Kid Radd
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{{Infobox Webcomic | title = Kid Radd | image = Image:Kid Radd.JPG | caption = | author = Dan Miller | url = http://home.att.net/~miller.daniel.r/index.htm | status = Ended | began = February 2002 | ended = September 2004 | genre = | ratings = }}
Kid Radd is a finished pixel art webcomic created by Dan Miller in February 2002. Being pixel art, it greatly resembled the sprite comics, but the sprites involved were created by the author instead of being ripped from video games. The comic's design allowed for complex animation while keeping the associated file sizes small.
The comic's plot started in observing a fictional 8-bit video game of the same name. It then began to rapidly evolve as the characters found themselves not only out of the control of the player and their programming, but in a ROM image on the Internet instead of their original cartridge. The increasingly convoluted plotline developed continuously and consistently since 2002 and the strip ended at its 601st strip on 13th of September 2004.
Kid Radd was mainly humorous, with most of the jokes coming from character interaction and the setting. The setting also lent itself to a more serious side, though, with dark introspection and small amounts of angst.
Contents |
Plot
The Game
Radd is a "hero sprite" of a video game named "Kid Radd," in which he must save Sheena from his arch-enemy Gnarl. Radd is armed with Radd Beams, basic attacks, and the Mega Radds, which are more powerful (they can charge up to a value of "255"), but must be charged. He can also use a Rocketboard to transport himself. He is initially impatient with the player's incompetence, and failure to learn from his mistakes. Additionally, he grows bored when he is consigned to a "void" when the console is off. However, he grows to respect the player, who ultimately helps him to reach Sheena and defeat Gnarl's two forms. However, Radd is unable to receive even a kiss from Sheena before the credits roll.
The Real World
Radd's player succeeds time and time again, but longer periods of inactivity suggest that he is growing bored with the game. After one long period (perhaps lasting up to two decades), Radd awakens, only to find that no player is controlling him. An enemy, a Bogey (used as the name for this particular Bogey), informs him that he can move on his own, and that the player has long since left. A mysterious sprite known as Captain QB teleports in, and whisks Radd and Bogey away before their world is destroyed by the effects of his intrusion.
Captain QB reveals that he is with a group known as the Moderators, which frees sprites from ROMs on the Internet, and settles them in a city called Hopetown. The group was foundeed after a hero known as GI Guy, and other sprites from Doom Platoon, escaped through a portal in a faulty ROM, and replicated the trick to free others. Radd and Bogey explore the city, and go to Itty Bitty's Diner, a restaurant that serves powerups from real video games. The two encounter Sheena, who reveals that she is working for the Moderators. She was chosen for this position because she is an "NPC Sprite," a sprite that cannot take or inflict damage, and thus can enter dangerous games.
While Bogey finds a job at a power plant, Radd's job is as a chatroom avatar. He earns little money, is called whenever he is needed, and is privy to some disturbing conversations, such as conspiracy theories and debates between animé purists. He is also forced to stay with Bogey, and because he cannot pay half the rent, he sleeps in the closet. At this time, Sheena transports some puzzle sprites to Dr. Amp for safe-keeping, and meets his assistant and grand-daughter, Joule.
Upset with his life, Radd attempts to enter a game with the help of an illegal code dealer. However, it turns out to be Playland, a fictitious side-scroller that is excessively cute. Radd socializes with Elfman, who was also tricked, and Benny the Bunny, the game's hero, who warns him to get out. Things turn dangerous, though, when the human seizes control of Benny, and mistaking Radd for an enemy, attacks him. Benny, unfortunately, has multiple lives, so not even death at the hands of a massive boss can stop him. Elfman pulls Radd into a secret room, but Benny, down to his last life, discovers it. On the brink of death, Radd flips over Benny, and blasts him in the back with a Mega Radd, killing him. Shortly thereafter, he is called in for a chatroom job, and is transported back into his "default location" in Hopetown.
Radd seeks vengeance against the dealer, who gives Radd a program that he says will get him into the superior Playland 2. However, the program disrupts Radd's code and nearly destroys him. Bogey, however, saves him and brings him to the Moderators, who arrest him shortly after he finds out what happened. He is forced to work as a spreadsheet assistant, but is defiant and dishonest.
Meanwhile, Dr. Amp discusses his latest idea with the group; by giving puzzle sprites mirrors, he can simulate "matching" them, and thus create unlimited energy. Sheena is disillusioned with her job, partiuclarly a nightmare in which some sprites are left behind in a ROM, and writes a letter of resignation, citing her concern that silent or immobile sprites may be destroyed along with the game, and that some sprites may not be happy in their new homes.
The Escape
On her way out, Sheena overhears Captain QB talking with Crystal about how to eliminate Radd, whom the Seer has classified as dangerous. Crystal is indifferent towards the danger to her life in following the advice, and believes that it is the only way to achieve immortality. Crystal convinces QB to help her with promises of freeing every captive sprite.
QB's men hire a discount ninja to kill Radd (so as not to implicate QB himself), and pocket the money set aside for the reward. Radd is released from his cell, and fights the incompetent assassin and his robot, destroying the robot and punching Kobayashi in the groin; Kobayashi is unable to harm Radd with his swift but inaccurate moves. Sheena, Bogey, Joule, and Dr. Amp arrive in a stolen Moderator ship (later named the High Score), and pick up Radd. Sheena reveals that Crystal has learned what she must do from the Seer, that Crystal may be responsible for GI Guy's disappearance, and that she has an unstoppable army.
To make matters worse, Kobayashi stows away aboard the ship, kidnapping Joule and stealing Amp's prototype raygun, demanding that Radd come to the cargo hold. Another battle ensues with Kobayashi, one that turns dangerous as Kobayashi turns on the auto-targeting device of the raygun, and dodges all of Radd's shots. However, Sheena distracts him long enough for Radd to beat him into unconsciousness with Sheena. Kobayashi soon comes to, and attempts to escape, but accidentally jumps into cyberspace.
The Quest Begins
Sheena decides to consult the Seer himself, despite the dangers involved. Radd and Bogey are accidentally teleported to his lair with her, and are abducted by a floating eye before Dr. Amp can beam them in. Dozens of eyes gather, and reveal that they are part of the Seer, a virus that has observed everything on the Internet. It reveals that there is no guiding principle in cyberspace, and that sprites with unique capabilities must be sought out. The Seer teleports them out, and as soon as he does so, Dr. Amp beams them back into the ship, having learned that the Moderators are attacking the Seer's base. The Seer's base explodes, and the High Score escapes after Radd shoots down some Moderator pursuers. Radd is overcome with guilt by killing people outside of cyberspace, but Sheena consoles him that his feelings are natural, as they realize that more combat is inevitable in the war against the Moderators.
Captain QB learns of the Seer's base's destruction, but knows that it is only the place that he can manifest himself in the internet. He also learns that Radd has escaped, and Crystal is highly displeased. She eventually decides to rid herself of Captain QB, freezing him.
Radd and the others arrive at Reset, a town, populated by seemingly masochistic, and invincible NPC sprites. Itty Bitty has set up shop there, but, more importantly, games exist in the town (the moderators have not yet reached Reset), and Radd and the others can enter them without destroying them. Some do not provide good sprite followers, as was the case in Fighters History, where each member of the main cast easily defeated their respective opponents. The group eventually goes to Final Legacy, an RPG, where a hero attacks them and places Bogey in danger. However, Radd defeats him with an attack that is more powerful than it should be. This experience allows the group to learn that some rules do not apply outside of games; Radd is able to charge to almost infinite power with a Mega Radd, but a too high-powered may be dangerous.
Crystal, having transformed Hopetown realizes that Radd is dangerous, and hopes to reach "Chimera Point." She reluctanlty hires Gnarl to do so, as he is able to sense Radd if he is in the same area.
Radd and Sheena enter Kid Radd 2 in hopes of finding a powerup that allows Radd to shoot unlimited Mega Radds. However, the Moderators attack the ROM, destroying it and damaging the codes of the sprites inside. Radd 2 is blown away, while Sheena 2 fuses with Sheena, allowing her to communicate with Sheena 1. Dr. Amp manages to help Radd activate a cheat code for unlimited Rocketboard, and Radd uses it to escape. Radd and Sheena, who now is able to transform into a hero sprite, defeat the Moderator fleet, but learn that Reset has already been captured.
Crystal is upset at Radd's escape and the decimation of the force at the ROM folder. She also imprisons several disobedient Reset citizens in the warehouse, Itty Bitty among them. Itty Bitty unfreezes Captain QB, informing him of what has been going on. The two stage a jailbreak, and GI Guy escapes in the confusion.
The High Score finds another computer, but Gnarl attacks. Despite Sheena's attempts to defuse a confrontation, Radd and Gnarl battle again. Radd defeats Gnarl, and tells him of the futility of blindly following his programming, greatly disturbing Gnarl. Gnarl leaves.
Meanwhile, in Hopetown, GI Guy encounters Itty Bitty and Captain QB, and the three use Itty Bitty's airship to steal a Moderator ship. They meet Radd and his companions after Sheena and Bogey bring back a nurse from Old Daedalus to heal Radd, who was slimed in the investigation of the game.
Gnarl meets up with Kobayashi, and learns that he is from a Flash game, in which he does "ninja" stuff until a time limit expires, when he finishes off the player with a super attack.
Radd, Itty Bitty, and GI Guy enter a game known as Mofo, a parody of EarthBound (aka Mother 2), attempting to recruit the final boss, meeting up with hero Elliott on the way. The final boss, however, is unresponsive to their attempts to convince him, and they have no choice but to destroy him before his HP resets. They take Elliott outside the game and leave.
Endgame
Gnarl and Kobayashi find an abandoned location in cyberspace, and learn of Kobayashi's powers that never miss. They enter a buidling in the center (identified as Chimera Point), and accidentally fuse with one another, with the fusion having the characteristics of both Gnarl and Kobayashi. GI Guy and Dr. Amp reveal that the site was a relic of the early days of the Moderators, back when they established a colony known as Protos soon after escaping from their games. The freed sprites were often violent, and they used the Chimera device to fuse them with NPCs, in an attempt to render them into peaceful and productive citizens. However, the aggressive nature of the combat sprites overrode the peaceful nature of the NPCs, and as they were able to inflict damage without taking it, they were far more dangerous than before. The sprites were caught, and sealed in a destroyed ROM, before the Moderators relocated to Hopetown.
Radd goes with GI Guy in a small vehicle under the pretense of investigating Chimera Point, but GI Guy takes him to a computer network, attacks him, reduces him to 1 health, and uses Mind Control on him. Radd, fully aware of what is happening, but not in control of his body, learns that GI Guy has learned from his experiences in Protos and Hopetown, as well as the carnage of Doom Platoon that sprites reflect the violent nature of the humans that made them, and that the violence will continue as long as both exist. He plans to have Radd destroy the Internet with a Mega Radd that has a power rating in the millions, which will hopefully doom the planet as well.
Meanwhile, the rest of the group finds the real Chimera point, and separates Gnarl and Kobayashi. Gnarl helps them locate Radd, and they arrive just as GI Guy commands Radd to release his apocalyptic Mega Radd. The blast destroys GI Guy and everything in Radd's surroundings except Radd himself, who despairs at having destroyed everything. However, his friends save him, and escape from the destroyed computer network, which, in a bit of comedy to leaven a very dark part of Kid Radd, was being used as a telemarketer center. The internet remains intact; the High Score was sent to detonate the net connection while the others escaped in Gnarl's ship.
However, a more dangerous battle is at hand. Crystal tracked Gnarl's ship to the Point, and sent her army in to secure it. Radd and his companions fight the Seer's army at the former Protos, while Radd enters the Chimerization building, armed with a Lucky Penny from Elliott, which prevents him from taking damage once.
Radd is too late to prevent the Chimerization, and learns that the Seer is now in control of the Chimerized Crystal, having manipulated her to secure her body. He did so in order to have a body so that he could not only destroy the internet, as he originally was intended to do as a virus, but also the entire real universe. Radd enters into an epic battle with the Seer, who becomes distraught that Radd is able to survive an otherwise fatal attack, due to his Lucky Penny. Bogey crosses the battlefield, and reaches the Chimerization chamber shortly before the Seer seals him, Radd, and himself inside, before preparing an unavoidable attack. Bogey convinces Radd to shoot him to get his power-up, forcing Radd to do so by jumping at him. Radd is powered up again, and resumes fighting the Seer after surviving the attack. At this point, the Seer realizes that by being bonded with a sprite, he has lost his omniscience, and is unsure of what will happen if he perishes. He attempts to order the control room to Chimerize him with Raddd, but when he turns over the password, he learns that Radd's friends have taken the control room, and join forces to finish him off. His body is destroyed, and his conflicting "death" commands crash the rest of the virus.
Epilogue
The group returns to Hopetown, and even as the Moderators rebuild, Radd is concerned about GI Guy's claim that the fighting is part of human nature, and troubled over Bogey's sacrifice. He learns from Dr. Amp that Bogey is not permanently dead, just invisible, and that he can be restored with the help of an emulator.
Radd contacts his former player, and, after some work, convinces him that he is the Radd sprite that was in his copy of Kid Radd video game years ago. He then asks the human why the sprites' nature reflects humanity's vices. The human replies that humanity is unable to entirely cure itself of negative tendencies, but it must try, and he offers to restore Bogey as a way of trying, and he does, by turning on a "ROM" of "Kid Radd"
Characters
The protagonists and those on their side during the final battle have been titled "The Rulebreakers" by the fans. No equivalent was mentioned in the comic itself.
Kid Radd
Image:Raddrock.gifOriginally the hero of a platform-type game called Kid Radd (similar to an actual NES game called Totally Rad), Radd is a teenage boy sprite who just wants to have fun, and to kiss his 'girlfriend' Sheena, but is frustrated by circumstances. Despite this, he earnestly dedicates himself to help others and to stop the Moderators. Radd possesses the ability to fire "mega radds"- energy bursts that can damage others. He can also increase the power of the radd beam by focusing his energy- the longer he focuses, the more damage he does. In addition, Radd takes only one point of damage from ANY attack. Unfortunately, he only has four life points. He survives mostly by dodging very well. (Note that since Radd is no longer in his original game, if he were to be 'killed' he would not be revived again.)
Sheena
Image:Sheenabliss.gifOriginally Radd's 'girlfriend' from the Kid Radd game, where she did nothing but wait to be rescued by Radd. This annoyed her, and she was glad to be freed. She lets Radd know she's NOT interested in him as anything more than a friend (though she obviously likes him) and joins the Moderators in trying to rescue other sprites. Sheena is presented as an intelligent and concerned person, though the foolishness of people like Radd gets on her nerves occasionally. Sheena is a NPC (non-player character) who was NOT programmed to take part in battles. Therefore she cannot be harmed, but also lacks any attack powers. Later, when Sheena and Radd enter the ROM for a sequel to their game, she ends up merged with her alter-ego, who was a playable character in the game. Due to the nature of the merging, Sheena could switch between her normal invulnerable NPC self, and a Hero sprite who can attack.
Bogey
Image:Bogeyhwalk.gifBogey was one of the minor monsters in the Kid Radd game, a spherical plant creature with eyes, a mouth and feet (but no hands) who did nothing but walk in place waiting for Radd to touch it so he could damage him. Bogey adapted to life in Hopetown better than Radd did, and became Radd's best friend. Bogey is more savvy than Radd is, and has a secret crush on Sheena. Bogey has a 'touch of death' that damages anything he touches whether he wants it to or not, except invulnerable things like NPCs. He also has only one life point, so his friends are reluctant to let him fight. However, it is his sacrifice during the final battle that saves Radd and the world.
Gnarl
Image:Gnarlyeah.gifGnarl is Radd's 'Evil Older Brother' and the final Boss in the Kid Radd game. Actually he has nothing against Radd, but opposes him simply because he doesn't know what else to do with his existence (in fact, he has the power to sense Radd when he is nearby). He can fire energy bursts like Radd, and can change into a larger, robotic form (with no legs).
Gnarl tried to defeat Radd again, but Radd showed him the errors of his ways. He met with Kobayashi, and unwittingly stumbled upon Chimera Point. He temporarily fused with Kobayashi in the process, and gaining the ability to fuse with him at will (the fusion of the two has the same abilities and personality traits as both of them). He helped the group in the final battle.
Captain QB
Image:Qbscared.gifA superhero-like sprite from a fighting game, QB is one of the main administrators of the Moderators. It was he who freed Radd and his friends from their game. QB is dedicated to 'doing the right thing'... even to the point of fanaticism. He has the ability to freeze people, as well as a much more powerful version of the above, which can only be used if he takes enough damage.
GI Guy
Image:Gishoot.gifThe founder and leader of the Moderators, GI Guy is a hero-type sprite from a role-playing game. GI Guy's player had levelled him up obsessively, giving him formidable powers (such as various energy attacks, flying, and the ability to control the minds of weakened enemies) but also leaving him with a grim view of humanity.
He tried to use Radd to destroy the Internet, but thanks to the High Score containing the blast, he was the only sprite destroyed in his plan.
Crystal
Image:Crystalblink.gifA former 'monster' sprite from a Final Fantasy-like game, she existed only to be killed over and over again so the game's player could 'level-up' his playing character. As a result she's bitter against everyone. She became the second-in-command of the Moderators; after speaking with the Seer, she decided to use the Moderators to gain ultimate power. Ironically, she's a sadist, who enjoys hurting others herself. She looks like a beautiful fairy.
The Seer
Image:Seer.gifOriginally the Cool Ragnarok Virus (CR), a computer worm created by some hacker for the purpose of destroying all of the world's computers on the eve of the year 2000. At a certain point, however, it attained sentience and decided that it would rather remain in the Internet as a seer for the sprites that occupy it. Supposedly, every sprite that consults the Seer dies mysteriously; the Seer clarifies that it is a result of their actions in their quest, not a curse.
The Seer instructs Crystal to take over the Internet and secure Chimera Point, and Radd to recruit sprites with unique abilities. However, it was manipulating both of them in order to gain an all-powerful body, but as it was unable to gain an NPC, Radd and his friends defeated its body, and crashed the program.
Kobayashi
Image:Kobacry.gifA "discount ninja assassin for hire" Kobayashi is another sprite who finds life outside his original game very difficult to adapt to. He was hired by the moderators to kill Radd, since he works for quite small pay. His aim, though, is extremely poor. He also has a hobby of building robot-type Bosses to use against his foes- who aren't much better in their duty than he is. Kobayashi is a rarity in the world of Kid Radd. He is not from an old video game, but a web-based game called Ninja Bash, where the player simply selected one of several ways of killing him. If the player took too long to decide, he would attack, and the game would end with a snide remark. Kobayashi eventually helps Radd's group fight Crystal in the final battle, presumably so that he can fight Radd once the war ends.
Doctor Amp
Image:Amp.gifA sprite from a puzzle game, Amp is a scientist who understands the nature of the video game universe and comes up with all manner of inventions. He was the one who invented, among several devices critical to the plot, the Moderators' means of opening ROMS for sprites to escape, and was responsible for the decision to use Chimera Point to fuse sprites. He is friendly but naïve. He looks like an old man with a perpetual smile on his face (he can't change his expression, not even when he gets angry or talks about the sobering events of the past) and moves by flying around on a small flying saucer (he can't get off).
Joule
Image:Juliefloat.gifAmp's "daughter" from the same game, where her duty was to destroy blocks to hinder the player. She looks like a teenage girl in a bumblebee costume. She has a short temper and a crush on Radd. She can fly and sting people.
Itty Bitty
Image:Ibtabler.gifItty, inspired by an 'item' shop owner in a Final Fantasy-like game, runs a shop, diner and bar in Hopetown. He is a bespectacled black man and a very cheery fellow, always ready to hear about his customer's woes. He befriends and aids Radd and his friends. Although a NPC with no attack powers and invulnerability, Itty can also hold a limitless number of items and weapons. He was designed to be seen only from behind a counter, and as such has no lower body.
