Author: Axel

I have a quick Stern Pinball production update for everyone. Based on information that was just sent out to distributors, Stern has been making Mandalorian Pro and Premium models this week. They are set to ship out tomorrow and Friday.

After that, the Stern production schedule has a whole lot of nothing listed until “Late September” when it is scheduled to do a run of Rush Pro and Premium models.

As we’ve suspected for a while now, the hole in the schedule is likely going to be filled with Stern’s next Cornerstone pinball machine – rumored to be X-Men. I had thought that Stern would reveal it sometime in August, but we haven’t seen anything yet and the month is coming to an end.

Word on the street is that the game is already in production. If that’s true, we’ll most likely get to see it next week – Tuesday maybe? because Monday is a holiday. Perhaps we get a brief teaser on Friday. That’s my best guess at this point.

I’m sad to report that two days ago, the renowned pinball artist Stanley Fukuoka passed away at the age of 69 after a long battle with Leukemia. Stanley created the artwork for the 1996 Capcom pinball machine Breakshot. He also created the artwork for two iconic cancelled Capcom games, Big Bang Bar and Kingpin.

I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with Stan a couple of times over the years and he was always super nice. Last year, I reported here about seeing several of his sketches for sale at the Silverball Arcade in Asbury Park, New Jersey. I will include pictures of those below.

A friend of Stan’s reached out to me this afternoon to share two pictures that he was working on for a project when he passed away. They asked that I share them on my page to show that he was working on right up to the end.

Rest in Peace Stan. My thoughts go out to his family.

Below are links to his obituary and website:

https://www.stanfukuoka.com/

https://www.williams-kampp.com/obituaries/Stanley-Fukuoka?obId=32892480&fbclid=IwY2xjawE8NHpleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHUhzkTIZ-S1Y7uxzZiIfqVmVI9GYRb53a-Jbq-8YxrYRrhAvsLieF75r3A_aem_vWdmXecKbIFf1Yw3JwL0mA#/obituaryInfo

Pictures from Stanley Fukuoka’s Final Project:

The Pictures that I saw for sale at the Silverball Arcade:

I need to start things off by saying that this is pure speculation, not based on any official company announcement, yet. Now that that disclaimer is out of the way, late yesterday after I broke the news here that Jersey Jack Pinball’s next pinball machine is based upon the James Cameron film series Avatar, the game’s likely designer Mark Seiden shared an interesting post on Facebook that said the following:

“There’s this cool artist that I think you should check out: https://www.leafaske.com/“

That’s all it said. The timing of this cryptic post is very interesting. It has made me, and a number of people who have reached out to me with links to the post (thanks folks) wonder if this is the artist for Jersey Jack’s Avatar.

Again I have no idea if Lea Faske is actually the artist for the game, but it certainly seems like she could be. That would be really cool because, and correct me if I’m wrong, I believe that it would be the first time in ages that a woman has done the art for a major pinball release. Previously Lea has done art for major projects like the mobile games Brawlhalla and Hearthstone.

Here’s a sample of some of the art from the webpage that he linked. It looks fantastic and I bet that her style would look super cool when applied to the world of Avatar.