Director's Notes
Welcome back to Palette Swap! I'm very thankful you decided to tune in this month.
I've gotten my hands on the Crown Tundra DLC, and it's been a fun ride so far! I like the environment, the new characters are fun, and I like that they continued the partner Pokemon following behind you. Always appreciated. They threw in a story bit about the Swords of Justice, which a friend who knows me was quick to point out, and I had to laugh as Sonia introduced the quest to me while I had my Cobalion in my party. Seems poetic. Shame that you can't get a shiny Keldeo, though, but it's a mythical Pokemon that I can nickname now, so I can't complain too much. I'll be working my way through it, and I'm looking forward to Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity as well.
This month, we have our art sections for you. Next month will be our special issue, so I really hope y'all come back to read it and help us celebrate 165 issues! It's been a long road!
~FunkyK38
Section of the Month
Magolor04726 (talk) takes the top spot yet again with a new Halloween chapter of World of Plight, starring Captain Falcon! Coming after is Lakituthequick (talk)'s debut section of Site Seeing, where he walked readers through the 35th anniversary Super Mario website. Next up, we have What's on the Box?, where Yoshi876 (talk) talked about the boxart of Luigi's Mansion 3. Finally, we have winstein (talk)'s Drawn and Pressed, featuring Lio. Thanks so much for voting, everyone, and please keep it up for this month, too!
| Palette Swap SECTION OF THE MONTH | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Place | Section | Votes | % | Writer |
| 1st | World of Plight | 12 | 40.00% | Magolor04726 |
| 2nd | Site Seeing | 9 | 30.00% | Lakituthequick |
| 3rd | What's on the Box? | 5 | 16.67% | Yoshi876 |
| 4th | Drawn and Pressed | 4 | 13.33% | winstein |
What's on the Box?
Hello readers, and welcome back to What's on the Box.
And this is a section from a brand-new Yoshi876 (okay, not really, but let's roll with it for theming purposes), as over the past few months, I have been on some form of 'get fitter' drive. And while I may not have seen amazing results, I can certainly say that I'm feeling fitter than ever before! And although restrictions mean that I'm unable to do a lot of physical sport, I can still sit down on my 3DS and have characters do it for me. I'm sure it transfers somewhere.
I'll happily admit to not being the most sporting person in the world, you're never going to find me on a football field or rugby pitch somewhere, and that also translates into my gaming habits, as I suck as those games as well. However, you might find me somewhere on a tennis court, and two paragraphs into this section, this is where the theme pays off, as we're looking at Mario Tennis Open.
In my younger days, me and the Mario tennis games out on really well, particularly with the Wii and 3DS titles, although that is waning as I never picked up Ultra Smash and Aces might flat-out be one of the worst games I've played. But again, I'm getting off track, as we should be looking at the game's boxart.
Mario Tennis Open is a pretty standard fare boxart, it has a massive crowd made up of Shy Guys, Koopa Troopas and Toads while some other Toads act as umpires. And on the main court, Mario has just hit one hell of a ball, given the indent it still has on his racket. It looks like Bowser might be able to whack it back, although I imagine in true Mario Tennis style he'll be sent rocketing back with some skid-marks left on the grassy court.
Princess Peach looks thrilled with Mario's shot, but poor Yoshi looks absolutely terrified, I doubt it's because he missed his swing as his racket is still by his side, but perhaps he's worried that the angle Bowser hits that ball at will throw it straight into his face. I can't imagine a ball travelling at that speed is a particularly pleasant thing to have hit you in the face. Or perhaps he's worried because his doubles partner has switched out on him. I love Bowser as much as the next guy, but I can't imagine Yoshi and him teaming up in doubles, unless Yoshi has been babysitting Bowser Jr. on a regular basis, given how well he is with children. You'd think Luigi or Princess Daisy would've been a more expected pairing, maybe Boo at a push.
But this is a fun boxart, it might be a bit weird to see Yoshi and Bowser on a team, but hey, at least Yoshi managed to get on the boxart of a Mario spin-off. And it looks like it might even be a thrilling game of tennis, given the scoreboard right at the back shows Mario and Princess peach leading on 30-15, I wonder if it's 40-15 after this strike, or whether the King of Koopas can return this shot.
World of Plight
Written by: Magolor04726 (talk)
Mr. Game & Watch
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Magolor04726
Good grief! I thought as I walked down various corridors. Dedede, Isabelle, and Luigi have gone missing! Sakurai’s practically tearing his hair out! I wonder if we’ll ever be able to find them… I continued walking until I came to the Main Menu Mess Hall. Well, at least I have a lead now. I thought as I walked towards the lunch line. I should go check the- I stopped.
Something’s up… It was quiet. Too quiet. The mess hall is normally a chaotic jumble of noise, but today, it was dead silent. I looked around. Everyone seemed to be staring in my direction. Please don’t let my fly be open…
“Is there something on my face?” I asked.
"MAGOLOR.” Roy was sitting nearby and talking through his teeth. “Stay where you are, and turn around slowly.”
I blinked. “…Why?”
Just turn around. A voice echoed in my head. It sounded like Palutena. I looked around and saw her staring at me. Then she nodded behind me. Slowly, I turned around, barely breathing. And there, through the doors of the cafeteria, stood… something. I couldn’t make out who it was. I don’t think ‘’anyone’’ could. Whoever it was had a huge blue trench coat that was way too big for their small body. They had small brown boots that were barely visible under the hem of the cloak, and wore a tall black top hat with a yellow band running around the base. The only thing that was visible was its face - a floating black orb with two yellow oval eyes. Altogether, this gave the person a very weird vibe, like someone who tried desperately to be bigger than they were, mixed with a very ominous feeling that bore deep into your gut, simmering in the pit of your stomach and occasionally throwing something sharp against the lining of your insides. The freakiest thing of all was that he just stood there. Staring at us. He eventually shuffled forward, standing in the door, still staring.
“Who is that?” I whispered to Villager, who was sitting next to Roy. He shrugged and pointed silently and swiftly at the person’s arms.
Whoever it was lifted their arms, allowing the sleeves to fall back slightly, revealing two white gloves on each hand. They tugged on the edge of both, scrunched their fingers together, and then put their pointer fingers out and began to draw something in the air. We watched, dumbfounded, as our intruder traced something big and round, then wrote something underneath it. When they were done, they stepped back, inspecting their work.
“I’m not the only one not seeing this, right?” Wario asked.
“Something’s up…” Fox murmured, slowly reaching for his blaster.
Then, satisfied with their work, the person at the door put their hands in the air, the sleeves covering their gloves again. Then they spun their arms in several erratic patterns, held them up again, then pushed forward through where the drawing would have been.
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Then, astonishingly, a tiny blue spark appeared, and it slowly started to trace its way up and around in a big circle. More sparks appeared, tracing the air where the person had done so. As I watched, a big round thing with a stick on the top and something protruding from the back and bottom appeared in the air. Suddenly, it moved forwards, between tables, until it was at the center of the room. Then I noticed what had been traced underneath.
K…
a…
b…
o…
o…
“EVERYBODY DOWN!” Snake yelled across the room.
In a flash of sparks, and a glare of light, the drawing – which turned out to be a massive Bob-omb – exploded in a spectacular fashion in the room’s center, sending food, chairs, and a couple people flying.
The room quickly filled with smoke, and alarms started blaring around the campus. As everyone attempted to clear the smoke or find the intruder, someone yelled from the center of the room.
“AHH! It’s got me! Something’s got me! HELP!” It sounded like-
“Lucas!” a voice called. “Where are you?!”
“Can someone clear this smoke?” I heard another say, as a round of coughing answered.
The smoke began to drift out the doors, but the alarms were still going off. I waved at the air around me, and then I noticed that our attacker was still standing at the entry, apparently chuckling.
“GUYS!” I yelled. “He’s still at the front of the room!”
Something flew past my head and I ducked, narrowly avoiding being hit in the head with a beam from R.O.B. The beam seemed to clear the nearby air, but when it reached the intruder, they simply took off their hat and pointed the opening at the beam. The beam shot through the barrel of the hat and vanished. I watched in bewilderment as they pointed the hat elsewhere into the room and shook it. Nothing happened. Apparently frustrated, they looked into the hat and poked their head inside. Wario took this chance to advance. He pulled his motorcycle out of nowhere and sped towards our attacker, about to ram them, when suddenly, they pulled their head out of the hat and the beam came barreling out, plowing through Wario and launching him to the opposite wall.
“All right, that’s it!” Shulk yelled. He rushed forward at the intruder, followed by several others.
The person in the trench coat simply watched as they rushed towards them, ready to attack. Shulk leaped into the air and swung his sword, about to slice the person in the top hat to ribbons, when-
Gone. He had just… vanished. Disappeared instantaneously.
“Ha! Now it’s Shulk time!” Shulk yelled in triumph.
Then I saw a shadow pass over my head, and I looked up.
“Uh-oh.” I stepped back to get a better look, but as I did, I tripped over the lunch line counter and fell into the kitchen and into a large pot. “Uwah!- OOF!”
“Magolor?” A voice nearby asked. “Where did you-”
“He’s still here!” Someone shouted. “In the air!”
As I struggled to get my head out of the pot, I could hear shouting coming from all over. When I managed to right myself and pull the pot off, I watched as the battle before me unfolded in a hectic frenzy of lights, color, and magic.
TO BE CONTINUED!
Cliffhangers are the worst, am I right? Hey, at least I’m giving you guys something to look forward to! Right?
…no? All right then.
In other news, I’ve officially started my YouTube channel called Creationary Studios, you guys should definitely check that out.
If you have any leads for me or suggestions on who I should interview next, simply contact me on the Mario Boards.
Behind the counter,
Magolor04726,
Chef Supreme.
Drawn and Pressed
For a change of pace, this comic strip will not be based in the US or Canada. Instead, this comic strip is of British origin. Although newspaper comics flourish the most in the the US, and to a lesser extent Canada, with internationally-known comics like Popeye, Peanuts and Garfield, other countries have been able to develop professionals for the art of comic strips. A few comic strips of British origin include Andy Capp and Pros & Cons, but what we are talking about today is a comic strip about a pair of characters: Ollie and Quentin.
Ollie is the seagull with a navy captain's cap and Quentin is the lugworm. They could be classified as an odd couple because the respective animals in real life are of a predator-prey nature. Odd pairings for characters are not new, such as Banjo-Kazooie, and in fact can be a source of humour itself (by the way: a lugworm is an actual animal, unlike the fictional breegull). Ollie is more or less the straight "man" of the duo where he is more grounded (relatively speaking) while Quentin is the funny "man" and the one with a bigger room for surprises. For one, Quentin's small size and flexible body gives way to some amusing hijinks, as with his possession of various gadgets and fancy things. Even then, Ollie can sometimes be the sillier character so the roles are not rigid. To round up the cast, there's Nobby, who is the human character to whom the duo lives with and serves as the foil and witness to whatever the duo is doing, so essentially he's similar to Jon (Garfield) in a few ways, except he's hardly the focus.
This comic strip was initially created for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, which would in part explain why Ollie has a navy captain's cap. Setting his sights at greater heights, the author decided on a longer-term cartooning by being accepted by a syndicate, which he planned to do after he felt that his work was good enough, and so he submitted his work to local and smaller newspapers, similar to how Garfield got his start. The process took quite a while because he only felt that way after creating about 150 cartoons, which is three years worth of work due to it being weekly. The decision to submit his work to a US-based syndicate (King Features Syndicate) is due to how there is no equivalent in the UK, so it was a natural choice to look across the ocean where the industry is bigger. The author's first and only submission was accepted by the syndicate eventually, as they saw potential in the comic's duo[1].
This comic strip had a relatively short run, in which it started at 2008 and ended at 2011, which would translate to about four years of material. The comic strip is first available at Comics Kingdom, which is notorious for taking down comic strips that ended their run not long after it ended. The reason for its short run is due to a lack of newspapers that picked up this comic strip, which is essentially the lifeblood of a comic strip and is required if a comic strip were to be financially practical to have more material produced. As such, it ended at a young age, but the cartoonist did feel grateful that he was afforded the opportunity to work on a comic strip while it lasted, given how difficult it is to get into the business, and how being free from the obligations of daily cartooning was a huge burden lifted[2]. Thankfully its short run meant that when it was rerun on GoComics, it didn't take long for the whole archive to be available.
It's a pretty unassuming comic strip given its short life, but being a comic strip from Britain gives it a different flavour from the US-based comic strips. Not to mention how much quality there is in its humour, with plenty of physical gags, break-the-fourth-wall gags and even some wordplay in play.
Ollie and Quentin's reruns can be read at https://www.gocomics.com/ollie-and-quentin
Thank you for reading.
References
| The 'Shroom: Issue 164 | |
|---|---|
| Staff sections | Staff Notes • The 'Shroom Spotlight • Awards Director Election |
| Features | Fake News • Fun Stuff • Palette Swap • Pipe Plaza • Critic Corner • Strategy Wing |