Remember when 20th Century Fox was shutting down Simpsons websites left and right for unauthorized use of their copyrighted characters? It looks like their attitudes have changed. A user on a popular art site posted these two drawings she did of characters from The Simpsons and Futurama in semi-realistic anime style. Someone at Bongo Comics (Matt Groening’s comic book company) saw the anime Simpsons picture and liked it so much, he printed it out and put it on his desk for display. Folks at Fox liked it, too. Did they sue? Nope- they hired her! She’ll be working on an anime-inspired Simpsons story for Bongo and possibly work for Fox on the Futurama revival. Why can’t all studios be like this? In your face, *spacecoyote! And by “in your face,” I mean “congratulations!”
They’re plenty big for my tastes, but I assume you could always e-mail her asking this question. According to her website, the address is spacecoyote-at-gmail-dot-com (you know what to do to make this usable).
That’s some great work. She really brought out some of the personalities - Zoidberg looks more disgusting and Cthulhoid than he does on the show, and Smithers has a great expression on his face. Krusty kinda looks like the Joker.
I liked most of the characters. Patty and Selma were especially well rendered. I liked the new Lisa and Marge looked like a much more believable dishy wife than the Groenig version. Bart was a little undefined, I thought. Otto looked much more authentic as a total stoner. And Homer didn’t look enough like a jerk.
As for the Futurama crew, I thought they were mostly improvements, except for Leela. I think in her attempt to make Leela look tough she went to far – Leela didn’t just look tough, she looked stringy. I think the less stringy Leela is a better call.
Yeah, everyone else gets a lot of texturing and detail in their hair (especially Lisa and Marge), but in Bart, for whom it’s probably his most distinguishing feature, there’s nothing.
And Homer needs a bit more five-o’clock shadow. In that picture, what he has looks like it could just as easily be from the lighting, making him look a lot more clean-cut.