Webcomic / Mario Adventures

Playtime's over.^note Clockwise from top: Bowser, Bowser Jr., Luigi, Yoshi, Petey Piranha, Mario. Not pictured: Common Sense.

"Comics detailing the stories of a bunch of colorful lunatic plumbers running around hitting their heads on everything."

— The series gallery description

Mario Adventures is a Super Mario Bros.-oriented Fan Webcomic authored by Brandt "Mariobro64" White and hosted on DeviantArt, characterized by its word salad dialogue, abstract, cartoonish artwork, and noticeable lack of mental stability.

The comic centers around Mario, Luigi, and later Petey Piranha living together in the same house. Mario is a complete loon. Luigi, being probably the only logical person for miles around, reluctantly puts up with Mario's insane antics. Petey just doesn't really seem to give a crap about anything if he's not allowed to eat it. They also occasionally hang out with Yoshi. On top of this, Bowser and Bowser Jr. live a little ways down the street and continually think up various ways to annoy the Mario Brothers, if only for the fun of it.

The series puts a rather creative twist on the mario universe by arranging it into a premise that treats itself just like a modern-day western animated series - each comic is even referred to as an "episode", and most of the later ones even have title cards. It also uses this as a means to lampoon or put its own twist on plots often used in western animation, such as an Election Day episode, a Christmas special narrated in rhyme, and an episode dealing with dreams. Although, most of the comic is made up of plotlines that are often subversive, or just plain off-the-wall. Of course, this means that the comic only occasionally touches upon subjects referring to the actual games upon which it is based, however this tends to add to the creativity of it.

The comic started out as a story told in traditional panel form with pixellated artwork presumably created in MS Paint, however starting from episode 30 the series took on a radically different format - the reader sees the comic panel-by-panel, and uses buttons to navigate through it. The art style also underwent a makeover, losing its MS Paint-reminiscent quality and becoming at times more consistent. As of now, though (at least, according to the author), both styles have blended - The sleek vector art style is kept, but episodes are uploaded page-by-page in the original panel form every Monday, Tuesday and Friday, and once a full episode has been completed it is transferred into interactive panel-by-panel form. As of "Playtime Is Over", the comic has moved to a daily scheduale. The comic concluded on Nevember 16 2016.

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This webcomic provides examples of:

• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: The plot of "Desperation", where Bowser and Bowser Jr. try to invade Mario's house to beat him up. Needless to say, they fail epically.
• And Knowing Is Half the Battle: Parodied. A "The More You Know" card (complete with rainbow) appears after Mario learns the important lesson of not building a treehouse... in the hallway.
• Animated Actors: The ending of "Playtime Is Over" revealed the entire story arc (or possibly the entire comic) was a movie Mario & his friends were shooting.
• April Fools' Day:
  • 2010: "The End Of Mario Adventures", in which Bowser takes over the comic and tries to end it.
  • 2011: "APRIL FOOLS". Most of the comic is centered around Mario!Kirby, Luigi!Kirby and Bowser!Kirby. Then Mario comes in and throws them out. Notable for being the first appearance of the creepy Luigi face.
  • 2012: "Mario Adventures's Latest Internet Web Comic". Mario farts in Luigi's face and laughs. For a long time.
  • 2014: "The Stupid Horse Part 1". A copy of the first page of the comic in 8-Bit.
  • 2015: "The End Is Near". A Noodle Incident by Mario results in the the appearance of The Void and Luigi looks for a one-up mushroom to survive. He finds one, but... Also doubles as foreshadowing.
• Arc Words: "The End Is Near" for "Playtime Is Over"
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: "Okay... I know you are all dumb... I know you all suck... And I know some of you have a small fanbase..."
• Art Evolution: Slowly happened over time. Mario and Luigi practically looked the same (other than their clothing) when the comic started, but as time went on, Mario and Luigi gradually gained a more stylistic difference and the overall art style became more consistent. Eventually, the entire comic made a huge change upon jumping to Adobe Flash - it really began to look like an animated series and much more shading was applied as well.
• Beat Panel
• Big Eater: Petey without a doubt.
  "Yah, I eat large amounts of stuff."
• Bland-Name Product: The comic loves this trope. Some of the funnier ones are Pizza Tent and Taco Smell.
• Blatant Lies: Luigi's excuse after the first cutaway gag below.
  Luigi: "Um... I was reading... The... Bible..."
  • Also written on the entrance sign to Ghoulland is this little gem:
  "'You'll most certainly not die here maybe!' - Dead Guy"
• Brick Joke: In "Return to Cinder", Mario suggests to Luigi that they could stand a better chance against Bowser by mailing him a coconut. The ending reveals that Bowser accidentally mailed a coconut instead of a bomb to the Mario Bros.
• Bring My Brown Pants: Due to the comic's love for potty humor, this is bound to happen more than a couple times.
  "YAAAAY, I'M SO HAPPY I COULD PEE MY PANTS!"
  *Beat*
  "I AM so happy!"
  • Luigi upon arriving in Ghoulland:
  "I shoulda brought more underwear..."
• Broken Aesop: "Today kids, we learned that you should forgive your friends and family, no matter what. And only chase them over hell's half acre with a knife over something really important, or in my case, stupid. All in all, the moral is: A penny shaved is a penny earned... Good night kids!"
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Played with. Oftentimes, Luigi is the only source of any reason in this totally messed up world, and the world pays him back for it tenfold. Other times, Mario appears to be this, as more than a couple episodes focus on his jealousy of Luigi succeeding at something due to his logic.
  • In a similar vein, depending on the episode, either Bowser ("Your Marios Need To Be In Another Castle") or Bowser Jr. ("Trip The Scales") is the more abused one except in "Desperation" where they both are.
  • Toad is also most definitely this.
  Toad: "I'm okay!"
  Mario: "No one cares."
  Toad: "I know..."
• Call-Back: The paper clothing gag in Episode 7.
• Couch Gag: A creative variation. Placed in the banner at the beginning of each comic is some sort of picture and caption that usually has something to do with the premise of the episode, and at the end of the later comics, the author's middle name is a different phrase every time, usually something Self-Deprecating.
  • For the comic strips, Mario Bro 64 usually leaves a comment. On Tumblr, there are instead tags for sound effects or objects that show up in the comic.
• Cowardly Sidekick: Luigi is this, at times even more so than in the games.
• Cutaway Gag: Used quite a bit.
  • Mario asks Luigi why it took him 5 hours to rescue him from the toilet, and we see in one of these that Luigi was waiting for a Pizza to arrive.
  • Luigi tells Mario that you can look up the word "Idiot" in the dictionary and see Mario's picture. Cue Dictionary.
  • We also see in one of these that it isn't the first time Mario's been tricked by Luigi into thinking that one of his articles of clothing was actually a piece of paper labelled as such.
  • When Rosalina points out that not all of the world is gone yet, it cuts to rough approximations of the first and last panels of the 2015 April Fools Comic.
• Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: Due to the rather abstract way in which the dialogue is written, this comes up a lot.
  • "I SWEAR ON MY LARDY ASS, I WILL DESTROY YOU! AND MAKE YOUR EYES INTO GRAPE SALAD!"
• Deus Angst Machina: Played for Laughs in "Who Invited the Bad Guy?". Bowser and Bowser Jr. attempt to use a missile to kill the Marios. When they trigger it, it flies into space and takes their entire castle with it. Shortly after, the remote explodes, giving them severe burns. Then a sudden blizzard dumps an enormous mound of snow on them. When Bowser tries to assure Jr. that "at least they're together", he explodes.
• The Ditz: Mario.
  Yoshi: "Are you sure you wan' try this?"
  Mario (Sitting on a lawnmower): "It's just like riding a kart, YOSH'."
  Yoshi: "How you gun' turn?"
  Mario: "Easy, I'll just put my hands under it and use the sharp, fast whirling steering wheel down there!"
• Drama Bomb Finale: The final comic "Playtime is Over" has a larger emphasis on actual story and genuine stakes. One that brings up on how much Mario is a Destructive Savior but also a Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
• Dream Within a Dream: "I Dream of Weegie" plays around with this. In the end, however, we find out that the whole thing was entirely Kirby's dream.
• Evil Knockoff: The premise of "Mario vs Machine", where Mario fights a robotic version of himself called Metal Mario. The robot would later on gain a metallic color scheme similar to the official Metal Mario.
• Feud Episode: "The Stupid Horse" is this between Mario and Yoshi.
• Filler: The comic tends to do this frequently, where it's usually lampshaded and played for laughs.
• Fusion Dance: At the end of "Mario vs Machine", Bowser not only turns into Dry Bowser but is also fused with his Koopa Klown Kar and Metal Mario, turning his right arm into a "Koopa Klown Arm" complete with laser.
• Gross-Up Close-Up: Used a ton.
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Deconstructed in "Playtime is Over"; While Rosalina could recreate the universe again, she points out that Mario's behavior throughout the series is not very heroic (especially to Luigi, leading her to question if Mario truely deserves to get bailed out. Ultimately Reconstruction though, as Mario's resolve and desire to protect the world convinces her to help.
• Hold Your Hippogriffs: "Oh, thank Coin-God in Coin-Heaven!"
• How We Got Here: "Playtime Is Over" begins with Mario floating in a purple void. Rosalina then appears and shows Mario how he managed to cause The End of the World as We Know It.
• Lampshade Hanging: "Phew, I made it. I thought I would drown even though I shown no signs of it throughout this entire comic..."
  • Also, apparently people make fun of Mario for only having 4 fingers on each hand.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: During "Playtime Is Over", the comic's border changes depending on whether the scene is in space, in the flashback or as the universe is reset. The Tumblr page also changed to black and purple for the story arc and to a bright green-ish color after the universe is reborn before turning back to its usual color scheme.
• Negative Continuity: Played straight at first but averted starting from "3:06 AM" where consequences such as Bowser's Castle getting destroyed, Petey leaving Mario, and Bowser's Villainous Breakdown began to stick. "Playtime Is Over", in particular, feels like a Deconstruction as it shows what such escalations can cause.
• Noodle Incident: "Mario, did you forget how to digest again?"
• Orphaned Punchline: Bowser does this when talking to Kamek in one episode.
  "And that's why the brownie had corn in it..."
• One-Winged Angel: Bowser becomes Dry Bowser for the final storyline. Later exaggerated as, to power himself up, he stuffs the artifacts in Peach's Vault into his Klown Arm (namely a Grand Star, the Sticker Comet, the Star Rod, the Dark Star and a bottle Sprixie.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Taping some pots and pans on their bodies is enough for Luigi and Yoshi to convince Bowser that they are robots.
• Patchwork Map: Lampshaded in "Trip the Scales":
  Mario: "Ah, the wild wide open! A whole world of places with unique weather patterns and geographical anomalies! Weird how they're all so close together."
• Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure: Subverted at the start of Episode 5. The plot appears to be going in this direction, but suddenly goes in a completely different one once Petey arrives.
• Put on a Bus: Petey leaves Mario after accidentally causing Peach to send a manhunt after them at the end of "The Big Steel." He does make a surprise comeback in the finale, however.
• Russian Reversal: In "Desperation", Bowser and Bowser Jr. attempt to turn the tables on Mario and beat him up in his own "castle". Needless to say, though, they fail spectacularly.
• Self-Deprecation: Luigi tells Mario that you can look up idiot in the dictionary and see Mario's picture. Next to it you can also see a picture of the author.
  • In another episode, we see the author wearing a Nintendo Rehabilitation Clinic shirt laughing hysterically at Mario pooping himself.
• Shout-Out:
  • after trying on a bunch of hats, Mario screams "I DON'T WANT THESE KIRBY REJECTS! I JUST WANT MY OWN DAMN HAT BACK!"
  • Speaking of Kirby The 2011 April Fools comic stars Kirby versions of Mario, Luigi and Bowser.
  • Episode 8 is named "How the Koopa Screwed Up Christmas"
  • In "The Stupid Horse", Yoshi utterly shouts "SO HAPPY!"
    • "Get some more toilet paper", "In the Bathroom", and "D'oh I missed" are thrown around in Stupid Horse too.
• Swirlie: In a way. Luigi kicks Mario, causing him to fall forward and get his head stuck in the toilet.
• Take That!: this little exchange.
  Fawful: So, It's Mario... The guy who destroyed me those 2 years ago...
  Mario: Bowser? Luigi? Peach? My reputation? Peoples' like for Mario Party?
• Too Dumb to Live: Mario trades his soul for a cookie.
• Unusual Euphemism: Mario thinks that Peach is trying to get in his pants after she simply asks to borrow a cup of sugar.
• Villainous Breakdown: Towards the end of the comic, Bowser becomes more and more mentally unstable as Mario continuously ruins his life. Surprisingly enough he gets more competent as well.
• Who Writes This Crap?!: Luigi invokes this trope directly after Mario literally kills the phone.^note The phone's dead. Get it?
• Word-Salad Humor: A lot of the dialogue, while hilarious, is usually worded in a particularly eccentric fashion.

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By Brandt "It's about time someone made a tv tropes page for this friggin' comic" White

Mario and the gang by Nintendo

mariobro64.deviantart.com