Issue #48: The Legacy of Super Mario Bros. – September/October 2020 (Patreon)

An anniversary is upon us!

. . . Well, OK, when it comes to Mario, some kind of anniversary is always upon us. His career has been so long and so varied at this point that you could find a new major milestone to celebrate for one or more of his classic adventures any time you wanted to, really, in any given year. But this year is a big one! This year is when Super Mario Bros., the original masterpiece that first spun "Super" Mario and his brother Luigi off into their own epic adventures, is turning 35.

The exact birthday we're looking at is September 13, because that's the date in 1985 when Super Mario Bros. first went on sale as a Famicom game in Japan. The NES hardware had not yet launched in the United States at that point, but it did just one month later on October 18, 1985, so that's the secondary date to celebrate. And since this is our September/October issue, it only made sense to dedicate this NF edition to praising that first-ever trip into the Mushroom Kingdom!

 ============================ 

Important Notes for This Issue!

1) Please understand that the timing for production and shipping for our physical issues takes a while, and occasionally that could make some information seem outdated by the time you're holding your personal copy in your hands. I mention this because there are TONS of rumors swirling around about Super Mario 3D World coming to the Switch, as well as remastered versions of other past 3D Mario games – but those games aren't 100% confirmed yet as we're entering print production this time. Nintendo could spring a Direct video on us tomorrow that finally confirms them, or they could not be announced for a long while still, or they could never be announced! Be cool whatever happens, OK? NF issues are always like time capsules preserving a picture of the Nintendo fandom as it currently exists on the date of publication. NF #48 is where Nintendo fans' minds were living as of August 18, 2020.

2) Related! You all are probably aware that the United States Postal Service is having a lot of problems currently, both due to the ongoing pandemic and the chaos of politics. Some deliveries of NF #47 ended up being a lot slower than normal because of that, and again, some deliveries of this new issue will likely also be slower. Please have patience! If I could hand-deliver every issue myself, I would, but we've got to deal with the hand we're dealt, and in this particular moment in human history, postal services are running slow. Your issue will get to you!

3) To counterbalance that slowdown a bit, I'm doing a couple of things. First, I pushed to get this issue finished a little earlier than normal, which should shave a few days off everyone's wait time. Second, I'm going to send the digital version of this issue to all of you, even if you're on a print-only tier – that way you'll have access to the content and you'll have the choice of whether you want to go ahead and read some or all of the issue before the print copy gets to you. I don't have a lot of options for dealing with circumstances beyond my control, but I can at least do those things to help out a bit.

============================

The print version of this issue is in production right now, and it will be mailed within a week. Most subscribers should get their copies in early-to-mid September, but again, please have patience if your copy takes longer to arrive.

The digital version is done, and I'll be sending out the download links for that to your email addresses tomorrow morning. Keep an eye out for that!

Thank you all for your continued support! The world may be insane right now, but NF is committed to keeping to our regular schedule and presenting new issues to you every two months, as we've done for nearly eight years in a row at this point! It wouldn't be possible without your patronage, so thanks for sticking with us. Hopefully some day in the not-too-distant future we'll see society as a whole recover from some of these struggles, USPS delivery will pick back up to its previous speed and we'll all be able to look back on this time with appreciation that we made it through together.

~ Lucas M. Thomas