trailer arrives for the upcoming Jojo's Bizarre Adventure : All Stars Battle, a title that will thankfully be heading to US shores. The folks at Namco/Bandai have been doing a fantastic job of showing off just how faithfully they can adopt manga series into videogame form, especially ever since they finally nailed the formula with the Naruto : Ultimate Ninja Storm series.

Based off of the ongoing series by Hirohiko Akari, who has been writing and illustrating the series for 25 years now, the game will feature characters from the eight chapters created since 1987, with an emphasis on staying loyal to the narrative. You guys should really check out the manga if you're looking for something truly outside the box, the man has a knack for coming up with some of the craziest concepts I've ever had the joy of reading. Just to give you a frame of reference in terms of how influential Akari has been as a mangaka, he was invited by the Musée du Louvre to contribute work for their comic exhibition, as well as collaborations with Gucci, Lawson and other companies.

Kaneda's Bike In The Flesh

Street legal (Via)

As part of a promo for Katsuhiro Otomo's upcoming Gengaten exhibit, a series of videos featuring a legit working version of Kaneda's bike have been trickling onto the internet recently. The April 9 exhibit will serve as a showcase of all his artistic accomplishments and milestones in the field of animation and comic books, and will probably provide great publicity for his upcoming, historical long form manga (As of yet untitled) which will supposedly take place in the Meiji era. It's pretty exciting to see him return like this, because its been over 20 years since he's tackled a serialized manga. Check out more videos from the bike promo after the break!

 

The Art Of ThreeBar

Found in the darkest depths of Pixiv (Via)

ThreeBar is a Tokyo based artist that caught our eye, thanks to his pushed compositions, dynamic poses and ecclectic approach to designing his characters. In a way some of Threebar's characters really brought me back to the work of Bhead, the custom toy maker who gave his creations a very colorful, tacked together feel. The artist also does plenty of tribute pieces, paying respect to classic series like JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Dragon Quest, heck..Even Ghostbusters!

Threebar allows his lineart to shine through, usually applying simple washes of flat color with little shading to help give it a somewhat raw look. His detail on some of these pieces is absolutely sublime though, bringing back mild memories of the likes of Katsuhiro Otomo (The artist behind Akira, Domo, Steamboy, etc.) Check out 11 more pieces from his portfolio after the break!