Madness Combat

About

Madness Combat is an Flash animation series by Newgrounds user Krinkels^[9] (real name Matt Jolly), which features graphic scenes with simplistic characters fighting each other using a variety of weapons. The series has gained online recognition through its many parodies, episodes and fan-made animations.

Online History

Krinkles uploaded the first animation to feature Madness Combat characters to Newgrounds on February 19th, 2002, titled “Marsh-Mellow-Madness”. The video featured several cartoon characters being launched from a cannon into a giant marshmallow (shown below, left). On July 25th the same year, Krinkles uploaded the first Madness Combat episode. titled “Madness Combat,” which depicted a battle between a man, a horde of identical-looking attackers and a zombie-creating character decipting Jesus Christ (shown below, right). As of May 2015, the animation has received nearly 3,900,000 views.

On January 15th, 2003, Krinkles released the second episode in the series, "Madness Redeemer", featuring an assassin named Hank J. Wimbleton who breaks into a facility to murder a man known as the Sheriff, killing his bodyguards who attempt to stop him. On September 9th, "Madness Avenger" was released, featuring the same characters as its predecessor. "Madness Avenger" is notable for being not only the first episode to be linked to the previous one, but also for being the first episode to feature music by Sean Hodges (known on Newgrounds as "Cheshyre")^[10], who composed the music for all future episodes.

From 2002 to 2013, Krinkles has made 25 episodes of Madness Combat, including non-canon episodes and parodies. On July 27th, 2006, the website Krinkels.net^[5] was launched to showcase Matt Jolly’s original animations, illustrations, games and music.

Reception

Madness Combat is known as one of the most popular flash movie series on Newgrounds, with each episode accumulating large amounts of views. Krinkles has received many Newgrounds trophies for the series, including over 11 Weekly Users’ Choice awards, 12 Daily Features and 6 Review Crew Picks. Many fan tributes have been made, including “Maximum Ninja" (shown below, top, left) by Sto0g3, “Madness Mini" by Shrinkz, "Madness Elimination" (shown below, top, right) by Splurgle and Xionic Madness by Xionico. As of October 29th, 2012, the “Madness Combat” Facebook^[6] page has received over 8,400 likes and Matt Jolly’s Twitter^[7] feed as accumulated over 630 followers.

Madness Day

Madness Day is held annually on September 22nd and is celebrated on Newgrounds by featuring fan-created artwork, animations and games inspired by the Madness series. The original Madness Day was held in 2007 and has received over 200 entries.^[8]

Video Games

There are many Flash games based off Madness Combat made by fans, notable examples being "Madness Combat Defense", "Madness: Premeditation" by BoMToons and "Madness Regent" by TomFulp, the administrator of Newgrounds. However, Krinkels has been involved in the making of "Madness Interactive", "Madness: Project Nexus" and the upcoming "Madness: Project Nexus 2", the first Madness game that's to be made in the Unity engine.

Fan Art

DeviantArt has over 10,000 entries tagged with "madness combat".^[11] Newgrounds's Art Portal has 32 pages of submissions tagged with "madness combat".^[12]

Search Interest

External References