Free Beard and Nostalgia

This has been in the back of my mind for quite some time, and I feel like it's time I start to talk about it. so please bear with me.

For pretty much my whole life, I've wanted to start my own company. Most people who've known me for any length of time have probably heard parts of this before. When I was a little kid, I used todraw pictures of video games I wanted to make. At one point I came up with an idea for a Zelda game that took place during modern times.

I made link have baggy pants because I didn't know how to draw bare legs.

I really wanted to make video games and I had no idea where to start. So I just kept writing my ideas down, and drawing things that excited me. I drew on pretty much every surface I could get away with. At one point my bedroom was plastered with sketches of super heroes that I made up and potential video game characters. Some of them were actually original and not rip offs of Nintendo properties, I promise.

Everything had drawings all over it. This is from 6th Grade.

The first attempt I made at starting a company was called J.J.P. It stood for Jonny (Gardner), Josh (Rima), and Patrick (Fulmer). We never really did anything, but I still have at least one flip book that I branded as JJP. It's about a stick figure that falls in an endless cycle until his atoms split, and he becomes a superhero (at least that how I'm interpreting it now). After a while, I became really good friends with a kid named Devon Tocco. He shared my love of videogames and he seemed to be brimming with ideas for games, comics, and movies.

Flights Crew was what Devon and I called ourselves

From Elementary through to the early years of college, my friends Nick Rubatino, Devon Tocco, Tobanic Brooks, Madison Mosely, JP Gulliford, and several other great people undertook a literal ton of creative endeavors. Some were better than others, but it always felt like we were creating while everyone else was doing... Whatever else it is that normal people do. we made a ton of movies and recorded some music. There was a lot of drawing, and a few comics. A lot of ideas for games, but none that actually were made. Several of us really wanted to make video games. Nick and I went on to DigiPen and studied art. While there I made a ton of new friends that were just as, or in many cases more driven to create than myself. Many of these people would go on to work awesome jobs helping to make all manner of videogames big and small.

However... I find myself with that nagging feeling inside to create my own way. I keep wanting to do what I've always wanted to do: make my own company. Make the entertainment that I want to make, and work with my friends to create products that are distinctly our brand of humor and personality. To that end, I came up with Free Beard.

Free Beard is my new brand. FIST CHAMPION is a Free Beard game. Just as all future projects that I work on will be Free Beard products. I want to do this for real this time, and I don't want to do it alone. I hope that I can drag some of my friends in to this mess with me.

There will be more FIST CHAMPION details on Wednesday. I promise you you'll like what you see.