I’ve seen many little blessings vanish from my life. The Harry Potter books concluded. Avatar: The Last Airbender aired its final episode. Nintendo Power ceased publication. (This noble magazine was too clearly good for this world; may it rest in peace.) One by one, these sparks of joy and humor were extinguished, leaving my world a tiny bit darker.

Today the Internet loses a great webcomic. Brawl in the Family has ended its six-year run, and I am reminded of how fleeting are most of the good things in life.

(Am I seriously writing a blog post mourning the end of a webcomic? Yes. Yes, I am.)

Anyone familiar with Nintendo and its games should check out Brawl in the Family immediately. BitF is a superb webcomic. (However, it’s also packed with video game-specific humor, so non-Nintendo fans shouldn’t feel bad for giving it a miss.)

As a person who creates stuff and throws it at the Internet, I admire the creators of BitF. I’ll miss its cartoony style and gentle humor. The comic’s jokes were often sophisticated, using absurdism or deconstructionism to poke fun at Nintendo’s video games… and then some of the comic’s jokes were just really bad puns.

BitF has long brightened quiet corners of this blog. The comic inspired one of TMTF’s earliest posts, taught me the history of Nintendo in one ridiculously catchy song, and made bearable one of the darker days of my life. And have you noticed the green coffee cup I hold in one of this blog’s banners? It’s a nod to the comic. Heck, BitF has made so many appearances on TMTF that I’ve considered giving the comic its own tag.

I’ll miss Kirby, Dedede, and the comic’s other oddball characters. I’ll even miss Waluigi and his surreal (and invariably purple-colored) antics.

One of the comic’s creators is going on to develop his own video game and compose game soundtracks. As much as I’ll miss his comic, I can appreciate that he wants to move on to new things.

Goodbye, Brawl in the Family. Thanks for brightening my life with laughter, absurdity, and Kirby-eats-something jokes.

I’m gonna miss you, Kirby.