After posting that last little comic, I totally forgot about this other Mario picture a few years back. It was kind of an "assignment" me and my friends came up with over one summer. We have one friend from New Jersey that doesn't say, "Mah-ree-oh," but instead says "Mare-ee-oh." We tease him all the time about it, and to top it off, it's one of his favorite characters in Super Smash Bros. Melee. So anyway, we each had to draw our own version of Mario over the summer. It was a disaster. I think only three of us actually did something. Of all things, I actually tried to make a more serious/dramatic picture for once, instead of the regular goofy humor.

I'm kind of a Mario fan, more for the old school nostalgia, but still, it's such a trippy idea: This chubby plumber imbued with superhuman strength somehow ends up in a crazy world filled with a battle between the kingdom of reptiles, and sentient mushroom people kingdom. Oh yeah, and he can shoot fireballs from his hands, man!

What mental state is necessary to have come up with this concept? Perhaps that is the mystery that keeps me up late at night....