Painting – Dank Zine

Spending the treasure that love cannot afford

Police Nuts

I finished my playthrough of Policenuts this past Sunday and have uploaded the entire collection of videos to my Youtube. You can check out the videos here:

I’m trying to get better at archiving my Twitch videos, so if you missed watching the stream live or if Twitch deletes the videos at least there’s a backup on Youtube. It will be fun revisiting this game in the future now that I have played thru it once, but for now, I want to focus on looking at other games and explore more Dank fun on the MSX. I do want to go back and look at a few of my favourites on the system such as Penguin Adventure, so stay tuned for more Dank Streams.

Back Issues

The last three issues of my Dank Zine are in my Dank Shop for those who have been asking. There are only limited copies of each one so if you are missing one in your collection get your orders in soon. Once I sell out of a zine’s run, it’s challenging to reprint them on demand so order them fast before they are gone. I’ve also updated things such as mugs and T-shirts if you want to grab those and help support the Dankness.

Get your DANK here!

Dank Art

I’m using my time to get caught up (store update should have been a give away) as I have been quite sick over the last few months. A lot of my time has been eaten up with doctor appointments and work, so it’s been a bit of a struggle to get started on the massive backlog of updating all my sites with my work as I refuse to quit doing art when I am sick.

Check out the streams: LordBBH, Aquas, Zallard1, Retrograde Tom, Macaw45, Omnigamer, PJ, Duke Donuts, Tondagossa, Goati, SQPat, Chuboh and CapnClever.

Indiana Jones for DOS

Comic Zone Sega Genesis

Star Wars SNES

Turtles in Time Arcade

Ken from Street Fighter II Arcade

Castlevania NES

Black Tiger Arcade

Earthbound SNES

Sub Zero Mythologies

BatMan NES

Yoshi’s Crafted World

Ninja Baseball Batman

Megaman

Dick Tracy Sega Genesis

Mr Driller Arcade

Poison Final Fight Arcade

Snake MGS2 MSX

Mike Tyson’s Punch Out NES

Snake MGS2 MSX

Metal Gear MGS2 MSX

Snake MGS2 MSX

FoxHound MGS2 MSX

Red Alert PC Engine CD

Snake MGS2 MSX

Fishing Games on Dreamcast

Addressing the Elephant in the room

I have made a few hints to my current health status on my streams and in my Discord. After months of visiting doctors and specialists, I now have a clear answer to what is going on with me. If you have been watching my streams, you might have noticed that I have lost an insane amount of weight and I have been a bit more absent from a lot of events, meetups and social activities. I have been struggling with Graves Disease since I was diagnosed back in 2010, which is an autoimmune disease that causes the Thyroid gland to be hyperactive. Though I have undergone medical treatment in the past and had everything under control, things started to become unstable again beginning in March. I’ve lost an astounding amount of weight and was having significant problems with my blood pressure, which resulted in a few hospital visits.
Medical stuff is tricky. You don’t always get an overnight answer to this stuff, and often you are left waiting and wondering what’s going on between visits. It’s not like you can check into a hospital and someone says “yeah you got this and were going to use this quick fix” and then forget about it. You get put into the system, and you wait your turn like everyone else. When I started to notice things were wrong, I focused on what made me happy, and that was making art for my friends and the people I follow to keep my passion going for the Zine. It was the grounding force that kept me sane for those months, so I need to thank the communities I am apart of for being there. Some of the best comments I get are “Your art makes me smile” and “Your work adds to the experience of this stream”. I believe in healthy communities, so I am glad I can give back to the ones who make me happy.
Now that I have an official answer to what is going on I’m starting my treatment and getting control over this stuff so I can get back to 100% again. Thank you for being there and understanding.

Stay tuned for more art, more Dank Streams and continued adventures in retro games!

Finding the Perfect Game

DANK ZINE

Huzzah! The big double stuffed issue is out and already mailed to backers of my Patreon. If you want to get your copy, make sure you visit the Dank Shop and get yours as it’s a special two in one issue magazine full of interviews, articles and of course Dank Art. This month’s cover is a nod to Crystal Castles, a rather unique Atari arcade game that used a trackball. Check out gameplay from this gem here:

Stay tuned for the next issue coming out soon with all fresh content and art.

Dank Art

I have been focusing on a lot more larger pieces these days as I have needed to get my art fix going. The best is when someone starts to play a longer RPG or puts more effort into a game where that gives me a bit more time to come up with something brilliant.

Adventures in Collecting

Two Sunday’s ago, Old Buddy Greg and I went to a retro gaming convention located in Mississauga for a good time and to check out what deals people were bringing out. Greg has told me before that his list is near 99% these days, so his enjoyment is now just on checking out the atmosphere and seeing what’s out on the tables. As for myself, I still have an active list going and I’m always trying to go out to events like this to heckle and find deals but mainly to meet new people and open new doors for friendships.

This was also our first retro show in almost 4 months due to a lot of changes going down for me at work and my availability. That and being limited to finding a lot of the shows on Facebook and social media means that often we’ve gone and missed an event because of poor promotion. Still, social media is way better than posting a flyer up on a pole and hoping for the best.

The biggest story I have from the event was finding two major wants off my list of games. The first one was Danan the Jungle Fighter for Master System. I made sure by telling Greg that I was looking for the Master System game that sounds like a brand of Yogurt cause he looked at me like I was nuts when I said: “Yo dude- keep your eyes peeled for Danan!”

Danan is probably one of the more sophisticated games for the Sega Master System coming out in 1990 and developed by a company called Whiteboard. It stars a barbarian warrior on some sort of mystical hack and slash quest who has magic animal elements to assist along the way. Eventually, you go on to meet a bunch of crazy characters who you battle and befriend along the way and ultimately Danan goes on to fight Nazis in a war submarine. Did I say this game was interesting? It’s an absolute must for your Master System collection and worth the high price tag. I still can’t believe it though when the more gimmicky and horrible obscure games for the Master System such as ALF fetch higher prices- you couldn’t pay me to put that game into my collection.

The other major pick up I got was Snatcher for Sega CD. Yes. I found my holy grail of games and almost died when I saw that the seller had two copies. When looking for a copy of Snatcher to buy always check the CD and feel it. The ink should be raised which will rule out a mass-produced stamp as well as serials on both sides of the inside CD ring. There are a lot of really convincing counterfeits out there which is why I prefer going to shows like these where I can feel and inspect things before buying. I’m not the best myself when it comes to spotting a counterfeit game so it’s always best to trust your own gut and check out the seller as well. The guy who sold it to me was straight up professional, had a lot of unique things at his booth and was patient with me to firm up the sale after I transferred my money to him. I will admit that in that time I was waiting for the transfer to go thru I was walking around the place sweating buckets in some sort of half worry if I was doing the right thing. I was relieved though when I got the game in my hands and it dawned on me that I finally owned a copy of Snatcher.

When I was a little kid, Snatcher always dazzled me. If you’ve seen my streams in the past I always fall back on playing Snatcher around Christmas and most recently I explored SD Snatcher for the MSX2. The first time I saw Snatcher as a little girl was a preview in Mean Machines Magazine when they were doing these huge 3-4 spread pictorial reviews for Sega CD Games back in those days and the thought of having a cyberpunk-noir thriller game seemed sexy and dark.

It wasn’t until I got home and put the CD into my Sega CD that I noticed that something was off. My Sega CD wasn’t working. Oh Shucks! Of course, I finally get a working copy of Snatcher and as soon as I get home I’m faced with this crushing blow that my Sega CD is busted. FYI- the Sega CD is not the best-made game system out there and common problems range from leaking capacitors to worn out CD belts to the laser and even internal wiring going. I was so irritated because only a few weeks ago everything was working alright as I keep going back to Shining Force CD, one of the few Sega CD games I own. My collection of Sega CD games is rather low mostly because Sega CD games are hard to come by and you really have to have a love for the system or be crazy rich to invest in collecting for it. Many of the games I want for the system cost well over $300 each and I find myself in disagreement with people on buying ripped CDs for it. What’s the point in that? I can simply emulate and skip all the pointless frustration of wires, cleaning and dealing with complications with rotting AV cables if I just want to play a bootleg. There’s a reason people like me go for collecting retro games and yeah emulation and everdrives are alright in some cases, but there’s always going to be a few games we all would love to own that are just out of reach.

I got the Sega CD to work eventually as it turns out it was just a bad combination of rotting AV cables and poor shielding, but I got a lot of help from the kindness of friends, so shout out to Lou, The Enforcer, Krazlin, Puri and especially Old Buddy Greg who eventually saved the day with just his own quick wit and smarts.

Cool Finds

Check out this new book that just dropped from the folks over at Bitmap Books: The Art of Point-and-Click Adventure Games. It’s a visually stunning hardcover book with over 460 pages featuring all your favourite point and click games from back in the day. It’s got contributions and interviews from a lot of people who used to work on these games too so it’s a must want book for my collection.

Get your Pulls in… Collecting in 2018

Everyone I know has a collection. My father has been collecting classical music for fifty years and has one wild museum (when it’s that big it’s a museum). It’s floor to ceiling stacked with his favourite composers, the albums that had the better art, the obscure and rare recordings. The only thing that was on par with my fathers’ music collection was my mother’s book collection. Together, they married into a movie collection, and that was normal and was “every day” feeling for me. I naturally started collecting comics and video games at a young age and learned you had to shop around to five or six different stores in a day just to find all your stuff.

My good buddy Greg and I meet up once a month to go collecting and drive out to a few locations or any shows that might be happening. Greg usually has a better idea of what he’s looking for where I often take my chances as I know I can be very fickle. This time we were going to Gotham Central which connects with a collection flea markets, comic shops and even this place called Game Experts which I like to check out for games.

First a bit on Gotham Central which is pretty much how I want all comic stores to look like when I walk into them. It’s wall to floor selection, tonnes of huge collectable action figures, toys, games, and even a huge candy shop where you can get sugar breakfast cereal or a 3-pound gummi bear. I often get so overwhelmed with this place that I forget I am there to get comics, but they have an amazing selection, and they often carry the trades I am looking for as they usually have those in inventory. Greg told me the candy store wasn’t open the last time we were there, so I took my time walking those isles slowly to kind of drink up everything,

I only grabbed a few photos from inside, and I am regretting not getting more photos of some of the candy there. As you can see, everything is very neatly stacked so you can find it and they have a range of unique merch.

I have never seen this game in the wild ever. I have only seen videos of it and had an idea that it was going to fetch a high price. I knew enough that it was “That game that’s a lot like Valis” and it stands out as having a wacky sense of humour so of course, I wanted it. I always try to find that something that is a little different when looking for games and this cart was stuck all the way at the back of the jewel case.

Like most people I know who collect you kind of “hmmm” & “hawwww” over things especially prices. There are a few games that I keep bumping into where I see the price tag hanging around $40 which often makes me pass. I think Alex Kidd for the Genesis is one of those cases where I saw this game hovering around $40 for a while but always chose to pass on it. I’m glad I did as I picked it up for $20 which is not bad.

Finding imports is somewhat rare around here these days, but I always manage to find a few dirty Famicom carts, and they are usually decently priced to move. I passed up on a few items, but I never try to go over a budget when I am out shopping these days as I don’t have the cash flow for it.

We decided to check out the flea market that was inside this connection of buildings and Greg must have warned me a million times over that we might not find what we are looking for here. Usually, you can find one or two vendors set up in a flea market who are selling games or comics. We found a few who had some alright stuff but nothing that stood out enough to buy. I did find a laser disk seller in that mole-cricket maze, but I am unsure if I am ready to make the plunge into collecting laser disks.

Some people can’t do a real flea market like this. Seriously you miss out not checking these places now and then for deals. I used to go to sites like these all the time in my teens with my family, so I’m never intimidated to check out the bargain bins.

Easter with the Family.

I saw my parents last weekend for Easter lunch. My mom recently learned how to work a DVD player, so that means my parents are focused on collecting DVDs and are starting to trickle down some of their VHS collection. You will not find a more eclectic collection of movies than on the shelves of my parents. They range from the best of the best and the best of the worst and even a few titles that will make you wonder if my parents were hippies. Shocking reveal: my parents are not hippies and are in fact Star Trek fans.

Dank Art

I have been so busy with Zine work that I don’t have as many Danks to share this time around. With the new issue already at the printers and feeling a bit worn down and sick I really just need a few days off to get things sorted out. I was hoping I could have done that during Easter break, but instead I got sick and now I need a break from my break.

Facebook Page Launch

After almost an entire two years of making Dank Art, I have finally caved in and made a Facebook page. If you want Dank Stuff on your Facebook feed then follow this link and hit that like button. The Facebook page will act as sort of a permanent home for a lot of the stuff I share as well as another outlet for people to find me.

I am currently working on the next few isues, so if you would like to submit work or have a great idea, give me a should over social or email me here at dankzines@gmail.com

Special Delivery of all the things!

Dank Zines are in!

Dank Zines have all been shipped and are arriving to mailboxes across the globe! This months issue features streamer Chuboh with all of his delightful point-clickery, an in-depth interview with Omnigamer on his side of the “Dragster” high score fiasco, an article about the unreleased arcade game “Chimera Beast” by LordBBH himself and a 10 Questions with Neo-Antwon. There’s also a bunch of awesome Dank Art by not only myself, but from contributing artists CyRaptor, Dasyati and MakotTruth. All backers of the Patreon also got a free sticker sheet that features a few of Chuboh’s sub icons so if you still want to get your issue make sure you snap up a copy soon before they sell out of my new Dank Shop.

Dank Art

Black Queen from Battlemaiacs SNES @Macaw45

Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume @TheOmnigamer

Mazin Saga for Mega Drive @Macaw45

Splattoon 2

Q*Bert for ChibiUFO’s Birthday ❤

Splatter House 3 @Macaw45

Madly Monogatari Sega Mega Drive @Goatistream

Gourmet Sentai Bara Yarou @Macaw45

Bubble Bobble arcade @LordBBH

Earthworm Jim on Sega Genesis @Lrock

Terminator 2 on Sega Genesis @Macaw45

Death and Return of Superman @Macw45

Metal Slug X and

Rushing Beat Shura for Super Famicom @Macaw45

Altered Beast Arcade @LordBBH

Mario Odyssey on Nintendo Switch @TheOmnigamer

Hacha Mecca Fighter Arcade @LordBBH

The Incredible Hulk SNES @Macaw45

I’m starting to follow so many streamers on Twitch that every week I have piles of stuff that I am constantly working on. I’m not posting up all of the Dank Art now (as there is a lot now) but now I am focusing of showing off the best ones. Check them out and watch for them to go up for sale in my new shop soon or if you’re lucky you might score some freebies when I have giveaways on my streams.

Streaming Stuff

Right now I am trying to stream a bit more to take some time to focus not only on playing games I want to play, but to take a few hours out of my day to just relax and enjoy it. Sundays I am always going to follow my “Wake, Paint & Play” format, but if you want to catch my late night stuff I try to stream on Tuesdays, Wednesday’s and maybe Fridays if I don’t have something I need to do. I am currently obsessed with two games that I will go into a bit more detail here on my blog. One of them is a cute little Penguin game but before I get into that FRKINSEALLND thing, Le t’s talk Sega and Shining Force.

The North American Release

The back of the case

The Euro release had to be different and mirror the NA cover with different colours

The original Japanese Sega CD cover

Growing up I was a Sega girl and most of that is thanks to my father who felt that Sega was the far more superior system on the market at the time. For me, Sega was all about arcade imports, Sonic games, and a library of strange 2D platformers. My knowledge and experience with RPG’s didn’t start until I my friends started to play Earthbound on their SNES. After I discovered that what I called “Computer adventure games” could be played on a gaming system, I set off to find RPGs for the Sega systems I owned. This proved to be a bit of a problem.

The cover of the Gamegear release

Back of the North American box art

I would blame that because of where I live as my home town was a lot smaller than it is now. Because of the size of my community, the shops would only get the top-selling games for the systems and everything that was “strange” and “different” would either come in limited quantities or not at all. The shelves were always stocked with the latest and greatest hockey and sports titles, then followed by any and all cartoony platformers. I was very lucky that in my home town there was one video rental place that had not just a section for Gamegear rentals, but they also had Sega CD and Saturn rentals for a few years. That’s where I first got my hands on the Gamegear version of Shining Force II.

Shining Force Gaiden: Ensei – Jashin no Kuni he (シャイニング・フォース外伝～遠征・邪神の国へ～) was released for Gamegear in 1992 following up with Shining Force Gaiden II: Jashin no Mezame (シャイニング・フォース外伝 II ～邪神の覚醒～) in 1993 as the first portable Shining tactical role-playing game in the games series. Sega re-released The Shining Force Gaiden games later on for the Sega CD on what is called “Shining Force CD”, along with the secret games that you can unlock playing both games and meet certain conditions. The Gaiden series takes place 20 years in the future from the original Shining Force JRPG series that was featured on the Sega Genesis. Some of the characters come back or are the direct descendants of characters from the original series or as secret characters that you can discover in the game. For some strange reason, only Shining Force Gaiden II made an English release in North America where the first game has only been available in English via the Sega CD release. I’m unsure if that is the reason the Sega CD price is listed for around $150-75 complete, but it is one of the more desired games for the system and one of the only ways you can play the first game in English.

Gamegear

Sega CD

There’s a few differences between the Gamegear and Sega CD remake. The first thing you’ll notice is a huge overhaul of the graphics and the sprite animations. The Gamegear has its charm, but with the larger colour pallet on the Sega CD the designers could do a bit more and really pay attention to detail from gradients to small details such as Eric’s red nose pixel on his overworld character sprite. Levels have a bit more depth and in battle animations have more movement and casting healing spells now have cuter anime styled sprites as fairies over the smaller ones featured in the Gamegear games. The girl reading you the books at the start of the game has also changed drastically in appearance and is no longer a young maiden, but now much younger in age and appearance.

The biggest reason you need to get the Sega CD release is because of the soundtrack. They went full orchestra for the remake to capitalize on the CD sound playback of the Sega CD. It’s an amazing soundtrack and worth downloading on its own for your own enjoyment. Doing mundane things like catching the bus or grocery shopping have more importance when listening to the overworld battle themes. The Gamegear soundtrack is good on its own, but there’s no question that the arrangement on the Sega CD version is the better of the two.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=L0dacYSgrk8

One of the drawbacks of having the Sega CD release is there are not enough save spots on the system to meet the conditions to unlock the extra two games included on the CD. The work around for that is using the Sega CD Backup RAM cart. This cart looks just like a regular Genesis game cart and connects right into the Sega Genesis. It was around $60 when it first came out, which was almost the same price as a full game.

If you are looking to play Shining Force CD and want to play on the original Sega CD you will NEED the CD Back Up cart. It should go for $25, but most places will demand that you fork over $40-60 for it. You can find 3rd party knock-offs that will work just as good. Do check that the battery in the cart us still good, if not you can always replace it. For some reason, my cart gives me a lot of issues and I can’t access my saved files half the time and almost always when I move my Sega CD system from room to room it somehow reformat the entire cart. Maybe I just have a bad back up cart. Because of this, I might recommend that you emulate the game first to see if it’s worth hunting down as with the backup cart you will be forking out around $200 to play. If you happen to be like me and get a bad backup cart this could be game-save devastation as part of the fun is unlocking all the games using your saves with the CD Back Up Cart.

Claude

Dawn

Luke

Shining Force Gaiden is a bare-bones early Tactical RPG and often when I stream it I have a lot of people who join in for the first time saying “This feels very Fire Emblem-y”. However, where in most Tactical RPGS they feature “permanent death” where if one of your characters dies in battle no amount of phoenix down or revive is going to bring them back. You are simply stuck loading from a save and re-doing the entire battle again losing all the experience you have gained. Shining Force Gaiden doesn’t have that and instead has a “buy back” feature where you can spend gold to get your characters back. Also if any of your characters die they still keep their levels and items that they have gained in that battle. This is helpful when you are trying to level up weaker characters. However, if your main character dies, not only will you need to restart the entire battle, but your money is reduced by half making raising the dead a horrible game of “Sophie’s Choice” if your funds are getting low. If you’re looking for a cosy Tactical RPG to get into I highly suggest picking up this collection of games. It’s rich with fantastic character personalities, a well thought out story, creative fantasy characters from Centaurs, Bird Men, Cat Mages and Zombies. It’s a must for your Sega collection and just overall one of my favourite game series out there.

//As a side note, I am leaving out the Saturn Shining Force Gaiden game for another review//

Lousy Smarch Weather

Dank Art

CHECK OUT MY KILLER TATTO Blood Warrior @LordBBH

Can’t go fast! Zero4 Champ RR SNES @Macaw45 @TheOmnigamer

Do you come with the car? Zero4 Champ RR @Macaw45

SD Gundam Psycho Salamander No Kyoui @LordBBH

Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume @TheOmnigamer

Draw me like one of your French Girls @Goati_ @Macaw45

Quick! To the Pachinko arcade! Zero4 Champ RR-Z @Macaw45

Being tempted by sweet lady Pachinko @Macaw45

More Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume @TheOmnigamer

It’s been a while since I updated! Here is a huge Dank Art Dump for you to enjoy. I’ve been a bit under the weather with a slight lung infection (gotta love winter) but still trying to do my best to ensure my work and deadlines are met. That just means extra stuff like my blog & social life suffer. I’ll be back 100% soon though with more updates & more Dank Art.

Chuboh in Dank Zine

Our favourite dungeon crawler Chuboh is our feature streamer of the month for the March Issue of my Dank Zine! If you are not already backing my Patreon you’ll have to wait for this issue to hit my Dank Shop. All backers will be getting a bunch of special Chuboh style stickers in with their zine featuring his sub emotes.

Mr Gimmick!

Hats off to my pal Eyes5 who I interviewed in a past issue of my Dank Zine for making such awesome and adorable plushes! This guy here is Mr Gimmick from that incredible NES game. If you follow Aquas then you know he’s got one as well as should anyone who’s a huge fan of the game. Mr Gimmick is very rare and only pops up in Eyes’ Etsy shop once in a while so the next time he make an appearance I’ll be sure to let you know. In the meantime, check out her store and see what she has currently.

Fixing the Blinking Light

My NES came to an untimely death a few weeks ago live on stream in a very frightening manner. In fact, that NES was a cheaper Retron that I was using because I couldn’t get my original NES to work without wiggling the cart all around.

As a child I never really had to blow into carts as I had a Master System (both a Master System 1 and 2) and often if the game wasn’t inserted properly I’d know because a Snail game would come up on my Master System 1 and Alex Kidd would play on my 2. It always seemed a bit odd to me that NES’s didn’t have a built in game like this. The other thing I liked about the Master System is that it was top-loading so I was usually sure I’d always be getting the game inserted the right way.

Over the years it has been proven that the North American “VHS” style NES has several design flaws and the biggest one was the whole “Pressing the game down” to play. These guys came up with an awesome solution to upgrade your old system to bypass this issue and get a clean connection every time you insert a game with what they call The Blinking Light Win. I was seriously on the fence with the fix at first as I figured buying another Retron would be an easier fix, but my boss talked me into it and I ordered one.

Here’s what the old pins looked like! Gross!!

It did take a bit as I do believe these guys are a humble and small operation but everything came packaged up nicely all wrapped in plastic with the most easiest instructions ever. They were even nice to include a few stickers as well. I got everything set up on the work bench at work ready to install it and before I could I got busy with a few customers. When I came back 10 minutes later my boss was screwing my NES back together with a laugh saying “That was easy!” Thank you, Tyler! You can’t leave a broken anything around that man when he’s in work mode and even though I was excited to do it myself he did it quicker plus he cleaned the layer of dust off my NES just because.

Dig out your old NES and get this fix! For the same price that it costs to get a Retron you could be fixing your old NES and get better results. You will not be disappointed and I cannot stress how happy I am with this amazing fix. The pins are a bit tight as new pins tend to be, but my last Retron was atrocious with how tight those pins were. Make sure you clean your games and keep your stuff dust free to ensure a long life of classic retro gaming in your place.

The Dank, the Dead NES and the Jones in the Fast Lane

Dank Zine Updates

Issue 11 has shipped, and all my Patreon backers should be getting pink envelopes of Dank in the mail soon. Back issues will be available soon in my new shop after I work out a few technical bugs. Here’s a handy Q&A thing I made up that will help to address some stuff concerning back issues of my Dank Zine.

Q- Will you be reprinting issues 1-8?
A- Probably not. I would need to do a bulk run print of the issues, and those start at a minimum of 100 copies. I would need to pre-sell around 50 to make this work. Reprints are unlikely, but that makes each issue highly collectable.

Q- Can I still get issues of 9-11?
A- Yes but I only have a limited number of issues to sell or for giveaways. Once they are gone from the shop, they are gone.

Q- Will you make a digital copy?
A- No. Digital copies change a lot of what a Zine is and what my vision for this project is all about. I am open to the idea of digital copies in the far future, but right now I am happy making physical media.

Q- Will you do a compilation of issues 1-8?
A- I haven’t put much thought or stock into making a compilation of the older issues. I am the kind of lady who likes moving forwards so if anything I would love to do some follow up interviews with some of the people who were featured in the pages of the first issues of my Dank Zine as they continue to grow with their projects and careers. Things I am working on are compilation art books but shhh!!! I don’t want to spoil everything.

Dank Art Gallery

Here is the Dank Gallery for this week from all my featured streamers. Thank you to LordBBH, Macaw45, Lrock, capnClever, Chuboh, PJ and everyone for the stream. Please enjoy!

Dark Lord for the Dezaemon CD @Macaw45

GUTS worms! More of the Dezaemon CD @Macaw45

More of the where we play a shmup where we are an angel & men for the Dezaemon CD @Macaw45

Remember! 102 games await all of us on the Dezaemon CD @Macaw45

First Queen 3 for PC 98

Chuboh’s mighty beard

Dolmen @LordBBH

Goindol (HOMO) for arcade @LordBBH

Willow for Arcade @LordBBH

Chips Challenge for DOS capnClever

Numan Athletics @LordBBH

Yoshi’s Safari @lrock617

Tradition! Ninja Gaiden 2 For PoematoCX

Final Fantasy 1 on NES with pjdicesare

inal Fantasy 1 with pjdicesare

Final Fantasy 1 on NES with pjdicesare

X-Men arcadev @lrock617

Ye Old Point Clickery within Ye Deep Dungeons by Ye Who Shalt Be Called Sir Chuboh handing off beard blessings with the Holly Slide Puzzle of Agrathia (oh its Might & Magic 3) @chuboh

OMG TUESDAYS @LordBBH

Taki Soul Edge @LordBBH

Since were going to be on the fire escape for a while….. here’s some Dank Art of DD Crew @LordBBH

Fantasy zone @LordBBH

Fire Shark @LordBBH

Risky Jewel PC 98 ROOM SERVICE @Macaw45

The thrills of watching Pachinko. Mankai Denshoku PC98 @Macaw45

Jones in the Fast Lane

A few years ago, my friend Tony shared a link with me online for something extraordinary. That was an online multiplayer for one of my fave Sierra games, Jones In The Fast Lane. It’s a quirky board game that has a strong “Game of Life” feel to it, and it has the strange yet amusing Sierra humour. It was incredible that I could play a classic old DOS game online with my friends.
Jones in the Fast Lane came out in 1990 making it one of the first games for Windows 3.0 at the time. Its board game theme is inviting that players can quickly pick up the concept of going around the board. Your marble (player piece) travels around the board where you attain money, happiness and education to pre-set requirements at the start of the game. The name is a direct play of the idiom, “Keeping up with the Joneses” where neighbours/friends are always trying to out-do each other in their life.
I’ve always been interested in trying to transform old classic two-player DOS games for online multiplayer and here was this beautiful package that someone just carried up to my marble. My logic was if you could play it online you could stream it with someone and play it live- something else that interested me in streaming. I dabbled with it, tried out streaming and playing with it not streaming when I first had access to it and enjoyed a lot of fun with my friends, and then one day the server went down…

…and the sever stayed down. For two years.

Until I started bothering people to fix it. I knew trying to set up my server was something I couldn’t do myself so I had to ask around in y circle of friends and find out who was up to the task of fixing the Jone’s server. My one friend, DanZeeMan, did the one thing none of us ever thought of which was to track down the people who made the online flash game and ask nicely for the server code. Well, not only did he get that but they were kind enough to send him the game as well! That rocks!

I have been trying out the server on my streams as part of a fun new way to share in the fun of this game. Dan is also working on testing out a few mods for the game, and we’re even thinking about having a whole new updated Jones game to play online with everyone. Last Sunday, I challenged DanZeeMan and Omnigamer to a round of Jones so you should check that out here.

The DEATH of my NES

Yeah, the title says it all. I have a replacement Blinking Light Kit arriving soon so I can get back to streaming my NES catalogue. Technically my NES has been broken for years, but I have been using a basic $20 Retron which “did the job” and did the job. My only complaint was that the new pins in those guys are TIGHT which ultimately lead to the quick destruction of this Retron. Oh well. Enjoy that mad spooky clip of my NES dying.

Cool Stuff This Week

PJ Has Shirts

PJ has Tshirts available in a new Teespring shop. Make sure you get your orders in quickly as I tried to get a yellow women’s shirt & it looks like I lucked out. That’s OK; I can get another colour cause I don’t want to chance not getting a shirt. I’m looking forward to getting mine soon.

LOL it’s hilarious translations at Legends of Localizations

My buddy Mato has an update on his Legends of Localizations site where he took a closer look at some of the funny bad translations in Battle Rangers AKA Bloody Wolf for Arcade.
For those familiar with the game, the translation is so bad it’s infamous within the arcade community. Do check out this story as I have always been a massive fan of Mato’s work over the years and he’s still got quality content just to spend hours reading. Try out the game yourself too and get a great laugh at its translation.

Ommnigamer’s New Book

Omnigamer is working on a new book called “Speedrun Science” which focuses on the history and philosophy on Speedrunning that is set to come out at Fangamer this Spring. He recently was featured on the TechnoFunkBoy podcast where they discussed the book and touched down on his involvement in the Twin Galaxies Dragster controversy.

Countdown to a full year of DANK

Dank Zine Updates

I can’t believe I have been making Dank Zines for almost a year! Thank you so much to my backers and readers for a crazy year of dankness. I’ve come from a little one person operation making a little 30 paged Zine to expanding it to over 44 pages with a team of editions, writers and contributors. I couldn’t have done it without my team and my Patreon Backers so thank you all for making this project a huge success in its first year.

This month’s featured streamer is Bouphe who just recently was partnered! Congratulations, Bouphe as I know you have been working very hard to get partnership. For those who don’t know, Bouphe is an amazing girl who streams classic retro PC games for the Amiga, DOS and PS1 to list a few. She’s a delight to hang out with and has a solid backup team of kitties to help her along her quests and achievements in games. Bouphe was incredibly charming to interview and she really opened up about herself, the retro community and how streaming has had a positive influence on her life. If you are a Bouphe fan make sure to back the Zine before the end of the month.

7898033F-3469-4219-A9C9-EF5E92D289D4 — Zallard1 at AGDQ2018 where he played both Punch Out & Super Punch Out at the same time

Also featured for this issue is an interview with Zallard1. We sit down and take a closer look at his run at AGDQ where he played Punch Out and Super Punch Out at the same time using a cool controller rigged up by Omnigamer. It’s an interesting way to play a game and different then just playing a game blind for exhibition. Get a bit of a closer look at how Zallard1 came up with the idea to run both games at once.

Macaw45 is alsocreating a new written feature in the Zine called Obscure Games where he takes a closer look at some of the games you never heard about from back in the day in Japan. If you follow Macaw45 then you know he’s an endless source of information when it comes to classic games for old Japanese computers and he also frequently talks about the lore behind the games and the people who made them. For a while people have been asking if he could share those stories and I kept thinking they would make a great addition to the zine.

As always each Zine comes with all the art and articles as well as an included sticker pack. Since Bouphe is our featured streamer I made these custom retro PC Gamer stickers so you can dial-up to the Sexy BBS anytime! Put stickers of old computers on your new computer for added fun or stick them up around your community and feel a little dangerous for possibly vandalizing. Just remember to not blame us if you get hit with a hefty fine sticking these where you shouldn’t.

If you want to get your hands on the 12th issue of my Dank Zine make sure you are backing my Patreon at www.patreon.com/DankArt

Dank Art

Lrock– I met up with this Speedrunner at AGDQ2018 and we ended up hanging out a whole bunch on the Sunday. When I got home I promptly followed and got banned seconds after posting this Dank Art. It was all good, it was totally my fault for not making my link-posting shenanigans more up front. Most of my friends and followers know its me when I’m posting a link, but there have been a lot of bots over Twitch. I’m not upset or anything. We all had a good laugh about it and I got un-banned really quick. Lrock was working on some cute NES Disney themed games but also is working on other Speedrun attempts so do try to check out his stuff and give him a follow.

LordBBH had his Hard drive go down recently which means he’s trying his best to recover anything that might be left on it. That meant that he had a Monday without Mame Roulette but he managed to get things pulled together and was back up and streaming. The super big downer about all of this is BBH lost all his copies of Dank, Jank & fan art as well as his other files so he’ll have to start from scratch collecting them back. BBH was also working on a feature article for my Dank Zine for February but it’s going to be pushed back until he can see if it’s recovered or if he needs to start the story all over again from scratch. I hope BBH get’s his computer sorted out sooner than later but it is good that he’s still finding a way to stream.

It was also BBH’s birthday last Sunday and I just wanted to say Happy Birthday BBH! I made a quick Dank Art to help celebrate the occasion.

I featured ex-mortis in my most recent issue of my Dank Zine and he started streaming Popful Mail again after trying out a new game & kinda hating it. I’ve realized I haven’t played thru this game myself and I should make more of an effort to do so as its one of the better Sega CD games out there. Yes I am aware that this game first came out on the home Japanese PC’s before being ported to other systems, but the English voice dub is actually very well done for a Sega CD game and because it’s such a good game it fetches a huge amount on eBay. I’ll look into this and maybe you’ll see me Popin’ it like it’s hot on my stream soon.

Macaw45 is playing a whole bunch of what I call “Sooooour many tiny big dudes” Strategy games for the PC88 and PC98. That’s when all your little warriors and fighters fill up the screen doing the actual battling in real-time while you sit back and watch or actively control your main character around the playing board. There was also this crazy PC game that was a lot like Space Harrier but with an insane difficulty level to it as well as melee boss battles to switch things up. Yeah, it was hard as hell and had a very weird saving system where you could only save after every 2 levels? The big story behind this game is that it was so crazy hard that Macaw just figured no one was that stupid enough to actually finish it and set off to actually do so.