Hoo boy, what an update. Tons, literally TONS of new stuff in various sections, lotta stuff tweaked, the "back" link is finally fixed...and with a brand spanking new button, no less!

The biggest piece of news, however, is what I happened to come across while looking for new talent in the Strider fanart department. As I was paging through thousands of hits on Google's Image search, I came across something...something very excitingly interesting. It's previously been thought that the Marvel Vs Capcom action figure was the only figurine ever produced, but what I found leads me to believe otherwise.

Take a look for yourself:

Take a second look. In fact, take a closer look from a slightly different angle. Then hit the back button on your browser.

How many of you just pissed yourselves? I know I sure did, the first time I saw it. I happened across these pics at work and started freaking out. My co-workers were about three seconds away from calling the local sanitarium, I was freaking out so badly.

That, my friends, is true talent. There's a Japanese modeling club called the KAZYA Modeling Club who crank out statues like this all the time. And SELL them. Take another look at the picture displayed on this page. You see that white tag in the background? That's a PRICE TAG. This particular statue goes for ¥7000, or roughly $65 USD.

I don't know about you, but I MUST HAVE this! Especially if a finished version of the terapodal panther is included!

In other news, I am holding a sprite editing contest. I want to see who can edit the best 2D fighter sprite into an *official* Strider character. Here's the rules:

1. Use 32-bit sprites, preferably from SF Alpha or later, Capcom's VS series, the Guilty Gear series, Samurai Shodown, etc.
2. No animated sprites. We'll save those for a later time.
   
3. It MUST be a character actually found in the Strider games. No fan characters. (On a side note, I will bitch-slap ANYONE who sends me a palette-swap of Hiryu and claims it's Hinjo. You can send a Hinjo edit in, but put some effort into it, dammit.)
   
4. Edits that have been posted on Bueno's site before can be entered, but these probably won't do well, as most people have already seen them.
5. Submitting someone else's sprites as your own is grounds for immediate disqualification. Don't try me on this.
   
6. All entries must be submitted by August 12. That means you have one month.
   
7. Once all the entries are in, I'll accept nominations for voting. You can't nominate your own sprite, sorry.
8. After nominations, we vote.

In order to submit your entries, either post them on the Nexus under the "Sprite Edit Contest" thread or, if you don't have any webspace to link from, email them to me and I'll post them for you.

Thirdly and finally, I will be scanning the manga soon. Within the next two months. That's a promise. I have access to two different scanners at work, and I will be posting the unaltered results on here, and the winner of the sprite editing contest gets the first download of the zip file. I won't post the link for the rest of you until 2 weeks after that. So you guys do your best, aight?

I'm gone. Give me a shout on the Nexus, guys!

Later.