Those publicity whores at PETA caused a ruckus earlier this week when they alleged Mario's Tanooki suit was something actually flayed from the body of an actual tanuki, or something like that. We have no idea if this man is in any way responsible, but since he is appearing on television, he looks guilty to me. I smell a 'Shop Contest!
That image is actually from the Times Square Super Mario 3D Land event on Sunday. While you may find other exploitables in the brief gallery we ran on Tuesday, it looks as good as any as a main image, particularly because he's being just so damn casual about this fur controversy. (Probably because, at the time this picture was taken, it has yet to actually happen. Whatever.)
Source Image: Tanooki Mario Interviewed in Times Square, Nov. 13. Image by Rob Boudon, used under Creative Commons 3.0 license.
You know the rules: The 20 best will get rounded up and published at the end of next Saturday. Meantime, I and the rest of the starred commentariat will approve and promote as many as we can so folks can see them and pass judgment.
This is your no-frills step-by-step procedure to participation in the Kotaku 'Shop Contest.
1. Create your 'Shop.
2. Upload it to a free image hosting service. I suggest imgur. It's stupid simple. No account is necessary.
3. This is very important: You must use the URL of the image itself. In imgur, this is the second URL it gives you after you upload the image. It's under "Direct Link (email & IM)"
4. At the beginning of the comments roll, click "Start a New Thread"
5. To the right of your name, select "Image."
6. Paste the imgur URL in the image URL field. It's the field that says "Image URL."
7. You can add editorial commentary if you want, but then just hit submit and your image will load. If it doesn't, paste the image URL as a comment.
8. This is important: Keep your image size under 1 MB. It will not upload to comments if it is over that size. What's more, we're getting reports that if your 'Shop is more than 1000px tall (vertical), it won't upload. If you're getting the broken-image icon, try resizing to a smaller dimension.
All set? Great. Get 'Shopping, Black Friday's almost here.
You can contact Owen Good, the author of this post, at owen@kotaku.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.