I have some sad news to share today: we’ve lost a member of the Capcom Unity family.

Mister Mumbles, our loyal webcam, is no more. Along with Sticky (the dry-erase board) Mumbles was the driving force behind “The Whiteboard,” purveyor of nonsense, sharer of trinkets, leaker of secrets, and collector of questionably appropriate graffiti.

Many of you might not have known Mumbles personally, and though his image quality wasn't always the greatest, I felt he always comported himself with a certain quiet dignity.

Goodnight, sweet prince.

Also let's extend a warm welcome to Mumbles' substantially higher-resolution replacement, Herc.  Mumbles would have wanted it that way.  

Kotaku has a nice feature up today on my Street Fighter-flavored baby, the EVO Championship Series. 

It was actually EVO that helped me find my way to Capcom in the first place, and Capcom has become a great supporter of the historic event (including this year's SFIV cabinets and the exclusive chance to play Tatsunoko vs Capcom!). Head to Kotaku for some background, inspiration, and the flavor of the tournament, as well as more pics and some great videos!

PS- if the interview makes it looks like I swore at some point, it's because today's shady internet journalists love misquoting people. And hate freedom.

Yesterday we packed up the Street Fighter IV cabinets, Street Fighter HD Remix test kits, and a whole mess of joysticks, and set the GPS for Gamespot HQ in downtown San Francisco. 

In addition to all of our gear, the room was packed with SF love, from OG SF posters, to an arcade SFII Hyper Fighting cabinet to an unapologetically hairy Blanka cosplayer.

 The competitors were a great mix of new challengers, familiar EVO faces, XBox Live champs, and SFIV padawans (who have been honing their skills on the gray-market SFIV cabs that have been popping up across the Bay Area). 

As a one-game, single-elimation tournament, with a wide range of strong players, the action was brutal.  I won't give away the exciting conclusion, but with $1,000 in each game on the line, plus the $500 overall champion bonus, it was definitely put up or shut up, with a lot of exciting surprises.

Gamespot did an amazing job shooting the event, so stay tuned over there for the hot on-screen action as well as what are sure to be hilarious video profiles of all the competitors (both pre-match trash talk, and post-match face-palms). 

Thanks to everyone who came out, and big ups to Ryan, Ricardo, Amy, and everyone else at Gamespot for putting the whole thing together!

Click here for a few sneak peaks of the event (an exciting mix of my terrible photographic skills and Tim's phonecam!).

You might have noticed we have a slight fascination with fan-art around here. 

Master of all internets Hamza certainly knows, and so sent me this tip about fan-artist  Masao.  While there's a lot of great art (including the pieces that win our weekly fan art contest!), Masao has a really playful, slightly demented, almost greasy style, as opposed to going for realism or maximum cute.

In addition to a clear fixation with Mario and Luigi, he has some surreal takes on Mega Man, GnG's Arthur, the Street Fighter crew, and even a few Darkstalkers.

Check out Destructoid's convenient gallery, or go straight to the (substantially less convenient) source at Masao's own page.

Darin has some good news for you about some new arrivals at the Capcom Store. 

I've got one and even the guy at the fro-yo store was like "wtf!"  Check it out!