MASH-UP!
Above is a collaboration comic I made with my Junior-high-age Cartooning Class. The students came up with characters they liked to see in a comic and then we developed the story on-the-fly, panel by panel. What fun and energy filled the small class of five students (four boys and one girl) as they laughed and imagined such absurdist pop-culture blends of plot lines. One student insisted on a Star Wars theme, another wanted to make a nod to Nintendo's Mario Bros. game. Still another chimed in to include Pokemon. And then there's Spider Pig (AKA Spider Ham) who is an observer to it all.
One thing this whole exercise helped me to realize is that today there is such a love (especially among the young) for depicting pop-culture icons and characters in a myriad of ways. It shows how ideas and stories are ever-fluid and changing. Pop-culture figures that are re-imagined in ways like this get the most liked on social media like Facebook, Tumbler and Instagram.
It's a new era... or maybe it's just an ongoing example of what the human creative mind likes to do best.
2016 UPDATE: Check out these additional Mash-up comics!
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| Yoda Pikachu and Ant-man! |
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| Baymax, Snorlax, Darth Maul and Robo-Kat! |
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| Sponge Bob, Pokemon's Ash, Freddie/Darth Vader and cameos from a Unicorn, Walking Brain dude and Mayor McCheese! |
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