How long can this go on?

Media Outlet Comic Book Forum
1

I’m a huge fan of Street Fighter in general and I went nuts when I heard that UDON was doing this book. I have also been very pleased with what has happened with the book so far. It’s really nice to see people working on this book who are obviously fans of the games, anime, etc. itself.

My only question is just how long can this book keep going? Don’t get me wrong, I work in a comic shop myself and I have seen the increasing demand for this book from the customers, but there is still the problem of the game itself and how much story material Udon as been given to work with.

For this comic to avoid being short lived it seems like you guys need to have more material to work with then what you’ve got. Some of the Hong Kong comics lasted a long time. (over 100 issues) But this was at the cost of being exceedingly bizarre.

You guys probably want to stick with the official street fighter cannon, which means using the games as a guideline of sorts. The first story is 6 issues. If this pattern is followed it would seem that you would run out of games and official story long before 2007, which is the earliest (according to most) that Street Fighter 4 will be released.

And with capcom’s lack of speed in developing new fighting games there is no telling how long after SF4 another SF game would come out. (If they do put another one out.)

I don’t mean to be so doom and gloom, and I do realize that you can do stories about non game material, like issue 7 with Ryu’s travels, but how are you going to fill in story that is just not there, unless you go back in time to all our fighters when they were growing up?

It would be cool if Capcom let you guys in on SF4’s storyline in advance. I think this comic could be a great way to promote SF4 in the United States when it does come out.

2

Good post! Here’s what i think …

While i think Udon may be rushing too quickly through the SFA series, i don’t think there’s any shortage of storyline for quite some time to come.

The SF2 arc will still have 16 characters to handle (if not more), and out of those 16 only Ryu, Ken, Honda, Guile, Chun Li, Cammy and the Shadowlaw bosses have shown up so far. We still haven’t heard anything at all about Blanka, Dhalsim, T.Hawk, or Fei Long. Zangief was featured in a 4-page backup story that really focused on Ken, so he hasn’t really been fully introduced yet. DeeJay was in the short 4-page NewType preview fighting against Cammy, and again that’s not much of an introduction.

The SF2 arc can go for as long as they like. I can easily imagine it going for a year if need be. The fact is that in order to get this series off the ground, Udon needed to establish a cast of characters and the only way to do that was to go through one of the story arcs rather quickly. It couldn’t have been SF1 because there’s only two or three characters (Ryu/Ken/Sagat) in SF1 that anybody outside of the hardcore SF fans really care about.

But that doesn’t mean that SF2 has to go by this quickly. They can certainly take their time introducing, developing, and mixing/matching characters for that arc. Then after that, SF3 takes Ryu/Ken/Chun/Akuma and throws them into a whole new mix of characters, with an even more complex storyline. Everyone isn’t after Bison or Akuma this time. They all have goals of their own and subbosses of their own. In fact, Gill is only important in the storylines of a handful of characters. The others are all after something else.

Furthermore, let’s not forget the fact that this isn’t Mortal Kombat. Losing doesn’t mean death (or more color swap ninjas). Losing means you go away for a while and try to get better, usually developing a rivalry of some sort. So just because Honda was shown losing to Vega doesn’t mean he’s going to disappear forever. Quite the opposite in fact. People will want to know what happened to a character after their defeat, and a character resurfacing will be an exciting event. I mean, Magneto shows up every couple of years and it’s always crazy and exciting isn’t it?

So i can see what you’re getting at in that Udon seems to have summed up SF1 in a backup story, and only has SFA, SF2, and SF3 to go until they are out of material. But each of those stories can be made as complex and as involving as they like. One interesting character meeting another interesting character can take up as much as an issue all by itself. For example, Akuma meeting Q or Makoto meeting Ryu.

I don’t see any problem in getting to 2007 with just SFA/SF2/SF3 as base material. From there they can either go with whatever Capcom provides about SF4 or branch out to something crazy like Capcom vs SNK or branch out to character-specific plotlines. For example, where Oro guides Ryu, what happens to Ibuki and Elena after the tournament, what happens to Gill’s organization, and the Adventures of Alex ™ : )

3

THese have been some great an thought provoking posts. I agree with the last post that there certainly is a great deal of material to cover, though the pace of the first arc has been so fast. There is plenty of things that Capcom did not elaborate on and in comic form, now they can. The paths of each fighter intertwines with others, but they each have their own agenda, fleshing out the SF cannon. And if Udon does it right, we’ll find interest in characters we haven’t before. We can discover relationships that weren’t presented. And maybe the comic will have an effect on the next Street FIghter game, whenever it may come.
THese guys are doing good so far, and I hope they keep it fresh and satisfying to the fans, so that we’re happy, and they’re getting good business. The customer-company relations have been great. It’s been a lot to look forward to.

4

EXACTLY my words Majestros!

The whole reason why we choose to have the SF license over anything else is that it has a big cast that we can do a lot of stuff with. There are enough events that happens in all th eendings that we can use but there are also a great deal of room for us to explore.

In the second arc, you will see the travelling of Ryu around the world, thus introduce more characters along the way. Also, one thing we want to explore is the Delta Red life of Cammy. And did I mention the Hong Kong stories with Fei Long & Chun Li?

5

yup they could everyonce in a while do story arcs that focus on the life of Charaters like someone said an arc could focus on Chunli; at work or whatever, even a light hearted approach could focus on Sakura, then they can have adventures with Blanka and Dan and if Charlie survives he could have stories like Him and Guile going on missions and focusing on other members of their teams. Another Idea could follow Sagat’s journies, where the rest of Shadowloo goes after it’s destruction( Vega going back to Spain, Balrog doing etc.) I think these “Spin off” issues would help keep the life of the series going without rushing too fast into SF3

6

I think someone on this board said that SF3 starts at issue 18 though. I hope that is wrong becasue I think that is moving way too fast, but it might be true cause SF2 is already starting with issue 7.

7

I’m really hoping that Sagat turns out to be a good guy after all the shadaloo mess.

8

I’d agree with that I’d like to see Sagat back to his old honourable ways or with the same attitude that he had at the ending of Alpha 3.

9

hmmm… what about the never ever ever ever will appear again daughter Little Miss??:smiley:

10

awwwwwwwwwwwesome a chun li hong kong story arc!
if it’s still in alpha-mode, i guess we can’t intro the kikouken(sorry, forgot his name atm) yet until she kicks the crap out of bison in the SFII tourney. however, i’m interested to see how she comes to learn some new moves from Gen.

11

Definately am excited to hear your ideas on Chun Li. She’ll soon don that signature outfit of hers. And Gen will be making his appearance next arc, just around the corner! I’m also in anticipation with Udoneko’s words. There’s definately plenty to explore and bring out more Streetfighter enthusiasm in all of us.