The Masterpiece: The Last, Great Sprite Comic

We never did find that armor of invincibility.

8-Bit Theater ended with an anti-climatic clash, and the punchline from a joke established almost nine years earlier.  The final stab was White Mage using her connections to convince the world that the Dark Warriors, the band of boobs, were the ones to defeat Chaos, just so our "heroes" couldn't take the credit.

But that wasn't the last strip.  It was the SECOND to last strip.  The last strip came sometime afterwards, quite a bit if I remember right.  There is a reason for that of course.

The last strip is something different and very symbolic.  The reason it took so long is because, it isn't a sprite comic.  After nearly nine years, with only a few, very few, moments of non-sprite artwork in the whole of the comic, it ends without a single one.

The times had changed in that time.  For all the popularity of 8-Bit Theater, it would never, and could never, make Brian any money, because the art work wasn't his.  At one point there was a shop that had mouse pads and shirts, but that went away quickly because copyright is in full force, and these fell under it.  Ultimately the fact that 8-Bit finished it's story is remarkable since it was, at that point, more a work of passion than one of monetary value.

And really, there is only so much one can do with sprites, and Brian had done them all, possibly even inventing some.  Despite the actual ownership of the sprites, he made them into his own characters, and made their story memorable.  To the point that it became part of his resume and resulted him getting actual work in comics, including his next piece, Atomic Robo, which got a print version for a time.

The finale of 8-Bit Theater became a finale for a generation of comics as well,  It finished wrapping up the stories of the characters, showed how some jokes just don't end, and maybe, just maybe, left the door open for a sequel one day.  Maybe.

It represented the final transition between the wild west of webcomics and the beginning of the current era.  While the older strips like Penny Arcade and Sluggy Freelance might still be kicking around, the greatness of the comics had moved on and comics like 8-Bit Theater really didn't have a place to be any more.

The Last, Great Sprite Comic, that's a fine epitaph for 8-Bit Theater, but it was also a comic Masterpiece.  Nearly a decade in development, it's final page said more than just "this is the end of the comic," and drove home the point that webcomics, in whatever form, weren't just going to go away or get hid behind paywalls.  Nuklear Power, the website that hosts 8-Bit hasn't been updated in a few years now, but its still there, the forums still active.  All because of a silly comic based on video game sprites

And that's the end.  Next time, I have a lot of stuff to catch up on, hopefully I get some time to do so.  Until then kiddies.