Page Seven Complete!

So at long last page seven is done.

Stickboy and Psychoboy head to the mall and end up at the arcade. The arcade is modeled off vague memories of Aladdin's Castle arcade, which was my real life first stop anytime I went to the mall in the 80's or 90's. I seem to remember the walls were a bright warm color, probably red, and employees wore red vests. The older gentlemen is based on the manager there (doesn't he just look like an arcade manager?) and he'd always have a younger guy there assisting him or watching the place if he wasn't there.

So another in-story brand I created was the arcade game Stick's fawning over: Space Chicken Massacre! It's a light gun game where you shoot killer mutant space chickens. I loved the concept because it was the one thing I could think of that was so absurd that no one would make a game of it. If I eventually do some of the longer stories for the series, Stick and the gang will go see Space Chicken Massacre the Movie at some point (think Aliens, but with killer chickens).

I took some artist license here with the military using videogames in its training. It's actually first person shooters they used, but an arcade game was much more visual, so I went with that. There were real calls for videogame censorship and, of course, this page imagines it as reality.

Ironically, a lot of modern arcades look like the one shown here, not out of censorship, but simply because arcade videogames declined as home consoles became more powerful and more popular. You might find a four-token racing game, a couple light gun games or a Pac-Man/Galaga cabinet in them but that's usually it as far as the videogames go.

And in the inside joke category, check out the claw machine with several Pokémon and Digimon in there. I told you there would be more 90's references than you can shake a stick at!

Next up is page eight when our heroes meet...Dante from Clerks?!?