The 'Shroom:Issue 159/Palette Swap

Director's Notes
Written by: Hi, everybody! Welcome to the June issue of Palette Swap!

I'm sure you all have heard about the massive amount of protests and riots due to the ongoing issue of police brutality against Black Americans, especially since protests have been happening all over the world. I try not to get too much into real-world issues in my notes here, so I will just say that the police brutality needs to stop. Cops shouldn't be able to get away with murdering innocent people just because they're law enforcement. The US has a lot of work to do in terms of reform, so we'll have to see where things go from there.

I've been playing Xenoblade Chronicles lately! This game is gorgeous, the voice acting is great, I love the characters, it's a fantastic experience all around. I highly recommend it to anyone: those who played it first on the Wii or 3DS, people that have seen most of the story spoiled (like me), or those of you who know nothing about it but enjoy a good RPG. I know a lot of the things that are going to happen and yet I'm still having a good time. It'll probably take me the better part of the next couple months to finish it, especially since the Isle of Armor is out now! I'm hoping I can finish it before our new release comes out- yes, the brand new Paper Mario game! I'm very excited for this one: it'll be my first Paper Mario game, and I'm really looking forward to see what Nintendo is going to do with this series on the Switch. I'm also hyped for New Pokemon Snap! I've never played the original but I've heard from everyone who has played it that it's a ton of fun. I can't wait to play it!

As usual, we have some fantastic sections for you this month! Please read on and enjoy our writers' hard work! ~FunkyK38

Section of the Month

Thank you to the tremendous amount of you who voted last month! Please keep it up! In first place we have with Drawn and Pressed taking a look at Zits. In second,, for his latest update on World of Plight with a spotlight on Pokémon Trainer! In third, 's What's on the Box? taking a gander at the box art of Super Mario All-Stars. Please keep up these great numbers!

What's on the Box?
Written by:

Hello readers, and welcome back to What's on the Box.

This month, with the weather making a notable change for the better – even though I write this after several days of well-needed rain – we're getting a bit sporty, as we look at one of Mario's many sporting spin-offs. Over the years, he's participated in kart racing, tennis, baseball, football, Olympic and Winter Olympics sports and at one point was supposed to do a volleyball inspired game. But for this section, we'll be looking at one of his golfing outings.

The Mario golf games have had a mixed history, as some of the early games used human characters instead of the Mario ones, and this one pretty much dispenses will all characters. The game was originally released on the NES, but has been playable on the Game Boy and Nintendo Switch, and it's the Game Boy version of the game that we'll be looking at today.

This version is notably better than its NES predecessor, mainly because you can actually tell that it's Mario on the boxart, and not an unnamed character, who some sources call Ossan. Unlike other Mario Golf games which feature either several characters or zany courses, this one only features Mario playing golf on a fairly standard course. Mario has recently struck his golf ball toward the flag, and thankfully for him it has cleared the sand bank, and looks to avoid the water hazard as well. I can't say it will land near the flag, perhaps in some rough, but I'd say it's a pretty good strike.

Whether he's aiming for a birdie, par or bogey we'll never know, but for some reason one of his golf clubs seems to have a sort of cotton ball on it. I'll admit that I'm no golfing expert, but surely you want to cover the whole of the club, and not just the end part. But like I said, I'm not a golfing expert, more a boxart one.

Although the boxart for Golf is relatively simple, it's still a pretty fun boxart. You can clearly see what you're getting into, and you have a brief introduction to some of the obstacles you'll encounter from sank banks to water hazards to even the trees. Let's just hope that no alligators come out and grab the ball if it lands too close to the banks.

World of Plight
Written by:

Bowser
‘‘(Special thanks to Anton for suggesting I interview Bowser next! I wouldn’t have been able to continue investigations without him!)’’

This entry is brought to you by Google Translate, translated from Koopa-nese!



GROWL. Snarl RAWR!

(Magolor’s note: This part was indecipherable, even stumping Google Translate.)

Grunt raa. Snarl ROAAAR Mario! Gwar Rar. Gwa ha ha!

Translation: (If people are going missing like this, I sure hope Mario is the next to go. Then maybe one of my alphabets to kidnap Peach would go smoothly. Gwa ha ha!)

Rawr Grar Roar! SNARL.

(But I swear, if some idiot like Green ‘Stache or that Antasma bat-thing tries to do the ballet to Junior, they’re going to have the entire Koopa Troop come down on their heads.)

Grunt.

(On the subject of kidnapping, I overheard Ganondorf telling K. Rool he was in the men’s locker room after a Tourney, when something hit him on the back of the head, and the next thing he tapir, he was being taken to the hospital.)

Rooaaar snarl RAR. Roaaar. Grawr rawr. Gwa ha ha!

(Seems like some Goomba-faced dolt tried to kidnap Ganon but wasn’t strong enough to take him. Apparently, some of his powers are gone too. He can’t even use his “Ganon Punch” or whatever it’s called. It should make fights against him a lot mushroom. Gwa ha ha!)

(Yeah, I think Google made some mistakes…)

Pit
Hey. This is Shy Guy. I was asked by Magolor04726 to copy down Pit’s story as he dictated it to me. Well, here.



Um, OK, the CRAZIEST thing happened today. I was walking towards the Replay Movie Theater when I saw Snake. Uh, well, I didn’t see him at first, all I saw was a box. Oh, um, I guess you should edit out every time I say “Um”, and stuff like that.

Anyway, as I walked past he whispered out of the box, “Hey, kid!” and I stopped, because, well, talking box.

And I was like, “Yes Mister Box?”

Then he peeked out and said, “Get in,”

And I was like, “What? Get in where?”

“The box, get in!”

“Wha-” Then I heard voices coming down the hall. The next thing I knew, Snake shoved me under another box and I just sat there. And I was like, “…so, do you live in these things or something?”

“Shhh!”

“I mean, what are you, homeless?”

“Shhh!!”

“Seriously though, I can see the appeal, it’s surprisingly big, and-”

“Kid, if you don’t shut your pie hole right now, I’m going to-” but I didn’t find out what he was going to do, because he stopped, and whoever it was came around the corner, and I saw two guys with cloaks over their heads through a slit in the box coming around the corner, and one said, “…so he definitely has it?”

And the other said something weird like, “The boss has havings of it, but he had fury when you had the knockings out of the other.”

“I told you, he was heavy. I think he weighs more than Wario.”

“Yeah, well don’t bungle it again, because-” and then they turned a corner and were gone. Snake and I got out of our boxes and I was like,

“Wait, were you waiting for them?” But then I turned around and he was gone. Crazy, right?

(Magolor’s note: The Shy Guy who copied this down copied it down word for word, hence all the “like’s” and “Ums.” I would’ve edited those out, but, you know - Deadlines.)

Happy summer, everyone! Finally, time to kick back, sip lemonade by the pool, and enjoy days of freedom! … unless you’re homeschooled and have a little more work to do. (E. g., me.) If you have any ideas for who I should interview next, or if you just want to chat, contact me on the Mario Boards.

Making waves, Magolor04726,
 * 1) Homeschool4Life!

Drawn and Pressed
Written by:



As of now, we have not covered any Canadian comic strips, so this will be the first one I will cover. Although America has taken a large mindshare in terms of comic strips, thanks in part to classics like Popeye, Peanuts and Garfield, Canada isn't too shabby in this department. One of the most popular comic strips from Canada is For Better or For Worse, but I am in no position to talk about it since I didn't grow up with it. Instead, what I have briefly read when I was younger was Herman, which employs a single panel format with multi-panel Sundays.



I was inspired to give Herman another look because of another comic fan who highly regarded this comic strip. This comic fan contributed to a user-submitted webcomic series called Square Root of Minus Garfield, and he had a link to his blog where he provided a great deal of insightful and fascinating posts. Given that he's an Aspergian much like myself, I felt a bit more affinity to his material. One of the things he did mention is this comic strip, and remembering my brief look at the comic in the past, I decided to take a look at the comic, and am impressed by its humour. Unlike him though, I didn't quite find the material from newer artists to be inferior, just different.

One of the biggest things you might notice is that characters in Herman are drawn in a particular way, where they are usually drawn as comically hideous, and women and children aren't safe from its style either. Indeed, Herman struck out because a lot of comic strips usually portray characters as cute or innocuous, so to have one where the characters are intentionally ugly in both appearance and personality is considered refreshing. It also helps that they are funny in an offbeat way: the panel may convey a funny image, but when complemented with a humorous accompanying text, that's where the magic happens. In one example, a man sampled some brew in the image with a stunned expression with his wife behind him. Along with the image, the caption implied that the brew is meant for the cat. Deadpan humour is indeed what this comic operates on, given how the characters spout one-liners that somehow felt natural at the situation in hand.

Given how unique this comic strip's humour was at that time, it made an impression on others. As such, it is natural that it inspired future cartoonists, including Lynn Johnston's For Better or For Worse and Gary Larson's The Far Side. Indeed, The Far Side shares a few things in common with Herman, such as the uniquely ugly characters and single panel style, except it's like this on Sundays also. That comic strip ended up far more popular and is very likely to be brought up in people's lists of favourite comic strips, which I guess is attributed to its more universal subjects since it dabbled on science and pop culture, which Herman didn't touch on with frequency. Herman's subjects are more in tune with a more middle-aged age group, since it has topics like golfing and mother-in-laws, which I imagine isn't apparent in its blatantly absurdity.



Previously, I mentioned that Herman returned to syndication, which happened back on 2nd June 1997. The initial comic strip started back in 1975 until 1992, and after a brief stint in retirement, the author continued in 1997 with mostly old material and a few new material thrown in, along with some old strips getting an update in the image or text to account for the changing eras or general changing of the gags. Amusingly, the author was worried about running out of material on the first month of this comic's run, but the humour of the comic did not seem to wane off when it was nearing the end. Perhaps the use of yesteryear's technology and updated lines of humour didn't have the same spark of humour as back then, but I think it's nice that this comic kept running because if a comic stopped running before the age of internet takes off, getting a collection of comics is going to be troublesome unless it's superbly popular like Peanuts. At one point of time, an illustrator by the name of Roly Wood had a brief run drawing a few new Herman comic strips, especially the Sunday ones. His illustrative style in replicating the unique ugliness of Herman's characters was praised by Unger, which I imagine made that artist's day. Together with writer David Waisglass, who contributed to comic strip Farcus, a few modern Herman strips were made. Despite this, they put Jim Unger's signature as a token of respect.

Although Herman originated from Canada, Jim Unger was not born in Canada. Instead, he was from London, England, and only moved to Canada at the suggestion of one of his sisters. Interestingly, the account of Unger's history suggested that he didn't get into cartooning until he moved to Canada, and while there, it is after he had a brief stint as a construction worker. I do not know if Jim Unger had artistic skills before, but I imagine that he used his inability to make properly drawn characters to his advantage when he started. For his prized comic strip, Jim Unger's younger brother Bob to be a major contributor for his comic strip, given how he helped out with the gags. He basically worked on the comic strip for years but he found the working experience to be a very demanding one, which was the reason for his retirement before he was encouraged to continue the comic strip, though with reruns instead of being a full-blown revival. In May 2012, Jim Unger passed away in his sleep, although his comic strip is still running as reruns even after his death.

If a comic strip is under reruns even if the main creative force is not around any longer, that is usually a mark of a timeless work since there is usually little point in rerunning a comic strip after all is said and done. The fact that I get to check out this comic strip even after it's past its prime is something I will be grateful for, since there are quite a number of comics that are probably unavailable in the foreseeable future such as Brenda Starr. In Herman's case, I found humour in a pretty old work and can find some of its influences in later comic strips, and in fact, I actually found The Far Side enjoyable after I took into the genius of Herman and the simpler-to-digest Argyle Sweater. Its themes might not appeal to everyone, but I personally think Herman is a comic strip that I can definitely say is underrated.

Herman can be read at: https://www.gocomics.com/herman/

Thank you for reading.