Skip & Cal

In searching for the second Skip & Cal strip (which I haven’t managed to locate yet; my file-managing habits weren’t quite so developed as a freshman) I came across this strip which I actually submitted to be printed in place of a Skip & Cal strip. The Courier rejected it, though–for copyright reasons, which I guess I can’t blame them for.

A few years later I decided to color the thing in and improve the dialog. That's the version you see here.

This comic incorporates the idea (which is not confined to the world of video games) that sidekicks like Luigi and Tails are consistently abused by their “main” characters. This strip came out around the time when hype for Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the third game in Nintendo’s big crossover series and the first to include non-Nintendo characters like Sonic, was rapidly building. (Interestingly, it wasn’t actually the first game where former rivals Mario and Sonic appeared together; that title goes to Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games. I actually sketched a comic about that once. Maybe I should dig it up…)

Nerdy Details!: Looks like in addition to using their fridge to store power-ups (though I doubt the Ice Flower needs it), the Mario brothers import their milk from another popular video game world.