The fighting game community is absolutely filled with amazing talent from all over the world outside of the competitors where artists, modders, programmers, tournament organizers and many more all bring something unique to the genre we love, and it’s always nice to see them receive official recognition for it.
Udon’s annual Street Fighter & Friends Swimsuit Special expanded its horizons beyond the main world warriors this year featuring lovely and sexy artwork depicting characters from Capcom’s other fighting games and beat ’em ups.
While we previously already looked at the special cover variants offered for the 2024 special, some artists are posting their actual included illustrations online now that the comic book officially hit store shelves a few days ago.
So we’ve put together a bit of a preview of some of our favorite works to get a taste of what you can get in the 32 pages of full color goodness for fighting game fans.
As can be seen from the table of contents, Darkstalkers, Power Stone, Star Gladiator, Captain Commando, Rival Schools, Armored Warriors, Battle Circuit, Cyberbots and Final Fight all get some love in the book alongside Street Fighter — plus you can see more of the artists featured.
The artist lineup from the 2024 Street Fighter & Friends Swimsuit Special.
In stores July 24! pic.twitter.com/9Lh54MjzgI
— Matt Moylan @SDCC #100 UDON (@LilFormers) July 20, 2024
It’s not technically at the beach, but Conto’s piece for Rival Schools nurse Kyoko Minazuki is certainly one of our favorites for some obvious reasons though it is just fun to see everyone crowded around the pool too for a cross-Capcom swimming competition.
Reluu’s Ruby Heart Resort and Wallace Pires’ beach time activities are certainly highlights too with all of the the details packed into the backgrounds.
Copies of the new book can be picked up for as little as $5 with some variants costing more, but those looking for even more of a collector’s item can check out Artgem Collectibles offering unique golden versions featuring art of Manon, Cammy, Poison and R. Mika starting at $40
Udon also has a brand new version of their Street Fighter World Warrior Encyclopedia coming later this year as well with the World Tour Edition updated with new art and information for the Street Fighter 6 era of the franchise coming later this year.
You can check out the small gallery featuring a glimpse at what’s in the Swimsuit Special below with the artists shown in the order of Kuya Jaypi, Quasimodox, Wallace Pires, AtomicMarshmallow, enerJax, Reluu, Conto, and Vashy, so if you like what you see, pick up a copy to help support them officially.
Click images for larger versions