When Capcom called out SNK in a fan club comic
The Spring 1993 issue of the Capcom Craze Club took a few swings at SNK's Art of Fighting, while Ryu took a few literal swings at Ryo.
When I started working on this site, I based it on the format of the Final Fantasy 7 and Street Fighter 2 oral histories I'd done at Polygon. Not long after that, I realized I wasn't quite done with the content of those stories either.
You'll see more of the results of that thinking on the site soon. For today, though, I wanted to post scans of an old Capcom marketing brochure that I haven't seen much discussion about online over the years.
I got this in the mail back in 1993 as one of those fan club newsletters game publishers did at the time, and I held onto it because of the comic on the cover, which contains one of the most blatant examples of Capcom criticizing SNK for copying Street Fighter.
In the comic, Ryu mistakes Ryo from Art of Fighting as Ken, then proceeds to fight him with the two matching each other's moves until Ryu ultimately wins by doing something Ryo can't copy. It's filled with the sorts of corporate jabs you don't see as much of today, and with SNK's new Art of Fighting game on the way, it seemed like good timing to dig this one out of the archives.
The full newsletter also includes a Mega Man comic, a Dr. Wily-written reader Q&A section, a Street Fighter 2 column with updates written by E. Honda, Zangief, Birdie, and Ken, a player profile, and previews of Final Fight 2, Goof Troop, and Mighty Final Fight — all of which you can see below.