Mushroom Go

Author notes

26. Military Intelligence

Tokoyoto

on Aug. 13, 2010

Yeah, that's right. I finally put a canon Mario character on panel, visibly drawn, and it's freakin' PETEY PIRANHA of all people. I'm a monster.

Oh, and there's some other guy in the picture but it's just a silhouette so it doesn't count. Shut up.

Anyway, it's yet another page where I may or may not have gotten carried away in the coloring process. I get excited, man. When I don't absolutely hate Photoshop, I totally love Photoshop. This strip was actually a big relief to get over with, though–I must have redone the look of the Fire Bro some six odd times before settling on what I did. I figure Fire Bros might show up later in the comic, though–probably doing something besides flashbacks next time–so I'd better be satisfied with the design. The outfit's sort of a weird combination of a firefighter, a nazi and the Shocker from Spider-man. And an actual Fire Bro from the Mario series, of course.

For those of you that don't keep up with this stuff (I know some people reading the comic don't actually play all that much Mario), Fire Bros are special Koopas that can throw fireballs. They're pretty rare, actually, and have only shown up in a few games. I represented the fire power with some sort of gadgetry–like a hand-mounted flamethrower system that the soldier straps to themselves. Fire Bros don't show up all that often because a weapon that INSANELY dangerous takes a great deal of training.

I think originally Fire Bros are supposed to be spitting the fireballs, but man, I'm not even gonna try to explain how that works. I used to think Mario spat his fireballs too, though–it's just how the graphics looked. That, and I used to think he broke blocks with just his head, like he's got some sort of crazy flying headbutt attack.

I miss being a kid sometimes.