Ever think to yourself while reading a comic, “boy, I wish I knew which 20-year old games were being opaquely referenced in this panel”? Sure, we all have! While Badnix is on break, I thought I’d share some notes on bits from past storylines that you might have overlooked. Next up is Dinosaur Planet!

• ‘Dinosaur Planet’ was the original name of the historically terrible Gamecube title Starfox Adventures.
• Dinosaur Planet is a pretty on-the-nose tribute to Super Mario World, the first game I ever played and still one of my all-time favorites. Apart from the game itself, though, I tried to include some nods to the amazing Super Mario Adventures manga adaptation – most notably this panel introducing Kevin’s dinosaur sidekick.

  

• The large carnosaur seen chasing the Badnix early in the story belongs to the same species as Dr. Mittens. Actually, I’m pretty sure it’s her mother, hunting food for her yet-unborn offspring.
• Dr. Mittens’ exclamation of “YOKOI” was an homage to Gunpei Yokoi (as discussed in a previous post).
• The Avago Tribe’s name was inspired by Mumbo Jumbo’s infamous “COME AND HAVE A GO” chant from the Banjo-Kazooie series. In one comic they’re even heard reciting a phonetic version of the chant!
• The Avagos themselves come from a lot of places – apart from being inspired by actual ritual masks, I tried to include some nods to Mumbo Jumbo and the cannibals from Monkey Island. Of course it’s kind of incorrect and unfair to lump “tribal” cultures together and reduce them to some kind of “primitive man” archetype, which is something I was trying to make a pointed comment about.
• A Dino World citizen actually shows up in Wood World in a single panel of a super-early comic from 2012! Probably visiting as part of an exchange program of some kind.
• The Avagos live in the same kind of stone houses seen on The Flinstones. I really wanted to include a gag where they used some kind of lighter powered by a tiny disgruntled pterodactyl to ignite a gruesome sacrificial pyre, but sadly that wound up being cut for space.

Ever think to yourself while reading a comic, “boy, I wish I knew which 20-year old games were being opaquely referenced in this panel”? Sure, we all have! While Badnix is on break, I thought I’d share some notes on bits from past storylines that you might have overlooked. First up is the most recent installment, Chain of Memories.

• Tin Man was heavily based on EVE, an antique robot from the original Mother on the NES. Like Tin Man, EVE was found in a hidden underwater base, which she later escaped by shattering its windows.
• We only get a few glimpses of Don Gepetto, the original puppet master of the Bug Mob, but he seems to have been an actual living puppet. Apart from the obvious Pinocchio parallel, his design draws on Geno from Super Mario RPG.
• The Sub Pop was inspired (among other things) by the Marine Pop from Super Mario Land. The Sub Pop bursting apart instead of imploding into a grisly mess of steel is, of course, a case of me fudging physics for the sake of a fun cartoon visual, but if it helps you can pretend the Sub Pop had some type of “safeguard” in place that detected the unsafe pressure and sprung apart on its own. (Why that feature was included is anyone’s guess.)
• On a similar note, Arika’s concern about “getting the bends” is actually unfounded – the bends is caused by decompression during a diver’s ascent. She didn’t ascend! She just teleported to a different dimension using a magical instrument. Which I’m assuming carries no health risks.
• The underwater Bug Mob hideout visited by Perry and Arika is pretty much a dead ringer for the robot fish mini-boss in Bubble Man’s stage from Megaman 2.
• Many of the trees in Food World are actually made out of a fork standing in front of a plate.
• Marigold’s design borrows some elements from the assistants in the Monster Rancher games. I originally intended to have some scenes of her wrangling large, monstrous produce, but that wound up being cut for space. Her outfit also vaguely echoes Perry’s: the red & blue color scheme, high collar, oversized boots, etc.
• Perry’s Star Wars fandom has been a facet of his character almost since the beginning of the comic. If you look closely, you can see a Star Wars VHS tape and a Papa Plastik CD in one of the boxes Perry sifts through at Marigold’s house.