I have shot you and now you are boom!
February 7, 2022 11:53 AM Subscribe
MS Paint Masterpieces, the most intricately drawn Mega Man Sprite Comic, may be back, with nine updates so far in 2022 on an MWF schedule (about as many as the last seven years combined). After starting in 2000 with art and characterization only barely distinct from any other sprite comic, the author gradually began to employ more detailed backgrounds and a widening variety of artistic effects and original pixel art, despite making every comic entirely in MS Paint. It has retold the stories of Mega Man 1 & 2 and is starting in on 3, while increasingly incorporating obscurer characters like the Mega Man Killers and Stardroids from the Gameboy games, plus many original characters by the author ("Disgruntled Ferret") and other sprite comic authors.
A bit of history! In April 2000, David Anez meant to begin a normal webcomic about two brothers with superpowers, only to realize he had no artistic ability. Instead he began posting comic strips about the characters from the Mega Man games, with his own dialogue and storylines overlaid onto the games' art and characters, and inadvertently inspired an entire medium that would last for the next decade, both with its art style and also with many widely-aped story elements, such as retelling game plots, incredibly stupid protagonists, recoloring sprites to create new characters, and author avatars. "Sprite comics" took over the internet with their low barrier to entry, and the Bob and George website itself hosted about eighty of them over the years, many (though not all) based on those same Mega Man characters but each with their own relatively unique spin. MS Paint Masterpieces was among the best regarded of these, and is by far the longest lasting: the most recent update for any of the other hosted comics was June 2009 for Universal Voyage, which told an original fantasy story (yet with sprites edited from Mega Man games).
The other big name in sprite comics was Brian Clevinger (previously)'s 8-Bit Theater, which from 2001 to 2010 retold the story of the first Final Fantasy game with mostly humorously sociopathic characters. Unusually for sprite comics, its strips used dimensions more similar to printed comic books, unlike the rows of square 200×200 pixel panels popularized by Bob and George (and still used in MS Paint Masterpieces). A few other comics told original stories using original art that still happened to be pixel art, such as Kid Radd (previously) and A Modest Destiny, which told stories about fictional video games instead, or the comparatively hi-res Diesel Sweeties.
The real Mega Man series finally got a real published comics adaptation from 2011 to 2015. Among its innovations was Quake Woman, one of the only female characters in the entire classic Mega Man canon, alongside Roll (from the very first game) and Splash Woman (from Mega Man 9, which released after Bob and George had ended). As for MS Paint Masterpieces, it has no known social media presence of any kind, interacting with the rest of the internet solely through its minimalist RSS feed. But it keeps on fighting for everlasting peace...
A bit of history! In April 2000, David Anez meant to begin a normal webcomic about two brothers with superpowers, only to realize he had no artistic ability. Instead he began posting comic strips about the characters from the Mega Man games, with his own dialogue and storylines overlaid onto the games' art and characters, and inadvertently inspired an entire medium that would last for the next decade, both with its art style and also with many widely-aped story elements, such as retelling game plots, incredibly stupid protagonists, recoloring sprites to create new characters, and author avatars. "Sprite comics" took over the internet with their low barrier to entry, and the Bob and George website itself hosted about eighty of them over the years, many (though not all) based on those same Mega Man characters but each with their own relatively unique spin. MS Paint Masterpieces was among the best regarded of these, and is by far the longest lasting: the most recent update for any of the other hosted comics was June 2009 for Universal Voyage, which told an original fantasy story (yet with sprites edited from Mega Man games).
The other big name in sprite comics was Brian Clevinger (previously)'s 8-Bit Theater, which from 2001 to 2010 retold the story of the first Final Fantasy game with mostly humorously sociopathic characters. Unusually for sprite comics, its strips used dimensions more similar to printed comic books, unlike the rows of square 200×200 pixel panels popularized by Bob and George (and still used in MS Paint Masterpieces). A few other comics told original stories using original art that still happened to be pixel art, such as Kid Radd (previously) and A Modest Destiny, which told stories about fictional video games instead, or the comparatively hi-res Diesel Sweeties.
The real Mega Man series finally got a real published comics adaptation from 2011 to 2015. Among its innovations was Quake Woman, one of the only female characters in the entire classic Mega Man canon, alongside Roll (from the very first game) and Splash Woman (from Mega Man 9, which released after Bob and George had ended). As for MS Paint Masterpieces, it has no known social media presence of any kind, interacting with the rest of the internet solely through its minimalist RSS feed. But it keeps on fighting for everlasting peace...
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posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 6:32 PM on February 7, 2022