ThirsTrap Marge Simpson
Artist Interview: DRES13
Honored samurai, ruthless ronin, wayward vagabonds, shadowy ninja and helpless villagers... welcome.
Opening Volley
I live for the unexpected; LIVE to be blown away by the sheer unadulterated imagination of others. The Internet never fails to provide. My mantra: The content I’m here for. Prepare yourself for DRES13.
Main Event
First, can you tell us a little about yourself? Where you're from, what your artistic/creative inspirations are, or anything about you you don't mind sharing?
I’m a digital artist/designer sharing my illustrations online and a creative director in my professional life. I live and work in the US and am currently based in sunny Florida. Growing up, and for most of my life I’ve been inspired by American and European comics, manga, Saturday morning cartoons and 80s/early 90s anime.
Okay, let's get directly to the overly obvious here: Marge Simpson. Now, I'll be the first to admit, I do like Marge, she's a great cohesive character who rounds out the wackiness of the family. She's well-loved by her family, friends and the community of Springfield, and to be perfectly honest, I like her better than Bart. (I thank my lucky stars my kids are nothing like him.) But Marge... I never would have imagined her as a super sexy assassin. Total waifu1 material. What brought about this transformation from sweet mother to deadly woman of incredible feats in your mind?
Yeah, so there’s a lot that kind of happened all at once when the idea came to me back in 2019. At the time I was struggling with a serious bout of creative burnout and in a real rut in terms of art block. At the time I was doing mostly cyberpunk and scifi art, and while I’m a huge fan of the genre, my work began to feel unauthentic to me. Like it was just following aesthetic conventions and while I enjoyed making it, after a while I just couldn’t see anything that felt unique to my own sensibilities or POV in the work. This coupled with the added pressure of feeling like I needed to constantly create art to stay relevant and keep the algorithm demons at bay made creating art no longer enjoyable. It was Sysiphus pushing the rock up the hill at that point. So I just let go, disconnected for a bit and went back to basics. I picked up my sketchbook and made terrible drawings that were purely just for me, and only when the mood struck, no forcing it and no pressure to post anything. One fateful October night I was sitting on the couch flipping through issues of Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz’s iconic Elektra Assassin miniseries while Simpsons reruns played in the background. I was also consuming a lot of 80s manga and anime at the time- Otomo, Kawajiri, and Ryoichi Ikegami type stuff, and was aiming to somehow capture and replicate that aesthetic into my sketch practice. I’m not exactly sure what triggered my neurons to make the connection, but the thought of mashing Elektra and Marge and doing it in a retro anime style was somehow beamed into my head. I remember chuckling to myself while reaching for my sketchbook, and for the first time in literally months, felt joy and excitement while drawing something. Initially I just wanted to get the idea down on paper for a laugh, but as time went on I was sort of compelled to draw new iterations, with no intention of ever showing anyone besides my wife who humored me by laughing at the many sketches, and then proceeded to tell me what a dumb idea it was. Somehow though I felt like I had something special- to me at least, which is all that mattered at that point. I was reinvigorated with the idea of having something that felt ‘mine’, that I enjoyed drawing, and that no one else would see.
To your point about Marge- there is just something about her as a character. There was something downright fun about taking the sweet, sensible, and demure homemaker of the Simpsons family and subverting that into a sultry assassin, femme fatale persona. Not to mention, her character design is absolutely iconic and strangely translates so well into an obscurely anime style. Its like when you’re watching an anime or reading certain manga and you see a character design and think “why are they designed this way?”, but you move past it because somehow it just works. In the same way, Marge’s design has that effect for me. Personally, I delighted in taking such an absurd concept and presenting it in a stylistically serious way. This to me, felt like my fingerprint in the work.
It wasn’t until hanging with fellow art friends at a drink-and-draw get together, that I showed anyone what had consumed my the pages of my sketchbook. I was so surprised at the initial positive reaction and how it prompted ideas from around the table of different Simpsons related scenarios to put Marge Assassin into. My pals encouraged me to keep pushing this idea and it was then that I decided I’d share it with my followers on social media who’d I’d been neglecting for months. I then posted the first fully executed Marge: Assassin illustration and was blown away by the response. This was my first post in months and it reached thousands of people- something I hadn’t typically experienced. That was when I knew this could be a thing. The satisfaction of creating something that was initially just for me, but also resonated with others at this level was definitely a turning point in my trajectory as a creative. The great part is that even in the case this eventually fizzles out with my audience, I’ll still be happy making this work for myself and anyone who digs the idea.
Tell us about the comic. What's the story? What genres does it cover in your mind? What's your plan for it? Do you have an publication date in mind?
So the quick synopsis is- In an alternate reality, Marge Simpsonaru is a sword-wielding assassin on a blood soaked mission to avenge her family, leaving a trail of bodies as she cuts her way through the deadly streets of Springjuku.
The world of Springjuku is a neo-noir, manga styled reimagining of the Simpsons lore. In terms of the concept so far, it’s a lot of new takes on anime and pop culture references, overlaid onto themes and riffing on scenarios pulled directly from the Simpsons. For example: one of my illustrations is a reimagining of the classic confrontation between Marge and presumed homewrecker Becky from the episode titled “Its a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Marge” (S 11, Ep 21) mixed with a frame from Sailor Moon that went viral during the Sailor Moon redraw prompt among online artists. The drawing was executed as a subtitled freeze frame of a non-existing anime featuring a bloodied Marge after just vanquishing the usurper in an ice cream parlor. This is a good indication of how I plan to infuse and subvert prominent themes and events of the Simpsons into a darker noir story.
As of right now, I am in the very beginning phase of getting something resembling a complete narrative together. I have lots of story beats and backstory spread out between notes on my phone and sketches, but it all needs lots of work before it comes together into a cohesive story. I’m fortunate enough to have some friends who are successful professionals in the comics world that I can lean on for pointers and maybe even publishing help if/when the time comes. But honestly aside from the artwork, it’s all vapor at this point. I’m definitely chipping away at this though, so stay tuned!
Your websites (Instagram, ArtStation, Tumblr and the various NFT/Web3.0 sites) feature a variety of Marge illustrations and products (I have to pick up that Marge "Killer Mama" Kimono t-shirt!), but are you doing other commissioned work, or do you work commercially at all?
I do! Professionally I’m an associate creative director at a Web3 brand marketing consultancy. I also freelance as an illustrator and designer which allows me to work on a pretty wide range of projects from product packaging, brand design, to comic book covers and band merch. So yeah- a 24/7 creative haha.
Is there anything else you would like to add in closing? Anything at all that you would like to let readers know that hasn't been covered?
I think I’ve prattled on long enough, and appreciate any of your readers who’ve made it this far haha! I’m super grateful for the opportunity to share and talk about my work, so thank you and your readers for your time and attention. Other than that, I invite anyone interested in seeing the Marge project develop to follow along on social.
DRES13, it was an ABSOLUTE pleasure to feature you, looking forward to more material in the future. Also, I hope you will forgive that I had to seriously downsize your images. I feel like a total jerk. Everyone, GO PEEP DRES13’s stunning visual work at any of the sites/SNS below for far better quality than I can provide:
We never meet without parting
Coming issues... (my marriage not withstanding)
Until then!
Made in DNA
https://campsite.bio/madeindna
"Waifu" is used to refer to a fictional girl or woman (usually in Anime, Manga, or video-games) that you have sexual attraction to, and you would even marry. — Urban Dictionary (https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Waifu)
Wild! I dig it
I hated the simpsons till now.