Category: Comics

Lots of major league game composers get a bevy of back pats and buttslaps, and deservedly so. Nobuo Uematsu? Man’s a powerhouse. Koji Kondo? (Deep, nostril-flaring breath) ain’t nothin’ finer. But what about the soundtracks that people aren’t still gushing over at the moment?

What about Hirokazu “Hip” Tanaka, composer of some real fan favorites, from Donkey Kong to Earthbound (with Keiichi Suzuki)? This isn’t about DK or Ness, though, this is about a real gem that doesn’t get enough spins on my virtual needle: Super Mario Land.

Oddly enough, I generally associate Super Mario Land with the first time I ever came to New York City, sometime around ’88 or ’89, back when bootleg shirts of “The Sampsons” dotted the landscape; back when Howard & Nester was the funniest dang comic out there about Howard and Nester. At the time, the only thing I was listening to outside of my Gameboy’s tinny, prehistoric speakers was my cousin’s copy of Digital Underground’s Sex Packets, which, when combined, collectively blew my mind.

This was the first time I finished the game (and DU’s album!), and I think I may have solved it a dozen more times that week, never any less enamored by the rousing end credits theme.

Here is the soundtrack, zipped for your pleasure.

Or you can download individual tracks from the original source.

Surely the “Chai Kingdom” track helped develop the way that I view Chinese people: hopping Mr. Vampire-like enemies set to the Gameboy musical equivalent of Coke bottle glasses and me-so-solly gag dentures. What vile creature has Tanaka’s music birthed?

Click to enlarge!

The following is a very important story:

Throughout my life, I’ve always been a big fan of “I’m you” stories. You know the deal, it’s not very complicated. An older version of yourself or, well, it could be anyone, confronts their younger self and warns them of some sort of mistake they’re about to make. This is typically either achieved by some form of time travel, or pure (and quite queer) happenstance. It also tends to culminate in the older version spelling it out completely for their understandably confused doppelganger with a wall-shaking, “I’m YOU!”

Well, it happened to me last night. This is not fiction.

We went to a bar in Hoboken to catch the Louisville game, and at some point much later in the night, I spied myself—not someone that simply resembled me—but my very self in the flesh, walking around the bar. I beckoned for Canaan and Pat, pointing frantically at “Future Joseph,” hoping that I had just momentarily lost my mind. But no, they confirmed it. It could be no other than Joseph Earl Luster.

As the night went on, I wondered what I could possibly have come to this place, The Shannon, to warn myself about. What might happen that night, what dire circumstances could drive me to actually travel through time just to find myself? I had to find out. Eventually, we stopped myself and told him what was up. I told him that he was ME, and that I was HE!

He couldn’t have been less interested in our ramblings, though. In fact, after I told him that he was me from the future, he had the stones to ask me how old I am.

“Twenty-six,” I said.
He almost seemed to scoff.
“You’re older than me, man. I’m not you.”

I couldn’t believe it. This version of me: fatter, poorly dressed, ruder; he could only be a portent of my future. Though I’ll admit this angered me at the time, I’ve come to a realization now. If I had admitted to being me, the very Box of Pandora would have been opened, rendering our world an uninhabitable paradoxical vortex. Clever man! Even Future Joseph understands the laws of time, ducking away from my group to watch me from afar, if only to make sure I wouldn’t make whatever dreadful mistake he had made on that night which was, to him at least, many forgotten years ago.

Thank you, Joseph.

I’ll admit that I haven’t played a good deal of the “essential” adventure games out there, but for my money, Shadowgate is one of the greatest. To be honest, this game scared the crap out me and my friends back in time, and I would imagine that, even today, coming face to face with a vicious Wraith would do my heart no good.

If you remember how viciously intense this game was, then you’ll surely appreciate Virt’s brutal medley of its music!

Rick Baker’s makeup for The Wolf Man (played by Benicio Del Toro) looks hot as hell. I’m sure the idea of remaking Universal Monsters classics leaves a bad taste in the mouths of many, but whatever, the stories have been told a million times by a million different people, so there’s always room for more.

I personally plan to hit all the classics up Bigwig style, starting with A Bigwig Frankenstein, right before making A Bard’s Tale cross-overs with each of them. Watch out!