Same question keeps coming up again and again on the Bartkira tag, so I thought I’d make a post addressing it- what about the supporting cast? 

People are stuck trying to co-ordinate the identities of the non-core cast members. My advice is this- not everyone has to be a character we recognise. In fact, it might be distracting if every single character in the book is a beloved bit player from The Simpsons, and it’ll take a lot of effort for you guys to co-ordinate these cast members between yourselves. So what I suggest you do is just turn the non-core cast members into Groening-ified versions of themselves, and only employ cameos of known characters sparingly. 

If you’ve already done your piece and every single character is recognisable from the show, that’s fine- but I’m hoping this post will save a lot of time and confusion in future.

Steinbeck said “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” Do you have plans for the inevitable day when you have more money than you know what to do with?

These Brillo boxes were designed by a 20th century American commercial artist named James Harvey, and turned into fine art by Andy Warhol. Warhol, the cornball, even put his name on them. When I’m rich (when!) I’m going to buy some of these and give them to the other James Harvey’s surviving descendants, and make ‘em millionaires. I’ll keep one as a coffee table. 

468 participants! Or more, I haven’t counted. The last pages to get taken were the ones that closed out the saga when Akira was originally serialized in Young Magazine. I didn’t plan for that, either.

So yeah, this is pretty exciting. So sorry to everyone who applied who didn’t make it onto the list! Still, if anyone drops out, I’ll be sure to mention either on here on on my twitter, @jamesharveytm. You can still do pages from Akira Club if you want, though. Or covers! We’ll need those…

Anyway, it’s now officially the working week, so I’m not gonna be attending to Bartkira business for a few days. You can still ask me whatever questions you have, but I can’t promise I’ll get to them until the weekend. 

The deadline is May 24th. Ay Caramba! you can watch events as they unfold on the Bartkira tumblr tag. 

Hey, part 3 of my comic Toxoplasmosis went up on Vice. Click here to read it. 



Part 1

Part 2