Another Rufus blog... A 1UP classic from May 15, 2008

Hello friends, it looks like I'm on a bit of a Street Fighter IV kick again. We might as well keep the train going with some more random observations. Today's rant takes us back to look at the place and purpose of nobodies favorite SF fat man Rufus. It's funny timing that I bring him up as Capcom in Japan and the US has made no official mention of this guy. Even better, Cap USA wants to make 3 figurines of the new lineup and are letting fans vote. Rufus is nowhere to be found. Is it possible that the fan reaction was so strong that they buried him or are they holding him plus other characters as a surprise for when the game is launched? It might turn out to be like Tekken in which some characters appear after a certain amount of time has passed. Let's hope that some other SF-universe characters appear in the lineup.

Now I have nothing against fat people, I'm a fat guy. I also don't have a problem with fat fighting game characters. In fact, I'd like to see more of them, provided that they are consistent with what has already been established in the series. Just the other day a new character was introduced for the boxing game Ready2Rumbe 3 Facebreaker. He's a fat boxing master named Steve Talking Head. The game is supposed to be cartoonish and over-the-top, so he makes sense in that lineup... Make of him what you will.

I've already spoken at length about the subject with my origins of Rufus blog. In case you don't want to read old news I'll sum up some of my gripes. A character like Bob from Tekken moves too quickly for a man of his girth. It's as if they did some motion capture moves and thought it would be funny if the animations were stuck on a fat character. It seems that Rufus is even larger than Bob yet seems to move faster. Maybe Rufus was inspired by strongman Gene Rychlak. He's also a big guy with wild hair and a trucker mustache that bench pressed a thousand pounds. Sure he's strong, but can he move fast? Is he flexible? I doubt it.

While thinking about this character I began wondering what it is that I don't like about Rufus. 1UP member Smashbro mentioned that it could be the way obese people are demonized in US culture. But my issues are more about his speed, lack of muscle definition and seemingly weightless mass, not any bias against fat people. 1UP member Marc lamented that he seems to be the only one on 1UP willing to try this game. I never said that I wouldn't play SF IV or that I wouldn't try out this character. In fact if there is a location test anywhere in the southland then I'll be there, getting in line and trying each character at least once. I'm also thinking about which console to pick up based on which will have a better joystick for the game. To think that I'll pass on a SF IV after waiting so long after III is absurd. Remember that I got the Wii for NiGHTS? Or the Xbox for Jet Set Radio Future?

I've said that large characters tend to move slower in SF games, Rufus is contrary to that. Smashbro mentioned that the Japanese tradition of sumo might explain why they created him and seem to be more accepting of this large character than the US is. The US demonizes obesity yet has a large population that is overweight. My biases might be based from a cultural P.O.V. I began thinking about who Rufus reminded me of, aside from Gene Rychlak and where his place could be in the Street Fighter universe. I began thinking about large characters from cartoons, movies and even real life. Who were the ones that worked and why? As far as fighting games go, the fat guys in Final Fight worked, King Heart in Fist of the North Star worked and Karnov from Fighter's History Dynamite worked as well.

Heck, Karnov could even inflate himself and become even more massive than Rufus, yet he worked in the game because he also had an assortment of mystical properties. Karnov could breath fire, teleport and float, he was a fat doppleganger of Dhalsim. In the context of his game these things worked, but this is a different game. The issues that I have with Rufus and the other new characters are because I feel that Capcom is betraying their own design legacy. Actually part of the problem is that DIMPS is developing this game and their approach to character design is different than the classic Capcom formula. I'll talk about it more tomorrow but I strongly feel that Rufus is just a more complete vision of the character Boyd that DIMPS had put in their 2.5D fighter Rumble Fish.

I couldn't just leave it at that. Like a scab I have to keep picking at the design until it starts bleeding. Where did Rufus come from? What was it about his costume that works or doesn't? Yellow jumpsuit, unzipped to his belly with built-in pads? What about that ponytail and facial hair? Looking at Rufus' trucker mustache I was reminded of the larger-than-life character of Bull Hurley from the movie Over the Top.

I noticed that even though Bull, as played by the late character actor Rick Zumwalt was massive, he wasn't obese. I began wondering how "fat" a character could get and still be valid in the SF universe. I began wondering how big a person could be and still remain a valid fighter. Here is where the distinction between what "fits" in the real world and what "fits" in SF has to be made. We are willing to suspend our disbelief up to a point. If the point is crossed then that character becomes redundant, broken or laughable. At some point something has to be done with the character and design to make him or her fit into the game. This is the part that I think Capcom and DIMPS is missing with Rufus. They are not separating his purpose from his moves. The reason for my thinking of that actually goes back to the character of Bull and the movie he was in. The real arm wrestling legend at the time, Cleve Dean, makes a few cameos but isn't the last person that Stallone faces. According to the Wiki page the filmmakers didn't think that audiences would believe that Stallone could beat Dean.

Wait a minute. We could believe that Stallone could beat Bull but not Dean? How much more massive and imposing was Dean over Hurley?

At his peak in the late 70's / early 80's Cleve Dean was a multiple time world champion. He simply dominated his opponents. The reason for this was because of his tremendous size and strength. He was about 6' 7" and over 450 lbs. easily dwarfing Stallone and even some of his competition. His girth beguiled his opponents, he wasn't just a mountain of a man but rather a mountain of a man with lots of muscle. Like a modern-day Paul Bunyan, Cleve became synonymous with power.

Cleve represents a certain athletic aesthetic that is older than most people realize. Throughout history some of the strongest men in the world haven't always looked like bodybuilders. Some of the most powerful figures in myth have been on the heavy side. The giants and titans of ancient Greek and Norse mythology were usually heavy-set. The legendary Olympic weightlifter Vasili Alexeyev was another mountain of a man but he also did the unthinkable. Before his time many thought it would be impossible to lift more than 500 lbs. in the clean and jerk. Even though there were many strong weightlifters in that era, part of the reason for not being able to break the mark was psychological. Before his record-setting lift his coaches told him that he would be lifting 497 lbs. something that he had done in the past. As he lifted it he thought it felt heavier than normal but pushed himself to complete the cycle. Once he broke the barrier many in the sport realized that the human body had even more strength potential.

But the incredible strength of Cleve or Vasili doesn't mean much in the fighting arena. Grappler Royce Gracie once said a person with an average build that is experienced with judo would be able to beat a person with a bodybuilder physique and no fighting experience. There seems to be a lot to his reasoning. Big, tough guys that know a little fighting are usually taken out by smaller, experienced MMA fighters. The only large people that knowingly have fighting ability are sumo wrestlers. I've already mentioned that sumo wrestlers have a lot of muscle underneath their mass. More than that they have technique. Being absurdly strong is one thing but most sumos are evenly matched, they need technique to counter the strength. They need technique to decide a winner. A champion like Akebono made for a great sumo wrestler because he had the raw size and strength of Cleve or Vasili but combined it with impeccable fighting technique and strategies.

This is where I don't understand the purpose of Rufus. Street Fighter is already filled with archetypical strongmen. Zangief is a giant, bearded version, of Alexander Karelin. Like Alexander, Zangief is capable of superhuman feats of strength with his wrestling ability. E. Honda is a champion-class sumo wrestler, a kabuki-painted yokozuna. Where does Rufus fit between those other big men? He doesn't seem to have the design or purpose of the legendary strongmen I've mentioned. Instead he is a fat guy that knows kung-fu and moves really, really fast. He jumps fast, punches and kicks fast and has fast super attacks. Zangief and Honda are slower by comparison.

It just doesn't make sense to me. I'd love to see Rufus as massive as his is now, playing sickly powerful but also slow. A middleman between Zangief and Honda. Or a "slimmer" version, one that is still chubby but also fast and more reminiscent of Sammo Hung. But a Rufus that is both absurdly fat and fast? That, like Bob from Tekken, is a stretch and I don't think I'm the only one that thinks so. At some point character design stopped being great. It stopped evolving logically and just became absurd. I'm not going to lie and say that 2D fighters all had great designs, there were some awful designs back in the day. However the third dimension really brought the worst designs to life. Advances is animation and 3D modeling allowed a character of any shape or size to move as lightly as an olympic gymnast or as fast as a professional boxer.

When did the gatekeeper to great fighting character design go on holiday? Wish I could have been there in his stead, some characters would have never gotten the greenlight. All I can do now is point out the tragedies and lament the days gone bye. What do you think. Do fat characters have a place in fighting games? Is it about time or just a gimmick so far? Am I making too much about nothing? Does Rufus work in SF IV? Let me know what you think in the comments!

The wildest designers in the west worked at Oakley

The previous Friday I talked about how much I loved sneakers, even though I didn’t really own too many pairs. This was mostly because they were difficult to find in my size. To me sneakers represented more than culture, or fashion. They were literally a part of my identity. They greatly influenced my art, sense of color, and design. Having the money, and ability to order pairs for myself while in college was liberating. A lifetime ago it wasn’t the only thing that really set my imagination on fire. In the ‘90s there was one company that I was obsessed with even though I never owned any of their products. Oakley was the only California business that I thought could outdo Apple in the design department. Apple was, and remains one of the best ever, but back in the day Oakley was designing products for aliens, not humans. For example take a look at the Medusa, and the Over the Top sunglasses.

Oakley had no problem challenging the status quo in the late ‘90s. They were not counter-culture, they were inventing their own culture. There was a reason to their madness. They were one of the few companies that supported action sports athletes before the X-Games made them household names. They were making products for racers, BMX, skiers, skaters, motocross, and other action pioneers before the major brands jumped on the bandwagon. This was because the company was founded by making grips for dirt bikes in the mid ‘70s. They understood that not every athlete practiced traditional sports. They needed functional products that matched their sometimes outrageous personalities. With the case of the Medusa, and Over the Top they wanted the industry to know that nobody had the creative freedom that they did. This wild headgear actually had a story.

A number of the most radical inventions from Oakley in the late ‘90s / early ‘00s was more than form over function. For example the Medusa started off as the head gear for a pro drag racer named Scotty Cannon. It was designed in part to look like the old leather skull caps there were worn by pilots during World War I. The added tentacles made it far more menacing, not unlike the braids worn by the alien Predators from the Schwarzenegger movie. The retail version was, and remains one of the most expensive products in their catalog. A complete set, skullcap plus goggles could run you over $2,000 today. This was not however the original look of the Medusa. In fact the material that the studio used wasn’t leather the first time around. The skullcap, and goggles were made of flame resistant fabric, and the lenses were integrated. They could not be removed. You might ask yourself what type of person would wear something that outlandish?

Scotty Cannon was a champion caliber drag racer that competed in the IHRA (International Hot Rod Association), and NHRA (National Hot Rod Association). Racing at over 300mph could be dangerous. The engines capable of generating more than 10,000 horsepower could explode in the middle of a race. Drivers had to wear flame resistant material, and a helmet to stay safe. Even in the pit area most of the crew wore flame resistant masks while working on the cars. Mr. Cannon’s headgear was actually following the vein of safety. The driver himself had a big personality, and was known for being outspoken about racing politics while competing in the NHRA, which was the most popular drag racing league in the USA. Oakley seemed to be a perfect fit for the attention grabbing racer. Mr. Cannon challenged the status quo, especially the most popular drivers at the time. He backed up his words with wins. This meant he was iced out of the NHRA for speaking his mind. Oakley not only designed the radical paint jobs on Scotty’s top fuel funny car, they made sure to kit him in equally radical head gear. Mr. Cannon had been sporting a Mohawk haircut on-and-off for years. The Over the Top sunglasses were designed to fit without putting pressure on the temples, or ears like traditional frames. For Scotty they not only fit over his head, the gap in the middle seemed made just for his Mohawk. They got a lot of attention at the track, and wherever they turned up in athletic stores. I remember seeing the frames while visiting a Foot Locker. They were insanely cool, and quite pricey.

The various sunglasses that put the company on the map were one thing, but then they let their mad scientists loose on other products. Some of their boldest designs were for time pieces. I’m a big fan of industrial design. Looking at the steel, and titanium watches made me think they were created for visitors from another planet, or possibly our future robot overlords. I’m not going to lie, I was insanely jealous of everything coming out of the company. Their design team very much sung to all of my interests. They were unlike any other studio out there. When they went into a product design they went in hard. Even when it came to marketing they were super bold. They were not simply letting some ad company put together their message, they told their own story. For example when other drag racers had cars covered in hundreds of sponsor stickers Oakley stood out with one massive in-your-face paint job on their funny cars. This definitely got people talking.

There were a few downsides to all of these radical designs. The first was the price. Oakley was (at the time) a small company, they not only designed their own products, but they also did their own R&D, marketing, and manufacturing. This ensured an insanely high level of quality control. The cost of this was not cheap, and neither were the prices of their items. This was especially true for their watches, and also for their sunglasses. The other down side for me was that I was very nearsighted. I needed a strong prescription, and couldn’t just buy any sunglasses off the shelf. In later years Oakley would offer frames at the optometrist, but at the peak of their extreme designs I simply couldn’t afford any products. This didn’t stop me from lusting after them. Whenever I needed inspiration I knew that I could go through my sneaker books for ideas, or even better yet could pour over the Oakley ads in various magazines. Then as if the universe was mocking me I saw that the company started making sneakers as well. It felt like my heart had been ripped out.

For the first time in my life I started making decent money, and was buying a few sneakers on sale through the Eastbay catalog. This undid years of self-neglect, and made me feel like I was a regular person. All of a sudden I felt like an outcast again. It was a return to my formative years in middle school when I couldn’t wear the skate shoes I wanted because my feet were too big. Only instead of not being able to find Airwalks in my size, the Oakley sneakers that went even harder were perpetually out of reach. Each new release looked bolder than the last. Even when it came to sandals, and golf shoes the company simply could not miss. As if to add insult to injury my older brother bought a few Oakley watches, and ended up buying a few pair of sneakers because he had an average height, and shoe size. He did tell me that he felt sorry when he bought them because he knew how much I loved their look.

When I say I’m a sneaker head I mean that I even pay attention to the shoes that characters wear in comics. I would often point them out to my brothers. One of the reasons my big brother, and I were both drawn to the Oakley brand was because they looked like something out of a comic book. To be more specific they looked like they were ripped from the pages of a manga; Appleseed by Masamune Shirow. I considered Mr. Shirow to be one of the greatest designers of a generation. His mangas were all fantastic works of art. Appleseed, Orion, Ghost in the Shell, and Dominion: Tank Police were highly influential to me. He was not only a great storyteller, and artist, when it came to design there was nobody that could match him. He was a one man Oakley design department years before they got into fashion. The guns, knives, and armor Mr. Shirow created in the late ‘80s would eventually be copied by actual arms manufacturers a decade later. He understood both form, and function with everything he created. He was simply that damn good at his job.

One of the things I especially loved in his books were the shoes that the characters wore. Can you recall any comic artist that went out of their way to design original shoes? Nobody made footwear that were as brutal as those in Appleseed. Whether the character was an engineer, cop, politician, cyborg, or mercenary, they all had some unique footwear. Every fit matched the personality for the character, especially the ESWAT officers, and stars of the series. The boots worn by Briaeros Hecatonchires, and Deunan Knute were the hardest footwear I’d ever seen. They looked like they could chew through concrete. The footwear that Oakley put together looked like they had been pulled from the pages of Appleseed.

As if I wasn’t already a fan of the company I was absolutely smitten with their new sneakers. The downside was that their biggest sizes at the time (and to this day) were 14 US. That was fine for my younger brother, who was almost as tall as me, and wore size 14 sneakers. I was simping hard for a company that had locked me out. As I said a moment ago, it was jr. high school rejection all over again. I felt like an outsider to a culture that I was obsessed with. Things changed a couple years into the 2000’s. I’ll talk about it more in a future blog. Were you a fan of Oakley, or the designs from any other company? I’d like to read about it in the comments section. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!