I took this opportunity in the story to express my love for the classic beat’em up games.  They were always my favorite when I was a gamer as a kid.  I lived to go to 711 and play Final Fight.  It  completely filled me with joy every time Skate would jump on the bad guy and punch him in the head in Streets of Rage 2.  My love of throwing bad guys off the roof could never be quenched in Double Dragon 2, and I freakin’ loved how when you roundhoused a guy in the face on Super Double Dragon he actually spun around in the air instead of falling backward.  It was a big step forward in beat’em up technology at the time.  You can see down there by the game system in the comic a bunch of games.  The titles may be hard to read, so here they are.  This is my list of some of my favorite games growing up:

Maniac Mansion

Tenchu

Double Dragon 2

Battltoads

Narc

Skate or Die 2

Streets of Rage 2

Final Fight

Had I more space I may have included Bad Dudes and Cyborg Justice.  And I know Maniac Mansion is not a beat’em up but it was one of my all time favorite games.  Skate or Die I mainly loved for the half pipe and seeing all the ways you could make your guy die.

I loved the Double Dragon games so much that I actually wrote a song called the Ballad of Billy Lee for my band, Lunaractive.  This song incorporated music from the video games and the lyrics chronicled the stories of the Double Dragon games from part one to Super Double Dragon.  I know you are curious to hear it, so here, have it.  I wrote all the lyrics on this beast and sang 90% of the vocals (that intro is a choir of Ethans singing over a slow piano version of the Double Dragon theme).  It was the most complicated song we ever wrote as a band.  Oh yeah and “Fists of Justice” is a Double Dragon reference because the brothers practice a martial art called Setsouken which means “Fist of Justice” (at least according the the game).

Now, the game Joel and Louis are playing is a fantasy game I made up.  It’s Lord of Beasts.  A beat’em up in the woods.  More on that on Wednesday.  For now, here is a close up of the box art I did for it just so I could shrink it down and put it in the comic.

Wednesday you get to see an actual screen shot.  I don’t know if Noah colored this box image but if he did I will try to post that up here too.

I was tempted to post the lyrics to Ballad of Billy Lee but they are pretty long.  My dream is for someone to take sprites and screen shots from the actual games and make a music video.  If you get a little tingle in your soul and think you might be that guy, please stand up.

Also, I got Bearmageddon posters made and they are shipping to Topatoco right now, so hopefully they will be up in the store soon.  Also, working on tee shirts.  Thanks for reading!

 

Ethan

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