Yokoi!

So I don’t think I’m going to blow too many minds here by mentioning that Super Mario World is a big influence on this storyline. For example, Monday’s strip draws on a similar bit (pictured above) from the Nintendo Power comic adaptation. Mario World was one of the first games I ever played, it’s still one of my favorites, and it’s been fun doing kind of a long-form homage – but, as is often the case with Badnix, other references tend to sneak their way in.

Thus, the new character ‘Yokoi’. If you’re not familiar, Gunpei Yokoi was one of the most important luminaries in the Golden Age of Nintendo. Starting out as a maintenance worker in one of Nintendo’s playing card factories (back in the early ’60’s, when playing cards were the only thing Nintendo did), he was “discovered” by the company’s president and was fashioned into a successful toy designer. He went on to follow the company’s trajectory over the next few decades into game development, inventing the Game & Watch series and the Game Boy, as well as developing immortal software like Metroid and Kid Icarus. He even mentored a fresh-faced Shigeru Miyamoto during the development of Donkey Kong. (And he created the Virtual Boy. Probably kinder not to bring that up.)

If you’re interested, there’s a documentary about Gunpei up on Youtube – truthfully I’ve only skimmed it, but it seems like it covers a lot of the good bits. Suffice it to say, he was a brilliant and fascinating guy and games owe a lot to him as a medium. So, I’m happy to have a lil’ nod to him tucked away in my game-themed comic strip.

Except, I guess I immediately renamed the character in question to “Doctor Mittens”. So. Um. None of this counts. BLOG POST INVALIDATED!