I went to town on this cartoon! I had the day off, and I spent 16 hours drawing it. A labor of love, I assure you. It’s my homage to that infamous motorcycle slide in the seminal cyberpunk movie Akira (1988).

I rode an e-bike only ONCE in my life. I bought it off Craigslist to enter Chicago’s “Bike the Drive” one year. It's an event where they shut down Lakeshore Drive so people can ride their bikes end to end, 30 miles total.

There I was flying down the drive. Banking corners. Jumping hills and curbs. Flooring it. It was so freeing. It was like the whole motorcycle chase opening to Akira. But…

1. It was raining that day. And I was going up a very steep hill by Navy Pier. The “e” of the bike stopped working. I was wearing a poncho, but never thought of covering the battery box that also housed most of the driver circuitry. It was essentially open. Fiddling with it, I couldn’t get it restarted.

So, I figured I could pedal the rest of the way.

2. The seat kept loosening to the point of not letting me sit on it. So, I thought I could stand and pedal.

3. The front fork had shocks in it, but along the way they broke. Every time I tried to pump the pedals to get up some speed, it would eat all my energy. Every push of the pedal was bewildering. But I thought, slow and steady, I’ll get there.

I was at the halfway mark, 15 miles left to go.

4. One pedal kept unscrewing and falling off. I put it back on until I couldn’t. Thought I could use a stick in the pedal hole. Nope. It was painful, but I thought I could pedal with one foot.

It was exhausting. 

5. I was the last one on Lakeshore Drive at the end of that event. The cops were following behind me, in a row slightly staggered. Like a low-speed police chase. They kept telling me to get off the road.

I said I couldn’t! There was literally nowhere I could turn off until I got to my street’s exit.

That went on for quite a while. It went from three police behind me to five, to nine or so. I couldn’t quite see them all.

6. Did I mention it had been lightly raining this whole time?

Eventually I got home. I never felt so miserable and exhausted in my life.

But for a moment… that e-bike was AWESOME!

I did something I never tried before while drawing this: I did blue-line sketching beforehand. If you don’t know, that lets me draw a rough sketch, turn it light blue, and then trace over my own work for a more refined image. Rinse, repeat. I think I sketched three or four revisions before doing the final “inking” I liked.

On the more technical side, I learned how to do glow effects, zonal gradient shading to black, and texturing. I did more layering than anything else before or since. It was so fun.

The only thing I didn’t draw from scratch was the city background at the top. That’s actually based on a photograph of Lakeshore Drive driving north at night. I spent hours tracing and adapting for the look, using another comic book practice. It went faster for sure. I always thought that view of Chicago looked the most cyberpunk (at night).

To be honest, this all started after I drew my “morning cartoon” for my son. I do that most days so he has something fun to see before he goes to school. I guess I really like that “Akira Slide.” I actually used it for the background on this image. You can tell by that bridge silhouette in the background and the angle of the side walls. I liked the way it looked.

At the end, I think I really captured the Akira feeling and how it felt in those first few minutes of riding an e-bike.

I later sold that broken e-bike for parts. I still want one. No more used, that’s for sure! But have you seen those prices? I do like the idea of an upgrade kit, adding a motor to an otherwise normal bike. It seems like the most DIY and hackable. Cheaper, too. Someday…

Chicago’s Bike the Drive 2026 is this Sunday, September 6th. Check it out in the morning, or join it. It’s fun. I did it a few times, only once with an e-bike.

Coincidentally, the movie Akira is getting an IMAX movie format screening this September 3-9. Well worth seeing just for that opening motorcycle chase, in my opinion.

Want to see this slide I keep talking about? Here you go, queue up to a few seconds before the shot: