Liz OhanesianWhen we first saw this mash-up of Scott Pilgrim and The Venture Bros. floating around on Twitter, it made our day. The piece was created by Annie Wu, a Baltimore-based artist and recent graduate of Maryland Institute College of Art, as part of a contest Scott Pilgrim creator Bryan Lee O'Malley held. She didn't win, but her work has traveled amongst fans of both series.
“They're two things that I probably like a little too much,” says Wu of Scott Pilgrim and The Venture Bros. “I love how both beautifully weave in oddly specific pop culture references without distracting from their own worlds. Also, there's a definite sense that the creators love music, and it translates well to the resulting material.”
Wu worked with Photoshop and a Wacom tablet to make Hank and Dean Venture's “Go Team Venture” sign resemble Scott Pilgrim's finger-point. “The way I typically work with lines is very different from Bryan Lee O'Malley's so using Photoshop helped me maintain some semblance of similarity while I was making Scott/Dean a little skinnier or something.”
Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer of The Venture Bros.; Credit: Annie Wu
Earlier this year, Wu got a nod from Adult Swim when her portrait of The Venture Bros. co-writers Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer, part of her thesis project depicting comedy duos, ended up on one of the station's bumps. (You can catch the clip on BumpWorthy.com.)
“Actually, friends panic-messaged me online the first night it aired, but I didn't see anything until the morning, which also happened to be my birthday,” she recalls. “So that was a really bizarre, pleasant surprise. I made a point to stay up later in the week to witness all fourteen seconds of my Adult Swim fame, but I think by that hour I was too exhausted to fully express any real excitement. When BumpWorthy.com uploaded the clip a short while later, I watched the clip about a dozen times in a row, I won't lie. I'm very flattered people liked the illustration enough to share.”
Recently, Wu has been illustrating characters for Elle.com's web series Dirty Little Secrets. She says she may have a new project in the works as well.
“Hopefully that will be announced at New York Comic-Con this October, but it all kind of depends on how much caffeine I consume and if the resulting shakes cause me to spill more ink than I use.”
You can see more of Annie Wu's work on her blog.
Dr. Orpheus of The Venture Bros.; Credit: Annie Wu
Kim Pine of Scott Pilgrim; Credit: Annie Wu
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