Rayman Pirate-Community

Last night I was randomly browsing my Rayman folder when I re-stumbled across an image I'd saved sometime last year of a French magazine from 1995 with a Rayman themed cover. At first glance it seemed quite ordinary - a picture of a little boy (presumably someone from the magazine) superimposed onto a Dream Forest background, complete with the usual characters - Rayman, an Antitoon, a Livingstone and a couple of Electoons. But then there is this unidentifiable character - who at first I dismissed at being a character from another video game they were reviewing/previewing in the issue. Until I realise that the character was limbless, with a familiar egg-shaped body and shading style. For a few seconds I thought that it might be a character from the magazine redrawn in a Rayman style but then came to the conclusion that it was in fact a ditched character from the early development stages as they sort of reminded me of some of the stuff we've seen from the old SNES version. He even had a random letter 'K' on his shirt as Rayman has an 'O' and "Ray-girl" (appears to, judging by an small magazine scan image) appears to have an '!' - making me think it might be an early sidekick idea. So I zoomed in to have a closer look, and it was then I realised who the character had a striking resemblance to.

Cookie, from the Rayman Animated Series!

Seriously, the resemblance is striking! I'm pretty much convinced now that Cookie was based on this guy.

Have a look!:



I don't know where the original picture of the obscure magazine came from, because I saved it last year - but I have a feeling it might have actually been from the forum, perhaps on the Rare Rayman Images thread somewhere. If so, would the owner of Mikado #144 be happy to scan/photograph (preferably the former ) a cleaner version of the cover as well as the Rayman article inside. It might be interesting what other strange early Rayman stuff lies in this possible goldmine

So basically, if you didn't have any respect for the Rayman Animated Series beforehand (and I'm hoping you did), then at least you can appreciate it for maybe including some strange scrapped stuff from the early days

Oh yeah, and here is the full magazine cover (as likely posted on here sometime last year?):

https://sites.google.com/site/zipsandth ... ects=0&d=1

That's a quite interesting discovery. It is possible that Cookie was actually a redesign of that scrapped character. It would be nice if someone owned the same magazine.

I have a feeling that he was

Unfortunately, the magazine seems pretty obscure as the only information I could find on the internet was a stub article on the French Wikipedia which said it ran for a decade. So it would be good luck to find a copy (unless of course I am correct about the picture coming from here):P

EDIT: Tried to Google the picture using the 'search by image' tool, which usually works - and it found nothing. I really have no idea where I got this picture from

Well that certainly is interesting. Though the letter on his shirt is an F, not a K.

RayFan9876 wrote:Though the letter on his shirt is an F, not a K.

You could also read it as a funky K, but I agree with you.

While I originally say it as an 'F' when I first saw it, I'm pretty sure it is a stylised 'K', a little like the Special K logo. Maybe the K is for Kookie?

Still no luck tracing down the source of the photograph though...

have you tried scanning the bar code?

As the chief fangirl of RayTAS I feel it is my duty to comment on these matters.

...Haha, wow.

I'm pretty sure it's Cookie as well. Apart from the similarities you noticed, they also sort of have the same ugly shoes. I know that doesn't account for anything but you know

If this is true (and I really hope it is) I have a few questions to ask/points to raise.

1. If he had appeared, would RayTAS be taken better by the fandom? Cus all i see on youtube are WHERE ARE THE CLASSIC CHARECTERS

2. This also calls into question Betina's similarity to Betilla. Sort of.

3. Anyone know what his role would've been? I can only imagine him as a side charecter like the Musician/Hippie or Tarayzan or whatever.

4. This basically makes RayTAS more canon! \o/

Milly out~

MLII wrote:4. This basically makes RayTAS more canon! \o/

In what way?

spiraldoor wrote:

MLII wrote:4. This basically makes RayTAS more canon! \o/

In what way?

I think she may have meant that if this is the same character, it would make the series more canon. I fail to see how, though - Rayman and Razorbeard appeared in both the games and the Animated Series, but that doesn't make it canon.

Well, assuming that Cookie was originally going to appear in Ray1, it creates some sort of link between the game and the series, even if (as so obviously happened) the idea was scrapped later.

Do you have any other opinion on this thread? o3o

EDIT:

Rulez wrote: I think she may have meant that if this is the same character, it would make the series more canon. I fail to see how, though - Rayman and Razorbeard appeared in both the games and the Animated Series, but that doesn't make it canon.

Firstly, I stand by the belief that that isn't Razorbeard. But that's not really relavent.

Secondly, while I admit that's true, it creates more of a link, making it more possible to be canon. I mean, we've already established Ray3 happens in the same universe as Ray2 mostly because it has the same charecters.

MLII wrote:As the chief fangirl of RayTAS I feel it is my duty to comment on these matters.

I knew you'd come to comment on this some day or other

MLII wrote:I'm pretty sure it's Cookie as well. Apart from the similarities you noticed, they also sort of have the same ugly shoes.

Yeah, I noticed that one two - but forgot to mention it when I made the post

MLII wrote:This also calls into question Betina's similarity to Betilla.

While this is on a slightly different subject - I am pretty convinced that when they started off with Betina she was meant to be Betilla. I mean, not only does she have a name that is different only by a few letters, but they also have the same hair colour, the same taste in yellow and green clothes and the same facial features! (asides from the fact that Betina has a rather wide face. But check out the eyes and nose!).
I think they were experimenting with redesigns, but the more they fiddled with Betilla, the less like the original fairy she ended up looking, until she ended up as a new character of her own. Thus they quickly changed the name slightly and said it was a different character
Of course, this is just speculation here, although it seems likely...

MLII wrote:Anyone know what his role would've been? I can only imagine him as a side charecter like the Musician/Hippie or Tarayzan or whatever.

No, I don't actually know his role - whether the rest of the magazine would reveal more or not I don't know. Judging by the similarities I noted to Raygirl (cut SNES stuff we're taking here) I think that he's meant to be a side kick, possibly a second player character as she was or if not that then at least Rayman's best friend.

MLII wrote:This basically makes RayTAS more canon! \o/

In my opinion, the whole Rayman series has a pretty screwed up continuity (Sorry Spiraldoor!). Asides from Rayman 2 and 3 being closely connected, there is barely any logical links between each game, and everything seems to change every time (particularly between the first game and the second game, a fact I still hate to this day). I think The Animated Series is just one of these things, a fun spinoff with some of the characters (and the scrapped ones too ) that exists in a continuity of it's own.

I'm still trying to find out more about the magazine this picture came from, and if I do find anything (or even a copy for sale, which I will purchase especially ), even if it is just the original page where I found it (I still don't know!) then I will immediately let everyone know. I am still highly interested in the fact that Cookie seemingly now has Rayman 1 origins (Heh, Rayman 1 Origins ) and am dying to find out more!

Electoon wrote:I knew you'd come to comment on this some day or other

You did? You know me so well xD

Electoon wrote:While this is on a slightly different subject - I am pretty convinced that when they started off with Betina she was meant to be Betilla. I mean, not only does she have a name that is different only by a few letters, but they also have [...]the same facial features! (asides from the fact that Betina has a rather wide face. But check out the eyes and nose!).

Fff, you're absoloutely right. o-o I just pictured them in my head and holy crap

WHY DID I NOT NOTICE THEM SOONER

Electoon wrote: I think that he's meant to be a side kick, possibly a second player character as [RayGirl] was or if not that then at least Rayman's best friend.

Well, that's certainly interesting. o-o Ray's best friend? xD Lol, I find that funny being that Cookie doesn't really seem to like him all that much in RayTAS. Still, maybe they were friends as kids and something happened to break them apart or something.

...that needs to be a fanfic like now

Electoon wrote:In my opinion, the whole Rayman series has a pretty screwed up continuity (Sorry Spiraldoor!). Asides from Rayman 2 and 3 being closely connected, there is barely any logical links between each game, and everything seems to change every time (particularly between the first game and the second game, a fact I still hate to this day). I think The Animated Series is just one of these things, a fun spinoff with some of the characters (and the scrapped ones too ) that exists in a continuity of it's own.

^ Pretty much this. I think they all happened in the same universe (say what you like but there's plenty of canon-space for RayTAS) but they don't seem all that sequential or linked or anything to me.

The only information I could find on the whole of the internet on this particular issue was a shopping site selling it with shipping only to France.
I am really bewildered as to where I could have found the picture, from all the stuff I've typed in the search box of this forum, it was never on here, and I can't find it on Google either, not using keywords or the image tool (or bar-code scanner). I'm also dissapointed that there is no copy shipping outside France

EDIT: Hate to break this now, but I'm beginning to suspect the opposite. I.E, this lame old theory

Electoon wrote:. For a few seconds I thought that it might be a character from the magazine redrawn in a Rayman style

From other covers I see on the internet, there are random characters on the front of some the issues in 1995 that look vaguely similar to the Cookie character seen on the Rayman issue. So, yeah. However, I'm still of the belief that the character is too Cookie related to be a coincidence - so it could honestly be either (that being a magazine mascot or a scrapped Rayman character). The only way of knowing for sure would be to find out more about the magazine issue in question...

Is there anyone on this forum that is familiar with Mikado magazine in the slightest? Judging by the results for Google France, it's quite obscure...

Electoon wrote:EDIT: Hate to break this now, but I'm beginning to suspect the opposite. I.E, this lame old theory

Well of course, you should be using Chrome.

RayFan9876 wrote:

Electoon wrote:EDIT: Hate to break this now, but I'm beginning to suspect the opposite. I.E, this lame old theory

Well of course, you should be using Chrome.

I like Firefox better, but it's a matter of opinion. AS LONG AS YOU DON'T USE INTERNET EXPLORER

The best would be one of us secretly visiting the Ubisoft's computers and see the stuff we could find. Like... NES Rayman?

Yeah, exactly lol

^That's definietly official.

Well, now it is