This should happen when you get a million coins.

This odd Star Wars-esque Dark Side concept was originally even weirder. An early idea for a strip about Mario’s greed would show him getting rich and complacent and basically becoming the Wario. Then the Mushroom Kingdom’s economy collapsed, and it would end with the implication of Luigi training Baby Mario to take up the hero’s torch and restore peace to the land…but yeah, a little too out-there and would mess with canon (even BitF canon) way too much. So here’s a simplified, not-as-crazy-but-still-pretty-nuts version!

The second-to-last panel was VERY tricky. Having him look too much like Wario made the gag confusing (like Wario just showed up), but having him look too much like a chubby Mario wouldn’t be clear enough to convey the idea across in the first place! I had to redraw it a few times; hopefully the result is obvious.

Hurricane Isaac has come and gone, bringing with it several days of power outage here and flooding in some areas. But things are now back to normal at home, so BitF has returned to its usual Tuesday/Friday schedule!

I’ve pretty much beaten NSMB2 to completion, although I only have something like 250,000 coins. Coin Rush is the kind of mode I’d normally love, but the randomization of the stages is an odd design choice that keeps my playtime with it limited. My best score is a half-decent 11,000 or so, but I don’t really have the patience to roll the dice hoping for the best level set to max out the score. It’s too bad because there’s a lot of fun to be had in the mode, as the levels seem built around the balance of getting cash vs. speeding through.

-By Matthew