It's Valentine's Day - or at least it was when we published this - and, as our final acknowledgement of this most commercial of occasions, we thought we'd highlight some pretty humorous artwork that was published in recent days. It takes classic games and their characters and re-imagines them as covers on corny Romance novels; the effect is both brilliant and slightly horrifying.

These are the work of Shutterstock, which tasked illustrator Echo Chernik with adapting artwork and assets to produce mock-ups of these theoretic Romance novels - think Worlds of Power crossed with Mills & Boon. The franchises covered are The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros., Street Fighter, Pac-Man and Duck Hunt(?!), with some crazy results.

We doff our caps to the illustrator, as these are neat spins and interpretations of the franchises. If you're sensitive about lore and abhor the idea of game characters in love, however, don't look any further.

If you think the idea is fun, meanwhile, they're all below for your enjoyment.

Link Zeldaromance
Super Mario Romance
Street Fighter Romance
Pac Man Romance
Duck Hunt Romance

[source shutterstock.com]