"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.

The Simpsons Enter A Lego Dimension In "Brick Like Me"

Even though I probably haven't watched The Simpsons in over a decade now, they've been making the right moves lately to capture a new audience. A promo for an upcoming episode called Brick Like Me draws some interesting parallels to The Lego Movie, both featuring characters existing in two realities. After waking up in a Lego form, the family begins to realize that something might be off with this brick reality. For any of our readers who still happen to have cable, the episode will premiere tomorrow at 8/7 central. The overlords at Lego continue to spread their brick agenda through every multimedia facet imaginable, but honestly we don't mind.

The Simpsons Pays Tribute To Studio Ghibli

Seems like The Simpsons decided to pay tribute to Studio Ghibli following last September's announcement that Hayao Miyazaki would retire following The Wind Rises. While pretty thoughtful, it didn't necessarily elevate the source material being referenced to new heights or do anything particularly creative with it aside from slapping Simpsons characters onto the various protagonists from films including Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service.

Thing is, Miyazaki just announced his retirement from retirement just recently (Much to our delight)..For your reference this is the 6th time he's announced he would retired before changing his stance, and we honestly don't mind.

Guillermo del Toro's Take On The Simpson's Couch Gag (Treehouse of Horror XXIV Edition)

Oh hell yes, October has officially begun. October is by far my favorite month of the year, not only do I get a jarring transition into Fall in the wonderful land of Seattle, but I'm also treated with an onslaught of horror content to celebrate the month.

To finally kick things off, Fox has released the opening couch gag for this weekend's 24th annual Treehouse of Horror Simpsons special. The couch gags have always been known to pull some amazing talent, but this year we're being treated by the fantastic Guillermo del Toro.

Filled to the brim with horror references ranging from H.P. Lovecraft to Alfred Hitchcock, this might be contender for the best Treehouse of Horror opening yet. While there have been some incredibly disturbing intros (especially during the early seasons of The Simpsons) this couch gag is definitely a tad safer, but the amount of references hidden within it more than make up for it. Couldn't have put The Simpsons back on my radar better than this, Fox. You win this time.