Farewell, Brawl in the Family!

Hey everyone! As you can see, it’s a very special comic today, as I’m paying homage to the recently ended Brawl in the Family. BitF, for those of you who don’t know, is a wonderful Nintendo-themed webcomic by Matthew Taranto. A few months ago, Matthew announced that it would be ending, and today, he closed out with One Final Song, one of his trademark musical comics.

Brawl in the Family is one of my favourite webcomics, and I’ll be very sad to see it go. For me, its selling points have always been Matthew’s unique art style— his ability to effortlessly convey whatever tone he wants with each comic— and his amazingly awesome and ambitious musical comics, every last one of which is worth checking out (every last one!). Needless to say, he set the bar pretty high for us other cartoonists!

I apologize if this strip will seem a little nonsensical to those unfamiliar with BitF. I made this simple three-panel gag to harken back to the early BitF strips, many of which followed this exact formula (although with Kirby instead of Matthew). Kirby sees something, Kirby eats something, Kirby turns into something. I liked the idea of Matt eating Smash Bros and turning it into his own comic strip— in a very real way, that’s exactly what he did. He made the world and characters of Smash Bros his own in a pretty awesome way. Seriously, check the strip out if you haven’t already.

In a way, I wish I’d had the time (or the talent) to make a more ambitious homage, and find a more complete way to merge the worlds of BitF and LoM. But I didn’t want to focus too much on my own characters, and it took a somewhat disturbing amount of time to put together what you see here. As it turns out, pixelating other people’s artwork isn’t easy after all! While the pixelation is more my own style, some other aspects of the comic (the blue border, the lack of a text balloon in panel 1), were meant to imitate Matthew’s style.

So, in conclusion: the comic title says it all. Farewell, Brawl in the Family, and thanks so much for 600 comics’ worth of awesomeness! Best of luck in your future endeavours!

-Jesse

109 thoughts on “Farewell, Brawl in the Family!”

    1. That’s actually just because the comic is named “Farewell, Brawl in the Family!” so obviously the mouseover text will say that.

    1. Well, it seems like tadpole treble COULD go to the WiiU, which is a miracle to achieve, but it can work if…*Hey, Let’s throw money at it!* (throws Benjamins at a boring chair)

  1. TheGoldenNinja258

    Strange… I love both of these webcomics. Their both amazing and I check them both everyday… guess i’ll just have to check one now i-i

  2. Haha, I’ve been checking LoM right after BitF all these years. Now… I won’t. Ironically, I looked at BitF’s last comic, then looked here and found this. <3 BitF

  3. Speaking of ending comics, i want this one to go farther than WoF, if you haven’t planned that already. I would like it to feature every boss, in the PC version at least.
    Pumpkin moon and frost moon could be interesting. So would the solar eclipse.

    1. He hasn’t even implemented the blood moon into the comic yet, it’s too early to be asking about the Solar eclipse! But it would be good to see all the bosses in LOM(so this comic series can last relatively longer).

      1. My guess would be Jesse is saving an event like that, For some “Extraordinary” on this comic. Like creating the Night Edge would generate both a Blood Moon, and Solar Eclipse. (This is assuming it’s created after the WoF is slayed)

      2. Well a blood moon happens when you have certain amount of health, which I’m sure Maxx has 50 so maybe it will happen when he meets the certain criteria.

      3. Not exactly, Maxx has to use the Crystal heart, not “eat” or consume it. Also it takes more than 120 health to activate a blood moon.

  4. Fashionable Duck

    So long, Brawl in… wait..
    I didn’t even know what that is.
    🙁
    On the other hand, cliffhanger alert.

  5. Twister, the very saddened dude who loves BItF...

    YOU KNOWWWWWWWWW YOU KNOWWWWWW I IZ SO HAPPYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!

  6. An Annoyed Twister...

    … Brawl in the Family does not deserve to be treated like crap. You, sir, judge books with covers ONLY. I love it for one, and have been crying at its departure…

  7. That was awesome my brother was just talking about that comic yesterday. I’m going to start reading right now.

    1. By the way, I didn’t mean that it was awesome that it was over. I’m now on comic 200 and think it is great!

  8. Since other people are mentioning how long they’ve been reading, I’ll just mention here that I’ve been reading Brawl in the Family since it was in the 200s. The Christmas of Waluigi was a fun time for me (but not the people around me, because I kept playing it over and over).

  9. Hey Jesse, It’s honestly ok that the Brawl in the Family series ends, because everything born dies. it’s almost like the ending of a good book. The resolution leaves you touched and satisfied, but also a bit bummed. This is my personal favorite webcomic out there because of its continuation, but i know deeply that at some point, Maxx gets the night’s edge and the Corruption deceases, thus ending the story of our idiotic, yet awesome hero, Maxx.

    In kind regards, Dead Nitr0.(P.S.) keep up the good work, the comics are awesome)

  10. 3 words: What. The. Hell. I have never heard of brawl in the family, but I have played Kirby. And Mario. And some other random nintendo 3ds games.

  11. You know, Legend of Maxx and Brawl in the Family were the first two web comics I’ve ever followed.

    God, I’ll miss it. The first ‘comic’ I saw was ‘History of Nintendo.’ Pretty cool that it ended with exactly 600 comics, though.

    1. You know, I have literally the exact same backstory as you. I watched ‘History of Nintendo’ before I even knew what the comic was. I then proceeded to be on and off for a few months before eventually reading the entire Backlog.

      Then I found LoM when someone metioned it in a 1.2 suggestions thread (they said that the Dirt Rod should do all the cool stuff June does with it, and linked to a comic where she uses it).

  12. Paladin of nonsense

    THIS COMIC IS AWESOME( I’m talking about BITF)!!!
    I did not know it exsists till you published the link. THANKS SO MUCH FOR THE LINK JESSE!

  13. Never heard of this bitf, but it looks good. On an unrelated note *POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT*, I heard somewhere that you need to sacrifice a guide voodoo doll to summon the WoF. Is this going to be in the comic? Does it mean that Cyril will die???

    1. Cyril has already died once. Maxx is the only character that would actually be affected by death now that I think about it. He won’t respawn from what I can tell.

  14. This little comic just reminded everyone of the inevitability of death. Now I feel sad. >.<
    I've been wondering; Isn't it kinda strange that Maxx is in the dungeon? If you know what I mean? Or maybe the guardians will be in the next comic… 😀

    1. We’re all dying slowly, if you think about it. You will be dead, your best friend with be dead, all your friends will be dead, your family will be dead, I will be dead. We’ll all be dead at some point, and so will all things. Deal with it and move on.

  15. Teh sad Twister

    It sounds like you’re insulting Jesse without the appropriate punctuation, Guidey… Just sayin’. BitF FTW!!!

  16. Sentimental Twister

    I cried at the*Well, I guess it’s time to wrap this up* and *symphony of music comics*, so I can relate…

  17. I have never heard of Brawl in the Family, so I don’t really feel sad. However, I will be sad when the Legend of Maxx ends. It’s a great webcomic!

  18. Professor A. Nonymous

    We put our plumber’s hats over our hearts in memory of the true epicness and hilarity that was BitF…

  19. Looking at this announcement, I decided to look at BitF.
    IT.
    WAS.
    AMAZING.
    And it’s gone.
    Reading (and watching) all 600 comics, I can see how its popularity boosted, but it somehow never managed to get into these ears.
    So,

    Were you expecting an actual ending? Too bad. WALUIGI TIME!

  20. I just read all of brawl in the family comic and now I am feel sad but thank you for the happy memories anyway. This is a good comic for all of the nintendo players!

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