Mario and the Caterpillar from *Alice in Wonderland*

Since these two characters have a special connection to mushrooms and come from completely absurd, illogical worlds, I thought to myself: Why not introduce them to each other? At first, I wanted to add some other subtle characters in the background, but after painting Mario alongside this caterpillar, all I could think was, “Leave them alone!” I liked the idea of giving Mario a break. Taking him to a secret place with a laid-back, self-sufficient character who—unlike the figuratively spineless “Toads”— won’t spend most of his time nagging him to go rescue a princess who, for her part, spends most of her time waiting to be kidnapped by some stupid reptile! In most fantasy imagery, shadows and smoke are often used to create a mysterious atmosphere. In this case, the goal was more to illustrate the feeling of a cocoon, from inside which Mario can say to himself, “Peace at last!” Not to mention the number of anecdotes—as outlandish as they are colorful—that these two must be sharing between puffs of shisha and bites of mushrooms!