As a brilliant piece of Mario fan work, artist OSKUNK designed this image of the Super Mushroom set on a black background, which upon closer viewing shows that it’s more than it first appears to be. When it comes down to it, Super Mario Bros. tends to be the series most synonymous with video gaming as a whole. Sure, there were earlier games like Pac-Man, Space Invaders, and Asteroids which are still adored today, and newer series like Halo and Call of Duty tend to sell like the hottest of hotcakes, but the Mario games continue to be amazingly popular. They’re also packed with memorable characters and graphics, whether you’re looking at the original NES game or Super Mario Galaxy 2. Among the most recognized images, other than the characters, would have to be the mushrooms, fire flower, and starman; these power-ups were what basically made Mario into “Super Mario”, giving the little plumber the ability to overwhelm his foes with different powers.
This typography art uses the Super Mushroom, the iconic power-up from Super Mario Bros. which still shows up in the newer games in the series. It’s pretty much the most common of all the power-ups, making Mario larger and typically giving him the ability to soak a hit from an enemy without dying, among other things. From afar, the image just looks like the mushroom, whereas a closeup will show that the red and white parts of the image are not just paint or a simple pattern, but text. Written in a graffiti-style handwriting, the words identify various characters, enemies, and items in the series ranging from “Piranha Plant” to “Mega Mushroom” to “Cheep Cheep”.
Anyone intimately familiar with most of the games in the franchise should be able to identify them all, making it an ingenious way to not only showcase one of the most familiar images in the series but to create it out of even more hallmarks of the games we know and love. If you’re interested in even more Mario fan art, don’t forget to check out this Super Mario Bros. 3 Pushpin Art or some Stop Motion Paper Mario.
