The Nintendo Age Forums bring us the sad news that artist Greg Martin, responsible for some of the most iconic box art in video game history, has passed away.
A former animator at Hanna-Barbera, where he worked on series like The Jetsons and The Flintstones, he also contributed to later animated series like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Thundercats.
But it’s his work on video games that’ll be most fondly remembered around these parts. Working in the days before PhotoShop, Martin’s cover art pieces were done by hand, airbrushing giant 24-30-inch paintings that usually took a week to put together.
Some of the covers he was responsible for include the early Sonic games, as well as a range of other classics from Hudson, Capcom and Namco.
RIP Greg Martin – Seminal box artist of flintstones 2 and dozens more [Nintendo Age, thanks @frankcifaldi]
Comments
11 responses to “RIP Greg Martin, A Guy Who Drew Awesome Box Art”
I literally love every picture in this article…. feels are at a maximum 🙁
some great box art right there.
Haha, that Bomberman art.
Damn. I was thinking the other day as I bought Sonic 2 on my phone and changed to the European boxart about how much I loved that artwork when I was growing up and the memories associated with it. RIP
So many awesome memories from all this awesome box art.
Oh man, I owned some of these games on megadrive, they are a part of my childhood. I even used to copy that sonic drawing for my own art book. 🙁
Out of everything I copied, Sonic 2 I copied the most. I studied that cover.
And unlike many of his contemporaries in the field, the artwork actually reflects the assets from the game itself (protagonists, enemies, environment etc). That suggests to me that he was a gamer too.
Just noticed that it appears sonic lost a finger between sonic 1 and 2, but grew it back by sonic 3
RIP buddy.
I think I spent more time as a kid ogling the box art for SNES games in department store catologues than I did actually playing my SNES.