Sadly some of the wrestlers are retired or no longer with us. It's one of the reasons I love the posters that I collected. They are a snapshot of an era.
Showing posts with label wrestling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wrestling. Show all posts
Friday, November 1, 2024
Freeze frame, my poster collection, part 2…
I love pro wrestling, specifically lucha libre. Did you know that the oldest promotion in North America belongs to the CMLL out of Mexico? It's over 90-years-old, and still going strong. A few years ago they signed a deal with Warner Bros to produce merchandise, soft goods, toys, stickers, and posters.
Monday, July 1, 2024
More lucha libre comics for you! - A 1UP classic from August 10, 2011
You may know that I am a huge fan of lucha libre and especially enmascarados or masked wrestlers. I talked a little bit about a masked wrestler comic book not too long ago with Big Daddy Danger. There were two other books that I would like to mention.
Strongman written by Charles Soule, drawn by Allen Gladfelter and published by Slave Labor Graphics is a pulpy novel featuring a past-his-prime enmascarado named El Tigre. The story is well done and the art, all black and white is okay. It has a violent edge to it with lots of blood spilled on both sides. It doesn't reach the level of style or storytelling of a Sin City graphic novel but is a fun ride nonetheless.
La Mano Del Destino by Castle and Key Publications is a newer color series featuring a masked wrestler named the Hand of Destiny. This character was double crossed during a match and lost his title and mask in the ring, the worst of all humiliations! He vowed revenge and must now face a series of opponents, each tougher than the last, before he can get his hands on the man that betrayed him. Sounds like the setup to a fun series, if not a videogame as well.
The art style is classic, printed on traditional newsprint with 4 color processes it looks like something out of the vault. The first issue was available in comic book stores but every additional issue will only be available from the publisher. Hopefully these indy publishers will help make it easier for original stories to get to market without having to deal with the monopoly that is Diamond Distribution. What was the last good or original comic that you have read?
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!Wednesday, June 26, 2024
Big Daddy Romantic Monthly Danger - A 1UP classic from July 28, 2011
Hello friends, sorry if you've gotten burned out on the Disney coverage over the past couple of weeks. I'm still on a comic book kick though and for that I'm not apologizing. I'd like to share with you a couple of books that had caught my eye over the past couple of weeks. Big Daddy Danger by Adam Pollina and Tyson McAdoo and Strongest Dad, a romantic monthly by Minoru Hiramatsu were some fun reads that you should be aware of.
The books were from a few years ago and covered some oddly similar territory. Big Daddy Danger was a short series published by DC featuring a masked wrestling character that doubled as a secret agent. Strongest Dad was a comedy about an undefeated MMA fighter trying to raise a family. The manga series was featured in Big Spirits from Japan. The story was collected in a three-part anthology.
Both titles had fun art, clever designs and plenty of nods to pop culture and the troubles of raising a family. For the Strongest Dad his troubles were compounded by the fact that he could not accept defeat or decline any challenge. Even if it meant having to test his mettle against an elephant at the nearby animal park.
Big Daddy Danger was just as absurd but equally fun. Big Daddy was both a championship wrestler and secret agent. His manager / trainer looked like Col. Sanders and got secret messages printed out of his cane. Big Daddy had a son and wife whom he often had to spend lots of time away from. In fact his son had no idea that his father was moonlighting as an agent.
The Strongest Dad lead a more normal life where the biggest challenges were more about raising two daughters and fulfilling his wife's expectations.
Both main characters had older brothers which wanted nothing more that to see the main characters defeated and humiliated. In Big Daddy Danger the brother tried to move in and become a surrogate father to the Danger son and even steal away the Danger wife.
In Strongest Dad the brother wanted to find the man or beast alive that could dethrone his kin. He even had his brother fight against a gorilla when he tried to humble him! Eventually he found a Russian bruiser, an ex solder that was built like a tank and was obsessed with drawing manga girls. When "Dad" wasn't dealing with animals he was busy beating up on a unscrupulous fight promoter that dressed like a dictator and drove a copy of the Batmobile!
The art provided by Polina and McAdoo in BDD was very cartoonish, there were great splash pages and hilarious expressions featured on the cast. The characters interacted with all sorts of goons and even demons. Possibly the funniest part was that Big Daddy would continuously peel off his mask and have a different one underneath for whatever challenge he was facing. It certainly would make for an interesting videogame mechanic in a title other than NiGHTS.
Not to be outdone, Mr. Hiramatsu was a king of facial expressions. The characters in his books have always had memorable takes. He featured some of his panels in a blog about the series.
Both issues wrapped up rather quickly, BDD in 9 months and Strongest Dad within a year. If I wanted to see a series continue however it would have to be Strongest Dad. As much of a fan as I am of lucha libre, the Big Daddy series seemed flat. Big Daddy seemed to walk through opponents and there was no real sense of drama or tension in the issues, worse there was no resolution for his brother. Strongest Dad on the other hand made every little activity into a challenge, whether it was learning to play piano or escorting his daughters on a field trip. The Strongest Dad seemed a more three dimensional character that readers could root for. It was a fun series and almost matched the greatness of Mr. Hiramatsu's magnum opus. The Japanese wrestling, parable known as Agnes Kamen.
Tuesday, February 25, 2020
The unlikely origins of some Mad Gear bosses...
I've been playing through a number of classic games recently, and have been focusing on the Final Fight trilogy. It got me thinking about the details that Capcom put into the title. It also made me wonder where some of the characters came from. I'm particularly fond of the villains in the series, and I want to share what I think were the inspiration behind some of the most unique. For example, did you ever notice that there was an evil technician that was a boss character in the series? If you are a designer then how do you get across that a character is an inventor of sorts? Is it because of wild facial hair? A lab coat? Maybe goggles, or perhaps a bald head? How do audiences know what a crazy scientist looks like? When you think of evil geniuses in video games who usually comes to mind? I usually think of Dr. Eggman from Sonic the Hedgehog, but even he had to come from somewhere. Eggman did come from somewhere. Brian Ashcraft noticed how some of the early Studio Ghibli characters looked like Eggman. Of course this was a topic of a Reddit thread, and VGDensetsu tweeted the observation as well.
The roots behind the evil scientist go back even further. Possibly to the story of Frankenstein almost 200 years ago. In pop culture however the template for the evil scientist probably came from the Mad Doctor. The villain appeared in a Mickey Mouse cartoon in 1933. He was sporting a bald head, and wild facial hair long before Studio Ghibli or Sonic Team were created. He came back in game form for Epic Mickey 2 in 2012. Have you ever wondered if there could be a good mad inventor archetype? Again taking influences from Japan there was such a character. Cid Pollendina, my favorite of all the Cid characters, debuted in Final Fantasy IV way back in 1991. The airship engineer was the former Captain of the Red Wings in the game. He was burly, with a wild beard, physically strong, and a genius with mechanics. I believe he was the inspiration for the Skull Cross boss mechanic Caine.
Caine was located in a junkyard. He could only be reached if players were careful not to break a bus stop sign in Round 3. The top-heavy boss was cut from the same cloth as Cid. Overly muscular with goggles, and wild mane of hair instead of a beard. He would pin players with his thick welding gloves and smash them over the head with an enormous wrench. Talk about a cheap shot! Thankfully like most Final Fight bosses he was more brute than brains. He lacked the fighting techniques of the heroes. As neat a design as Caine was he wasn't even remotely the oddest of the bosses. In previous blogs I talked about the heavy metal stars, and films that inspired the creation of Final Fight. Sodom was a German metal band that formed in the early '80s. Their name and use of a masked military character on the album covers inspired the creation of the Mad Gear boss.
Depending on your point of view Sodom was either a harcore Japanophile or a certifiable kook. Either way he took his obsession with Japanese culture to extreme lengths. This came through in his game appearances, cut scenes, and official art from Capcom. Sodom fashioned a helmet and samurai "armor" out of football pads, jeans and a jersey. In the original Final Fight he would fight opponents inside of a wrestling ring. He used two katana swords and called them Masamune and Muramasa, named after the legendary Japanese swordsmiths. In The Street Fighter Zero / Alpha series he switched to jitte, the steel batons that Edo-period Japanese officers used. What if I were to tell you that aside from the metal band there was possibly a real-world inspiration for this character? Peter Thornley aka Kendo Nagasaki was a British wrestler that was obsessed with Japanese culture, and tradition. He was one of the biggest wrestling draws in Britain in the late '60s and early '70s. He even wrestled through the '80s, around the formative years of the Capcom staff.
The Kendo "gimmick" was very earnest. Thornley did everything he could to keep his identity a secret. He wore a mask in ring, and didn't lose it in any matches. He never gave interviews, and his manager did all the talking for him. When a plumber found out his identity Thornley was forced to come forward, but on his own terms. He unmasked himself in the late '70s during an elaborate, pseudo-Japanese ceremony. To this day Thornley claims that he is a spiritual vessel, and the host of a 300-year-old Japanese spirit. I have no doubt that Thornley believes in his claims. Sodom is drawn from the same level of obsession as Kendo. Both sometimes miss the details of the culture they are emulating. In canon Sodom speaks with very rough Japanese pronunciation. To emulate Japanese he will sound words out phonetically, like "It's Toe Show! Show Sea Send Bang! and Die Job Death Car!" The last phrase is pronounced "daijōbu desu ka?" and means "Are you alright?" When he wins a match he will sometimes say "Yo Parry," which is supposed to be "yappari" or "I thought so!"
The kanji on his jersey is supposed to read "Shi" or death in Japanese, but he missed a brush stroke so the character doesn't mean anything. When Sodom tried reuniting his gang during the events of Street Fighter Zero he painted kanji on the sign that was phonetically MA-DU-GI-A aka Madgear, but the combination of letters doesn't actually mean anything in Japanese. Sodom, like Thornley, was obsessed with keeping his identity a secret. Possibly because he was ashamed that he was not actually Japanese. In the Street Fighter Zero manga his mask was broken, and he covered his face out of fear of being found out. He claimed that he could not fight without it. The scene explained a lot about the character without having to go into further detail. He was probably the best example of the creative process behind the Mad Gear bosses. The villains often had layers of detail that went into their development. These most memorable were revisted by the studio. Which were some of your favorites? 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!
The roots behind the evil scientist go back even further. Possibly to the story of Frankenstein almost 200 years ago. In pop culture however the template for the evil scientist probably came from the Mad Doctor. The villain appeared in a Mickey Mouse cartoon in 1933. He was sporting a bald head, and wild facial hair long before Studio Ghibli or Sonic Team were created. He came back in game form for Epic Mickey 2 in 2012. Have you ever wondered if there could be a good mad inventor archetype? Again taking influences from Japan there was such a character. Cid Pollendina, my favorite of all the Cid characters, debuted in Final Fantasy IV way back in 1991. The airship engineer was the former Captain of the Red Wings in the game. He was burly, with a wild beard, physically strong, and a genius with mechanics. I believe he was the inspiration for the Skull Cross boss mechanic Caine.
Caine was located in a junkyard. He could only be reached if players were careful not to break a bus stop sign in Round 3. The top-heavy boss was cut from the same cloth as Cid. Overly muscular with goggles, and wild mane of hair instead of a beard. He would pin players with his thick welding gloves and smash them over the head with an enormous wrench. Talk about a cheap shot! Thankfully like most Final Fight bosses he was more brute than brains. He lacked the fighting techniques of the heroes. As neat a design as Caine was he wasn't even remotely the oddest of the bosses. In previous blogs I talked about the heavy metal stars, and films that inspired the creation of Final Fight. Sodom was a German metal band that formed in the early '80s. Their name and use of a masked military character on the album covers inspired the creation of the Mad Gear boss.
Depending on your point of view Sodom was either a harcore Japanophile or a certifiable kook. Either way he took his obsession with Japanese culture to extreme lengths. This came through in his game appearances, cut scenes, and official art from Capcom. Sodom fashioned a helmet and samurai "armor" out of football pads, jeans and a jersey. In the original Final Fight he would fight opponents inside of a wrestling ring. He used two katana swords and called them Masamune and Muramasa, named after the legendary Japanese swordsmiths. In The Street Fighter Zero / Alpha series he switched to jitte, the steel batons that Edo-period Japanese officers used. What if I were to tell you that aside from the metal band there was possibly a real-world inspiration for this character? Peter Thornley aka Kendo Nagasaki was a British wrestler that was obsessed with Japanese culture, and tradition. He was one of the biggest wrestling draws in Britain in the late '60s and early '70s. He even wrestled through the '80s, around the formative years of the Capcom staff.
The Kendo "gimmick" was very earnest. Thornley did everything he could to keep his identity a secret. He wore a mask in ring, and didn't lose it in any matches. He never gave interviews, and his manager did all the talking for him. When a plumber found out his identity Thornley was forced to come forward, but on his own terms. He unmasked himself in the late '70s during an elaborate, pseudo-Japanese ceremony. To this day Thornley claims that he is a spiritual vessel, and the host of a 300-year-old Japanese spirit. I have no doubt that Thornley believes in his claims. Sodom is drawn from the same level of obsession as Kendo. Both sometimes miss the details of the culture they are emulating. In canon Sodom speaks with very rough Japanese pronunciation. To emulate Japanese he will sound words out phonetically, like "It's Toe Show! Show Sea Send Bang! and Die Job Death Car!" The last phrase is pronounced "daijōbu desu ka?" and means "Are you alright?" When he wins a match he will sometimes say "Yo Parry," which is supposed to be "yappari" or "I thought so!"
The kanji on his jersey is supposed to read "Shi" or death in Japanese, but he missed a brush stroke so the character doesn't mean anything. When Sodom tried reuniting his gang during the events of Street Fighter Zero he painted kanji on the sign that was phonetically MA-DU-GI-A aka Madgear, but the combination of letters doesn't actually mean anything in Japanese. Sodom, like Thornley, was obsessed with keeping his identity a secret. Possibly because he was ashamed that he was not actually Japanese. In the Street Fighter Zero manga his mask was broken, and he covered his face out of fear of being found out. He claimed that he could not fight without it. The scene explained a lot about the character without having to go into further detail. He was probably the best example of the creative process behind the Mad Gear bosses. The villains often had layers of detail that went into their development. These most memorable were revisted by the studio. Which were some of your favorites? 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!
Thursday, August 10, 2017
Speculation on ARIKA's unnamed Street Fighter EX successor, part 1...
Like I said in the previous series, it's a great time to be a fan of fighting games. There are many good titles out right now and many more scheduled for the future. One of which I have a very close watch on is the Untitled fighting game by ARIKA. I've called it Fighting EX Layer in the past and other people are calling it Fighting Layer EX (FLEX for short). It features the new characters from the Street Fighter EX series, and not the ones created by Capcom. ARIKA had been teasing the next Street Fighter EX game for years. They would do this on April Fool's day almost like clockwork. They would get the hopes up of fighting game fans with a screenshot, trailer or even actual gameplay footage. Then a few days later they would pretend like nothing happened. Offering no release dates or other information on the game. This year was no exception. They released a short trailer on April Fool's day and even did a live demo of the game-in-progress. Previous demos were on Nintendo 3DS hardware, this time the demo was on a development kit for the Playstation 4.
ARIKA's last original arcade fighter was Fighting Layer in 1998 and their last console fighting game was Street Fighter EX 3 in 2000. They did have a hand in developing other fighting games for consoles and handhelds but none featuring their own IP. Something was different about the most recent April Fool's. The demo was so well done that many speculated that the studio was actually working on a new fighting game. This was proven to be true a few months later when they released a longer trailer during the EVO tournament. This trailer included more returning Street Fighter EX characters and even a hint to the story mode. At the end we learned many things.
The game was a Playstation 4 exclusive. There will be a beta / online test by the end of 2017. The studio hoped to have a full release by April Fools Day 2018. The game did not have an official title yet but I certainly hope they considered FLEX. The extended trailer gave audiences the first glimpse of a couple of classic characters. The first one revealed was a personal favorite and one that had a cult-like following in the fighting game community. Skullomania was definitely a character out of left field. The salary-man-turned-circus acrobat-turned-superhero had a unique design. He looked and moved unlike any other character before or since. His assortment of diving and tumbling moves was fresh. The character was so far beyond the definition of a martial arts master that he was very much like what Blanka or Dhalsim were to the Street Fighter II lineup.
The other big reveal was Darun Mister. The wrestler in the series was on par with Zangief and I believe he had a better overall design than the Russian. In the EX series Darun was the bodyguard of the globe-trotting Pullum Purna. The Indian Darun and Saudi Pullum were a colorful addition to the lineup. In this latest update Darun had left his job as a bodyguard after the god of Indian wrestling spoke to him in a dream. He flew to Japan to fight the strongest opponent he could. Garuda the demon beat him severely and left him for dead. Darun recovered and now wants revenge. The redesigned Darun, along with the updated designs for the rest of the cast look amazing.
More characters were expected to be revealed throughout the summer. The developments in the story were tremendous. There was much more drama this time around and for a few characters there was a lot more at stake. We'll explore these in the next blog. As always if you enjoyed this blog and 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!
ARIKA's last original arcade fighter was Fighting Layer in 1998 and their last console fighting game was Street Fighter EX 3 in 2000. They did have a hand in developing other fighting games for consoles and handhelds but none featuring their own IP. Something was different about the most recent April Fool's. The demo was so well done that many speculated that the studio was actually working on a new fighting game. This was proven to be true a few months later when they released a longer trailer during the EVO tournament. This trailer included more returning Street Fighter EX characters and even a hint to the story mode. At the end we learned many things.
The game was a Playstation 4 exclusive. There will be a beta / online test by the end of 2017. The studio hoped to have a full release by April Fools Day 2018. The game did not have an official title yet but I certainly hope they considered FLEX. The extended trailer gave audiences the first glimpse of a couple of classic characters. The first one revealed was a personal favorite and one that had a cult-like following in the fighting game community. Skullomania was definitely a character out of left field. The salary-man-turned-circus acrobat-turned-superhero had a unique design. He looked and moved unlike any other character before or since. His assortment of diving and tumbling moves was fresh. The character was so far beyond the definition of a martial arts master that he was very much like what Blanka or Dhalsim were to the Street Fighter II lineup.
The other big reveal was Darun Mister. The wrestler in the series was on par with Zangief and I believe he had a better overall design than the Russian. In the EX series Darun was the bodyguard of the globe-trotting Pullum Purna. The Indian Darun and Saudi Pullum were a colorful addition to the lineup. In this latest update Darun had left his job as a bodyguard after the god of Indian wrestling spoke to him in a dream. He flew to Japan to fight the strongest opponent he could. Garuda the demon beat him severely and left him for dead. Darun recovered and now wants revenge. The redesigned Darun, along with the updated designs for the rest of the cast look amazing.
More characters were expected to be revealed throughout the summer. The developments in the story were tremendous. There was much more drama this time around and for a few characters there was a lot more at stake. We'll explore these in the next blog. As always if you enjoyed this blog and 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!
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