The final installment of Remnant! The Mechanical Maniacs are rocketing towards the end of Series 7, but several foes stand between them and oblivion! The Mechs will never be the same after this one!

Sent by General RADIX, here’s our first look at Quakewoman! And a bit from a future issue of the superb Archie MM series.

Next up … the next installment of Remnant!

Not much else new up here at the Mechs front. We’re planning some new things, but I have to admit, life does get in the way of updates. That and other hobbies of course. But hopefully the current installment will tide you all over until next month.

Yes, that’s right. It’s that time again! I’ve been hard at work making a new layout!

Well, okay. Maybe it’s not really "new" as much as it is "tweaked", but there’s still plenty different. For instance, this laypout was reallly a big excuse to learn a bit of HTML5, CSS3, and JQuery! Of course that nessessitated the use of some large files, so … we’ll see how all that works out.

Furthermore, both the gallery and our blog have gotten substancial revisions. While I kept up with the latest releases of WordPress, I never actually changed that layout to reflect that. This has changed. And the gallery was even worse off – Coppermine changed so much that installing the latest version simply broke it! So that too has been completed updated.

But that’s not all! The second part of Remnant is now online!

I feel I must apologize.  The server’s help desk is no help at all and the only thing that seems left to do is move outta here.  Everyone at the Mechs is reluctant to do this due to loss of records and overall hassle, but … well, we’ll see.

Anyway, sit tight.  We’ll be fuilly functional soon, hopefully.  With, maybe, a surprise or two!

Happy 2012!

As the title says, the project is finally complete! Check it out both here and at the Sinister Six! I’d like to thank everyone involved. This wouldn’t have gotten done without your support.

Yeah, this one has been done for a while now. About a month, actually …. geez.

And, once more, it doesn’t have HardBen in it. Nothing against you, Ben! Honest!

Sent in by Radix. Might have been posted elsewhere, but it’s still fun to hear adults give tips for a game they barely know anything about. "Be Woodman!"

More on VG Tapes

Ben’s bio is now up as well as a brand new epilogue! This epilogue has been in the works for a while, though, so it still has Hadrian in it. Still, read on for more Mechanical maniacs excitement!

It’s a day of mixed emotions here at the Mechs. We’re excited about moving forward with the team and our stories, but to do so we have to leave behind a part of ourselves that we’re going to miss very much.

The Mechanical Maniacs operate under a different creedo than all of the other teams that have come and gone over the years, one that states that the team is more of a club than a production mill. We pretty much make stories and new content as we please, which can sometimes lead to long droughts of activity, while at other times you may struggle to keep up with everything that’s going on. But the common thread between these times is that the members themselves are actually good friends, and we all hang out, both online and at least once a year in the real world.

Just about the only requirement for staying on the team is that we’re around when we can be. Its a pretty lax set of terms, but its worked out pretty well for us.

In the past few years, the team members have grown older, and with that comes new responsibilities that may not jibe with keeping an active online persona. Hey, its just how these things go, and the more responsibilities we end up with, the less time we have to hang around online. Some of us have more responsibilities than others.

A few years ago, during one of his increasingly rarer appearances on the forum, Hardy stated that his goal was to start a family and basically be a normal guy. Without going into details about his personal life, this was a perfectly acceptable goal of his.

And so, after a year of no communication with our friend, and before that, fewer and fewer visits form the big lug, the team has come to the painful decision to move on without our friend. There’s no ill will from us, and we’re hoping that if Hardy ever does come back, he’ll understand our decision and not feel any ill will towards us.

Wherever you are, Hardy, we’re hoping you’ve made it, safe and sound and happy.

With Hardy gone, that’s leaves some awfully big shoes to fill, and not just because Hardman had reached nearly Godzilla-sized proportions during Hadrian’s time in the Number 020 boots. He was quite the accomplished author, being able to command the attention of all of his audience no matter how much time had passed between then and his last story.

But, luckily, we’re pretty confident in his successor, because he isn’t the type to merely fill shoes- he’s the kind of guy that makes his own foot ware and walk his own path. A legend in the old team community in his own right, and a guy all of us know by name, if not reputation.

So, we introduce our old friend and former Sinister Six alumni, Ben, as our new Hardman!

And with that, no orphanage will be safe from being crushed beneath his maniacal might…

Mr. Holzenbein rips the heart out of anyone who doesn’t want to read the New Adventures of Megaman!

So, seriously, yes, all the issues of this series are now available in English! Finally we don’t have to rely on summeries to learn second or third hand just how batshit insane this version of the Blue Bomber is. And it’s all complete too … I’m really surprised I hadn’t heard about this before it was complete. But I’ll rectify that problem by telling all of you guys out there about it.

I don’t know what is i, but everyone’s talking about Megaman Soccer lately. In addition to me Megaman Soccer Conversions Revival, the lost ending to Megaman Soccer has been found as well as the staff roll. (Which is, evidently, an easter egg that you need a playable Wily to get. Too bad Wily’s only activated during the lost ending).

Just based on what we see, I guess …. Megaman Soccer ends with Megaman’s death and Protoman remembering his lost baby brother. Who knew the game was so dark?

But that’s not all! Just today Pinky of Sprints INC has forwarded me some lost Soccer sprites because he knew I’d appreciate ‘em. So here they are.

Old versions of the hurt sprites? Sure, let’s go with that. Not in the Mysteries section as of yet … that section is in dire need of an update.

You know, I’m not even a giant Legends fan and I still feel jerked around by Capcom. Better late than never I suppose.

Very few of Capcom’s answers came off as sincere. As far as Legends … and Megaman in particular are concerned, I think Inafune put it best. Capcom just doesn’t think Megaman is popular. Not only in the US, as he said, but in Japan as well it seems. Most of their terrible PR says as much (if you look at it the right way) and I think that’s what they think.

Of course they still could have given the preview a shot. Could have done a lot of things. Maybe one day it’ll be leaked.

Recently I was reading Ariga’s Megaman Gigamix (and I recommend it to any Megaman fan) and there’s a small interview at the back explaining the history behind the Battle and Chase story – Burning Wheel. You see he had it as a secret feature of his site and was preparing to make it into a full manga … only it was dropped and never completed. Until Gigamix, that is. When he brought it over for Gigamix he totally redid the art (but kept some of the backgrounds).

While I was doing those Rockman Soccer sprites I was searching my MM pictures for references when i stumbled upon this … the original version of Burning Wheel! So now I shall rescue them from the sands of time for everyone viewing pleasure.

The story seems unchanged from what we got in Gigamix, but the art has really been improved from this original version of the manga. Those who have Gigamix can have the pleasure of comparing the two works and those who don’t can get a sneak peek into a manga they really ought to get.

Does anyone remember Gary’s old Megaman Soccer Conversion Project over at the Sinister Six? I have always found that to be one of the most memorable projects ever done on that site. And tremendously nostalgic too as it was carried over form the old Ice Palace. Not to let an old idea die,I’ve decided to revive and continue his old project over at the forums. Already we’ve gone through the missing robots from 6-8 and continued on through 9 and 10 and have continued on to cover the various miscellaneous official robot masters and main characters not already covered in Ice’s old project.

This is a forum-based project so follow along in the forums.

Rockman X2 enters the card galleries today. I remember when X2 was unemuable …. does anyone else? For a long time it was the most mysterious X game since it has no other release than the SNES version.

This time it’s Rockman X’s turn at card series glory! I think this may very well be the first time the Mechanical Maniacs ever had anything Rockman X related as an art update. I’ve also moved the Rockman World stuff into it’s own folder. Really shoulda done that to begin with …

Part 4 of the Annihilation Chronicles is up. On Gauntlet’s suggestion, I’ve broken up all the chapters into multiple pages, so they’re easier to read in more than one sitting. Turns out that despite my best efforts to be concise, every chronicle ranges 20-40 pages in Word, and my tendency to avoid making extraneous pages made for some ridiculously long chunks of text. Hopefully now the stories will be a little more accessible to you.

Besides that, check the Gallery for some new pics from Crys and myself.

March brings us even more scanned in cards pointed out to me by Auto! This time featuring Rockman 7 and Rockman World 5. World’s 5 images are especially unique.

I’ve also finished off a rather old attempt at making a picture of Video Land from screenshots of the various worlds featured in Captain N. Right now it’s the background to my desktop.

Every Valentine’s day I have had this around and meant to color it. Now I finally have. Can Rock and Roll resist the power of the king of the Undernet? Only doujinshi creators know for sure!

On a more “interesting to other people” note … Remember my crowning achievement of asking a question at FanExpo that got Ariga to draw us a almost-official helmetless version of Forte a while back? No? Wellyoushouldaheardaboutit! And it was none other by I, GAUNTLET, who asked this Earth-shattering question!

But it turns out … there’s another answer. Forte Wily has come to me with another, older, piece of art depicting Forte without his helmet on!

“This revelation appears at the end of the second volume of the Rockman & Forte manga by Koji Izuki, in a one-shot bonus story titled “Rockman Burning Shot”, which focusses on Forte. ”

So there you have it. FW thinks this means Forte’s hair is black … I’m not so sure as it’s in shadow in a black and white manga. Either way we know Forte likes his hair short and kinda wild. Pretty trippy that Ariga drew his own helmetless Bass hair in a similar way, isn’t it? Of course I hear that his version has magenta colored hair.

it took a good, LONG while to get needle to finish writing up updates to her costume gallery, but they’re all finally up there. Including an update to Phoenix about the time she met one of her favorite writers – Neil Gaiman! All the entires have been formatted to match the first few ones as well, detailing awards and when and where she wore the costumes first.

Now you can check out her newest entires: Amazonia Wonder Woman, Princess Peach, Liliana Vess, and Steampunk Phoenix!

But that’s not all. Chech out the Secret Page for long-lost unfinished works by Hardman, lovingly found by own Snakeman and put to the site by myself.

Here’s an interesting bunch of scans sent to me from Auto of the old Rockman Robot Center. There’s a few sets of Rockman cards coming to you threw the next few updates, but I’ll start with this: the set from Rockman 6.

I can’t help but find myself hoping he was wrong. In the interview he says that the big test will see if projects like Legends 3 succeed or fail. That if it does well he was wrong and Capcom was right – that the Inafune brand doesn’t really matter. But that it does poorly he was right and Capcom was wrong. As a Megaman fan, I find myself in the awkward position of hoping Capcom was right in his line of thinking. It’s awkward since I want to root for him, but as a Megaman fan I also want the franchise to succeed even without him. Only time will tell, I suppose.