Mar30
Courtney
Hey, the game that – for me, personally – inspired this comic more than anything else in making me want to tell a story about a misfit group of villains is turning 10, and I’ll be streaming it over the next month or so!
Oh, and by the way, there’s something very important about this page, if you can figure it out.
Two main comments here.
First… nice SPM artwork! Though I don’t think I’ll ever be able to unsee Mimi’s true form after beating chapter 2-4 this week…
Second, is the important thing about this page that The Second called Ecta Edna (implying from her look of shock that Edna was her name while living)?
I can’t wait for the SPM streams!
And yeah, I’m also thinking Ecta definitely died when the curse first happened, and Edna was her original name. At least I think so? Since you said it happened after The Second was already born, if I remember right. And that ghosts typically change their names. I think. It’s late-
Glad to see more of The Handsome One!
Yeah, ghosts (and zombies!) often change their names as a means of symbolically leaving their old selves behind. And her name certainly wasn’t Ecta when she was alive
Well, from the cast page, we know she served the First, but we only know that she died, “untimely”, but after the curse.
The interesting thing seems to be she was still alive back in a time that the Second can remember. And yeah, that her name may be Edna.
She and the Second are about the same age! He was an adult when the curse happened.
Aww, poor Edna.
Who’s Edna? :V
Hmm… The Second seems somewhat forgetful–I note that he’s uncertain not only of Ecta’s vital status, but also of the rather more recent event of having been asked about the book. Does that come from the Second having been generally absent-minded in life, or old, or from something else again?
In addition: Might one say that when Ecta was alive, she was in… “Edna Mode”… ;P
That pun was INCREDIBLE.
It’s all part of a greater…. SYNDROME. ;P
He was of very sound and sharp mind growing up. The coming of the curse had deep psychological effects on him, and his singular obsession with breaking it later in life only broke his brain.
Aah, I see–that’s… rather sad to read. :/
Yeah, I think this is the only comic where we reference explicitly why he’s the way he is today: https://www.thefourthcomic.com/?comic=father-knows-best
I’d forgotten that, I think.
Omg. I feel so old now. I was in college when I got SPM. And that’s the THIRD ONE! (I think) Granted I’m pretty sure I didn’t get it as soon as it came out, but I didn’t think the franchise was that old already. Ugggghhhh…
I always preferred Super Mario RPG to the Paper Mario series, personally. At least in terms of the mechanics. Though, tbh, I only played the first game myself. I watched my then-gf play some of the other two though, but I didn’t get enough of the plot to know if the 3rd game did better than the first. I found myself very uninvested in any of the characters or plotlines of the first game. The mechanics were also overly-simplified, imo. Obviously, there are lots of people who really like the game and that’s great. I was just never able to share their enthusiasm. I keep meaning to go back and give the 2nd and 3rd games a try since I bought them and everything.
TTYD adds a bit of complexity to the battle system, mainly in how partners are handled (they have their own HP instead of simply becoming immobilized for at least one turn when hit). I like the gameplay in the first two but I was honestly never super attached to it, which is why I had no problems with SPM ditching it entirely. TTYD and SPM also get increasingly more creative with their characters and stories, straying further from familiar Mario territory. So I definitely think they’re worth checking out even if you weren’t a big fan of the first one.
The Fourth might not share my opinion, but I hope we get to see the Third again sometime soon.
… and of course I hope at some point we get to meet the First!
You will! And he did get a small part in Chapter Zero. It’s been much longer for gramps here.
As for the First, it’s not VERY soon but we recently did plan out and set the point in the story at which he’ll appear. Exciting…!
Oooo! Exciting indeed!
Come on, you can’t build a guy up as someone SO EVIL he pissed the gods off enough to get his entire family and all of the family FRIENDS and servants cursed for an indefinite time period and then not show him at least once, especially since he explicitly cannot rest in peace. Obvs they’re gonna introduce him at some point
Side note: Did members of the First’s friends/servants also get that shark face? Because I noticed Ecta has it kinda, but she wasn’t a blood relative, was she?
Edna, hmm…?
I feel like she and the Second were close, somehow. Very good friends, perhaps, back when they were flesh and blood?
…is the second panel supposed to have no speech bubbles in it? where’s everyone getting edna from?
OH MY GOSH I BROKE THE COMIC when I was making the larger version of it, I must have hid those layers somehow
Thanks for pointing that out, oh jeez, it’ll be fixed in a second!!
All better. Thank you for commenting about that so quickly!
It shames me that it took me so long to see it, but that someone else was looking for a book on contacting the gods in the Restricted Section seems mighty ominous.
Oh! He’s just talking about his grandson. We saw it happen. He just doesn’t quite remember… he’s read like three books since then.
this makes me feel worse for him… i would ask if skarva the fourth would help him but… i don’t know if there is, or if he really would… i give it a coin flip chance of happening. but if he hasn’t, which he has many reasons to gain from, he may simply be completely unable to….
i still wonder where the first is.
Nnnnnnnooooo…?