Chapter 2 – Page 034
Apologies for the fuzzy image quality, I’m experimenting with GIF animations and getting GIFs to not look terrible is an art form of which I am not familiar with. But look at that BOUNCE, though!
We finally find out who POXBOi is, and considering how scary he was in the last page it’s a nice relief to find out his origin is so…silly.
↓ Transcript
Panel 1 (wide + long):
A 16-bit title screen fills the panel: POCKY BOY VERSUS THE SPACE ZOMBIES, Published by Namco © Glico Ltd 1993. Pocky Boy himself, in a striped shirt and baseball riding a skateboard, dodges a raygun wielded by a skeleton while lobbing a stink bomb. His smirk looks light-hearted and radi-cool here, but it could just as easily be POXBOi’s snarl.
SFX: daaa dada dadaaa dadaaa da daaa da da daaa dadadada dadaaa!
SI (off-panel): I knew I heard that tune somewhere!
NANCY (off-panel): Pocky Boy?
SI (off-panel): Yep!
NANCY (off-panel): The quantum irregularity we’ve been chasing all over Lewisham is…Pocky Boy?
SI (off-panel): Chocolate power-ups, rush charges, stink bombs, hypno bombs, acid bombs, the illest skateboard skillz, a theme tune you can’t get out of your head and a grin only made-up people in cartoons have - definitely him.
NANCY (off-panel): Yeah, he does have that “Dreamworks face” thing going on, doesn’t he?
Panel 2:
The game is playing in demo mode while Si inspects the cartridge. Nancy is studying his moves with arms crossed.
SI: Who is he? I never heard’f him till I saw your dusty old game stack.
NANCY: Doubt you heard of Bubsy Bobcat or Jazz Jackrabbit either, there were a squillion Sonic clones like these in the early nineties.
Panel 3:
Si looks up from the Megadrive box.
NANCY: Glico wanted in, they hired Namco to create a mascot for Pocky that could break into the American market.
SI: I thought you said they never sold Pocky outside Japan?
NANCY: Exactly - it got a cack-handed localisation, the game manual called the pickups “popsicles” which just confused people.
A 16-bit title screen fills the panel: POCKY BOY VERSUS THE SPACE ZOMBIES, Published by Namco © Glico Ltd 1993. Pocky Boy himself, in a striped shirt and baseball riding a skateboard, dodges a raygun wielded by a skeleton while lobbing a stink bomb. His smirk looks light-hearted and radi-cool here, but it could just as easily be POXBOi’s snarl.
SFX: daaa dada dadaaa dadaaa da daaa da da daaa dadadada dadaaa!
SI (off-panel): I knew I heard that tune somewhere!
NANCY (off-panel): Pocky Boy?
SI (off-panel): Yep!
NANCY (off-panel): The quantum irregularity we’ve been chasing all over Lewisham is…Pocky Boy?
SI (off-panel): Chocolate power-ups, rush charges, stink bombs, hypno bombs, acid bombs, the illest skateboard skillz, a theme tune you can’t get out of your head and a grin only made-up people in cartoons have - definitely him.
NANCY (off-panel): Yeah, he does have that “Dreamworks face” thing going on, doesn’t he?
Panel 2:
The game is playing in demo mode while Si inspects the cartridge. Nancy is studying his moves with arms crossed.
SI: Who is he? I never heard’f him till I saw your dusty old game stack.
NANCY: Doubt you heard of Bubsy Bobcat or Jazz Jackrabbit either, there were a squillion Sonic clones like these in the early nineties.
Panel 3:
Si looks up from the Megadrive box.
NANCY: Glico wanted in, they hired Namco to create a mascot for Pocky that could break into the American market.
SI: I thought you said they never sold Pocky outside Japan?
NANCY: Exactly - it got a cack-handed localisation, the game manual called the pickups “popsicles” which just confused people.