What are the Game Punks?
Game Punks originally started as a throwaway idea: make a short comic about punk rockers playing video games. So I googled the name and it turns out its taken by a line of...Dare I say it? Non-Fungible Tokens. Oof. NFTs suck. They're soulless, they're corporate-style anti-art bullshit. They're designed to move money and nothing else, despite what they try to sell you.
So I said no, the name is NOT taken, and I'm gonna make a comic called Game Punks. For about 2 weeks I scribbled every night on my tablet ideas for these characters. I like video games, I like punk rock, this thing writes itself, yeah?
The first iteration of our main characters
I wanted to make an ironic gamer comic that pays homage to the classic webcomic scene of the 2000s. Taking 'anti-inspiration' from infamous legends like CAD isn't exactly new--Powerup Comics did the ironic gamer comic too, poking fun at the copy/paste art style employed by many artists at the time. I enjoy what Powerup Comics did, but I've seen so many more webcomics pop up with corny cut/paste gamers making fun of the same thing, so in response I decided I would give the comic's art style my absolute 100%, despite any uncertainty in my illustration skills.
I wanted to make a punk webcomic, for whatever that means. 21DeadMonkeys began with a strip about missing Nothing Nice to Say, the original punk rock webcomic that had long since stopped updating. Archetypically, these characters were made in their spirit. Ralph takes a large influence from 21DM's Ducky Boy, which could be better described as a tribute. Lizz, eh, I just wanted a cute n' radical chick to attract viewers. Her style is kinda based off my girlfriend. Together, I think they make a cool pro-ska duo.
Cheers, Boston.
Some people say punk is dead. I disagree. I believe the spirit of punk is alive in just about every American you see today. The message the punks originally stood for, the reason for its existence was fulfilled. They said the world is fucked, and you can't ignore it. They said status quo is terrible and we're terrible for being comfortable in it. Here we are, half a century later, and they were right--Everything they raucously screamed at us was true as we keep spiraling further into a burning world. But hey, we didn't start the fire, right? It was always burning since the world's been turning. They fought to rebell through their art. They knew they had to be the change they needed to see in this world.
So I figure, why shouldn't the Game Punks exist? This is my thing and I think its pretty rad. It would be cool if you think so too.
