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PWP - 8-Bit Teather

Another Pixelated Window of the Past. Last week was Bob & George, this week probably one that beats it on several levels.

Another big player in popularizing the subgenre, 8-Bit Theater probably surpasses Bob & George on that side. The writing is more than excellent, and the art improves miles between the first and last strips.

First strip, March 2nd, 2001
Note beginner's mistake, the trees have white spots forgotten where it should be transparent and showing the sky.

Unlike Bob & George, 8-Bit Theater was no accident. The original plan was to visit several games, like Metroid and River City Ransom. But due to the high popularity of Final Fantasy, it ended up being the only game ever used, although not exclusively either. Some side strips were made which parody other genres, games or movies at times, and sometimes visited by characters not belonging to Final Fantasy (the first) either, such as classes from Final Fantasy III.

8-Bit Theater is an entire retelling of the Final Fantasy story, where the 6 playable classes are portrayed as archetypes, exaggerated and caricatured to the extreme. Their names are literally their class for one thing. And all of them active by their own motives, and most of the time they are not of the purest intentions either, not what you'd think of Warriors of Light.

Spanning 1225 episodes over the course of over 9 years, the writing is the strong point of the series. There is a lot of text. Sometimes entire comics are simply bantering between the characters. The art obviously was simple, based on 8-bit spritework, but also underwent many custom work over the length of the comic, giving it it's own identity. It moves between the two styles of sprites that were in the game, the smaller overworld sprites and the taller and more detailed battle sprites.

More detailed being very subjective considering the limits of the original game were mostly kept intact. Which was 3 colors per character for their palettes.

An example of how strips are cut into panels.

The individual strips also had lots of uniqueness to it. It never adhered to any precise format in panel size or position. Arbitrary and even artistic, it was emulating what physical comics, like Marvel or DC, would do by juggling panel size depending on what was wanted at the time. Lots of liberties was taken with them as a result, all for the better even.

Let's talk about our Rules. It's quite simple, no rules were broken whatsoever. There was an appearance or two of the author, but those were placed as interludes. Never directly influenced the story, that's not how this strip's dynamic worked. No need to speak about B&G references here either, obviously, but everything else was followed to a T. In fact, the Rules could have been created from 8-Bit Theater and it'd be all for the best.

Probably my favorite joke of the whole comic, but I could link these forever if you left me.

Not as huge of a run as B&G's 2000 strips, but still a VERY long read, and quite the enjoyable one as well. It breaks everything from Final Fantasy in the best possible way, and even has a fake out ending midway through just to throw you off. The internet exploded when they thought it to be the actual ending of the comic. That's how strong the people thought about it.

If B&G is referenced when talking about Megaman, almost every other sprite comic references 8-Bit Theater, mostly Final Fantasy, but the quirky characters and amazing writing left a strong impact, one that may never be equaled again.

Next week, another of my favorite, an excellent pick too, I hope you like it.