Mario's Picross (comic)

Mario's Picross is the name of an 8-page comic in two parts, published in the 4/1995 and 5/1995 issues of the German Club Nintendo magazine. After "Donkey Kong Country", it is the second comic in the magazine to be directly based on an actual game, in this case Mario's Picross.

Part One (4/1995)
Mario is traveling to Egypt, planning an adventure holiday. Obviously not having learned from his experiences in "Super Mario: Erholung? Nein, danke!", he has booked the flight with KoopAir again. He is already able to see pyramids from inside the plane, when Bowser the steward is coming toward him, pushing him out of the plane. Mario is able to grab onto a rock spur not far from the ground. The spur, however, turns out to be the nose of the Sphinx, and breaks off. After falling down, Mario changes his clothes to an archaeologist-like outfit. Suddenly he notices some Egyptians with rapiers running towards him, complaining about Mario's "mutilation" of the Sphinx. Trying to flee, he jumps onto a nearby Dromedary. However, it runs away with high speed, which causes Mario to get caught and arrested by the Egyptians. They put him into a pyramid.

Mario tries to find the way out of the maze-like building. However, he comes to a dead end. With his Hammer, he smashes the wall and finds a sarcophagus behind. Out comes a mummy, looking for an archaeologist to eat. Mario, however, has wrapped himself in toilet paper, making the mummy take him for a fellow and go away. When going further, Mario comes across three buttons on a wall (showing a Game Boy, an SNES controller, and a SNES Mouse). Thinking that it is his task to push the buttons in the correct order, he presses them all. Instead of opening a door for him, however, the mechanism makes Mario fall into a pit.

Part Two (5/1995)


When landing, Mario finds himself inside a dark room. A light beam, however, leads him into a treasure chamber. On top of all the jewels, there is a treasure chest. Mario opens it and finds something "incredible" inside - the reader does not find out what it is. When he picks up the chest, however, a door opens and releases a Chomp Rock, which now rolls right towards him. Trying to escape from the rock, Mario runs along some rails outside of the treasure chamber. He comes across a lorry and jumps onto the cart. To his delight, the wagon reaches an enormous speed, allowing him to escape from the Chomp Rock. However, the rails suddenly end at the wall of the pyramid, so Mario crashes through the wall and gets catapulted outside, landing headfirst in the desert sand. Moreover, when pulling his head out of the sand, there is the same Dromedary again which he had ridden earlier in the comic. The Dromedary, which does not seem to be amused about Mario's ride, kicks him away into the sky.

The animal's kick was so strong that Mario, when landing, finds himself in the midst of a desert. He searches for some people for hours, unavailingly, and he claims to be "terribly thirsty". Finally, he comes across a man introducing himself as Ali Mustafa. He sells ties and offers one to Mario. However, he is annoyed and shoos Mustafa away. An unknown time later, Mario finally spots an oasis in form of a cocktail bar. The bartender, however, won't let Mario inside due to the condition to wear a tie in the bar. Mario shouts at him, begging for a drink. The bartender gets annoyed and kicks Mario away. In the end, Mario wakes up and finds out that it was only a dream. He hurries to the fridge (jumping right on Luigi's bed, who slept next to him) and gets a glass of cold soda pop. Luigi just looks at his brother, confused.

The narrator of the comic leaves it open whether it may have not been only a dream; and in fact, the same treasure chest that Mario tried to take out of the pyramid, can be seen in his house.

Trivia

 * Mario broke the fourth wall twice by speaking about the comic.
 * The large Chomp Rock that chases Mario through the pyramid is a parody of Raiders of the Lost Ark, specifically the famous boulder scene in which Indiana Jones is chased by a giant boulder.