In 1991, Jaleco released a game on the Nintendo Entertainment System called Shatterhand. You controlled a man maybe known as Shatterhand who had to clear Areas A through E to blow up the future. Again, maybe. The game opened with someone harmlessly shooting Shatterhand and getting punched, ended with Shatterhand smiling in front of nothing but explosion, and there was no other exposition between those things. It’s what storytelling scientists use to calibrate perfection. This is the story of the novelization of that story.
8 replies on “Punching Day: Unshattered Love – The Novelization of Shatterhand 🌭”
well?! did hammer and rhonda get together in the end or what?!
What I love the most with a Seanbaby piece like this is you don’t just get sweet photoshop. You don’t just get a hilarious novelization of a plotless beatem up. And you don’t just get editorial notes on TOP of the fake novelization. You get the forbidden love story of protege and editorial muse woven in. And all of it fucking rules. Seanbaby at his best is like if all your ideas on cocaine were actually good AND you somehow conducted that symphony into coherence. Fucking bravo!
I am head-over-shatterheels in love with Rhonda.
What a beautiful journey!
It’s the little things. I lost it all at “Neither was named after the other.”
I think my low key favorite minor (but very important!) detail in all of this was reading Rhonda’s letterhead, and namely noticing how with each new letter to Hammer, she seemingly got demoted to a lesser position within Paperblast, until by the end, she’s referring to her FORMER boss. Fucking A+.
The book on tape, performed by TIMECOP star Bruce McGill, is all I want for my birthday this year.
This is the best thing since my stage adaptation on Captain Caveman: the musical.