9.24.2003

Street Fighter

Came across an article on the new Street Fighter Comic developed by UDON Entertainment and published by Image. Issue 1 of this adaptation of the 90's arcade smash hit sold out two weeks before its official shelf release last September 3rd. Searched through Mile High Comics for a preview and look at what I found:

The awesome cover you see on the left was drawn by none other than Joe "MAD!" Madureira himself. Yes, everybody's favorite super-delayed-but-still-draws-great-stuff artist has decided to come out of hiding and go back to the drawing board to produce a back-up story (of which no preview pages are available) on Ryu's first encounter with Sagat. No doubt, Madureira's art is still fantastic, it's just a shame he's too damn lazy!

From the looks of things, Image is counting on the huge fanbase of the Street Fighter franchise to boost the title's sales, riding on a storyline that's not really new but still something people would love read--a tried and tested formula used by Dreamwave Studios with their Transformers run. So far, it's been pretty effective for Image's latest goldmine.

Want your own copy? Fat chance. Street Fighter was slated for release in English worldwide, excluding Asia. I'm not sure though if CAT's managed to bring some in (like they managed to do with Transformers). Besides, even if it were available locally, it's bound to be of wallet death caliber anyway (probably in the 1500 to 2000 peso range, for about 36 pages). I may be a fan, but I'm no die hard to shell out that much cash.

Issue 2 features a back-up story by Amerimanga artist Adam Warren of Dirty Pair, Gen13: Bootleg, and Magical Drama Queen Roxy fame. Check out Newsarama for the full article.