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RIP Greg Martin - Seminal box artist of flintstones 2 and dozens more new pics will be added in the coming days

Jan 4, 2014 at 6:40:39 PM
Tanooki (185)
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Bronty that one with MM+Sonic was the hand shake deal for Wily Wars if I remember right.

Also I'm very familiar with Windsor McKay and the Little Nemo line of stories in Slumber Land. I never knew of it at first, and while we had the game it was not mine but one of the few my brother bought in the day before he bailed for the lousy Genesis and I inherited it then. That game was nearly my favorite Capcom title outside of the Mega Man franchise back then as it was just so well done start to end, and I loved the cartoon style of the label. Only years later I learned of the source material and when I can find it online or whatever I like to read it, but I know there's a solid book of it out there (out of print now I think) that has everything printed in it as a hardback (not sure if soft cover was done) I've always wanted. It always surprised me the quality and detail that author put into it considering the era it popped out because this was the very early days of not just childrens color printed stories(comics) like that but also the early era of sci-fi too which I'm sure had an impact on it as well.

Jan 4, 2014 at 7:29:52 PM
Bronty (65)
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Well yes it's about 3 levels above most of the stuff that came out then - I think most people consider it the best strip of its era bar none. He also did little Sammy sneeze.

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WTB Cdn sealed black boxes, sealed Cdn first party titles.    I.e. the "mattel" Cdn boxes with both french and english.   Mainly black boxes, zelda, link, and tyson, but let me know what you have.    I am interested in anything I don't already have!


Jan 4, 2014 at 7:37:20 PM
rcorporon (34)
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Sonic 2 is one of my all time favourite box arts... sorry to hear about your friend.

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Jan 4, 2014 at 8:41:50 PM
buyatari2 (30)

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Originally posted by: Bronty

Originally posted by: wrk

Do you own any of his original art?



Adam and I own some of his drawings. They are the originals that were used to rough out the covers back in the day. I will post some later.

Here are some pencil Sonic sketches that Greg did for Sega. 
 
 
 
 
 
 


Jan 4, 2014 at 9:15:54 PM
vladictivo (112)
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Oh man, sad to read about him passing away, but we all should feel blessed for having the chance to appreciate some of the most epic video game cover art ever. My favorite cover is Felix the Cat by the way, I still have that poster from an old videogame magazine right next to me


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Edited: 01/04/2014 at 09:16 PM by vladictivo

Jan 4, 2014 at 9:18:11 PM
Bronty (65)
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Thanks Adam.

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WTB Cdn sealed black boxes, sealed Cdn first party titles.    I.e. the "mattel" Cdn boxes with both french and english.   Mainly black boxes, zelda, link, and tyson, but let me know what you have.    I am interested in anything I don't already have!


Jan 4, 2014 at 9:19:07 PM
Bronty (65)
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Nice choice. I love Felix as well. It's also a cool one because its another one like Nemo where he enjoyed the source material prior to getting the assignment. It's also another one where you can see an artistic tendency as the sunburst type effect in the background is similar to the pellet glow on the pacman covers

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WTB Cdn sealed black boxes, sealed Cdn first party titles.    I.e. the "mattel" Cdn boxes with both french and english.   Mainly black boxes, zelda, link, and tyson, but let me know what you have.    I am interested in anything I don't already have!



Edited: 01/04/2014 at 09:40 PM by Bronty

Jan 4, 2014 at 10:10:43 PM
ookii_risu (66)
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Originally posted by: Bronty

Originally posted by: ookii_risu

Thanks for sharing, Dan, and I'm very sorry for your loss.
The Little Nemo box art is one of my favorites. It's nice to know who was responsible for such amazing work. RIP, Greg.

Thank you.   I think he would have liked knowing that people appreciated Little Nemo because it was the first game box he did, and because as a collector himself he had a thorough understanding of and tremendous appreciation for the Winsor McKay source material, which is incredibly beautiful in its own right and IMO the best illustrated comic strip of the early 1900s.    I suspect he probably felt like a kid in a candy store getting paid to illustrate a Little Nemo product.    Its the sort of project that would have been very meaningful to him.

Winsor McKay, for the uninitiated:

That is really neat. I remember wondering why the bed was walking in the illustration but not in the game. I'll have to take a look at some more issues of the old comic.

Originally posted by: buyatari2

Here are some pencil Sonic sketches that Greg did for Sega. 

Wow, that's awesome. Thanks for sharing!


Jan 4, 2014 at 11:03:02 PM
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fsped09 (234)
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Amazing artwork, I didn't know they all came from one person, thanks for sharing his story with us Dan.

Jan 4, 2014 at 11:43:24 PM
maximus_clean (147)
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Originally posted by: Bronty

Curtis (Maximus clean) had a coworker whose son was really into sonic and I talked Greg into doing a little drawing for his 12th? Birthday. Greg delivered a beautiful little sketch for the boy and even had a big Canadian flag in the background hanging in the background to personalize it for him. I wonder if Curtis has a picture of it.

RIP Greg. Great pieces in his catalogue, some REALLY stand out as spectacular.

I probably have a picture of the sketch on my old phone, I'll see if I can find the damn thing.



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Jan 5, 2014 at 4:18:59 AM
Bronty (65)
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WTB Cdn sealed black boxes, sealed Cdn first party titles.    I.e. the "mattel" Cdn boxes with both french and english.   Mainly black boxes, zelda, link, and tyson, but let me know what you have.    I am interested in anything I don't already have!


Jan 5, 2014 at 4:50:48 AM
Bronty (65)
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I count 58 box covers so far, plus magazine covers, plus promo/ad pieces

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WTB Cdn sealed black boxes, sealed Cdn first party titles.    I.e. the "mattel" Cdn boxes with both french and english.   Mainly black boxes, zelda, link, and tyson, but let me know what you have.    I am interested in anything I don't already have!


Jan 5, 2014 at 7:42:42 AM
DarkTone (2)
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Looking at more of these. The man was very talented.

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Jan 5, 2014 at 9:43:50 AM
Psychopat (23)
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Great story you should turn it into a Wikipedia page so more come to know him!

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Jan 5, 2014 at 11:30:50 AM
Bronty (65)
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Interesting idea thx for the suggestion

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WTB Cdn sealed black boxes, sealed Cdn first party titles.    I.e. the "mattel" Cdn boxes with both french and english.   Mainly black boxes, zelda, link, and tyson, but let me know what you have.    I am interested in anything I don't already have!


Jan 5, 2014 at 1:19:33 PM
blarky (37)
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Had no idea about him, and that he did so many covers. Sad to see him go, but his art will always live on!

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Jan 5, 2014 at 5:16:13 PM
Krunch (146)
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The resemblance...the expression in both pairs of eyes...and on the edges of their bodies there's always a white space and then groups of lines that get progressively lighter or darker depending on light (except in Felix it looks like it's more filled in and not as obvious). Pretty cool. I'm having fun finding all these links betwwen the pictures haha


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Edited: 01/05/2014 at 05:20 PM by Krunch

Jan 5, 2014 at 6:30:21 PM
Trj22487 (25)
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I was actually going to insinuate Sonic is a ripoff of Felix yesterday after seeing all of these. They're the same exact base model. It never struck me until this thread that you always saw Sonic from the same angle as well.

Jan 5, 2014 at 7:54:54 PM
Bronty (65)
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Same basic body shape for sure but I dont think you can say one ripped off the body type of the other. basically what you are looking at is a Mickey Mouse body type and that dates back to 1930 or so. And I wouldn't be surprised if there are earlier examples. Unless you are referring to the Felix source material (messmer) being inspiration for sonic? Greg was familiar with messmer for sure. But being an animation artist (HB) originally, I think it was just a pretty standard body type for Greg to use.

Both great covers though

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WTB Cdn sealed black boxes, sealed Cdn first party titles.    I.e. the "mattel" Cdn boxes with both french and english.   Mainly black boxes, zelda, link, and tyson, but let me know what you have.    I am interested in anything I don't already have!



Edited: 01/05/2014 at 08:10 PM by Bronty

Jan 5, 2014 at 8:26:57 PM
buyatari2 (30)

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Originally posted by: Bronty

Both great covers though

+1 love them both.

Mickey Mouse Les Clark hands circa 1932.




Jan 5, 2014 at 9:52:58 PM
TheRedEye (6)
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Unreleased box art:


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Edited: 01/06/2014 at 12:00 AM by NintendoAge Moderator

Jan 5, 2014 at 11:37:43 PM
Yiggy (0)

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Originally posted by: Bronty

I presume this one was around the time mega man first went onto sega hardware


We had this art done for the Capcom/Sega partnership announcement/breakfast held at the Hotel Sofitel in Redwood City.  He worked on a lot of our 8 bit packaging. Obviously extremely talented especially when you consider that his stuff was done before digital illustration.   He will be missed.

-Y


Edited: 01/05/2014 at 11:53 PM by NintendoAge Moderator

Jan 5, 2014 at 11:55:31 PM
Bronty (65)
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I edited your post a bit, hope you don't mind. Trying to keep it as correct as possible as per Greg he only worked on one Disney video box and that was duck tales 2.

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WTB Cdn sealed black boxes, sealed Cdn first party titles.    I.e. the "mattel" Cdn boxes with both french and english.   Mainly black boxes, zelda, link, and tyson, but let me know what you have.    I am interested in anything I don't already have!


Jan 5, 2014 at 11:59:50 PM
Bronty (65)
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Originally posted by: TheRedEye

Unreleased box art:






Well thx for sharing but it was released on gb and besides it is not Greg's work. I wasn't sure but I went over some old notes and he did confirm it Wasnt his. I am going to edit out the image ok? I want to keep this Greg only

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WTB Cdn sealed black boxes, sealed Cdn first party titles.    I.e. the "mattel" Cdn boxes with both french and english.   Mainly black boxes, zelda, link, and tyson, but let me know what you have.    I am interested in anything I don't already have!



Edited: 01/06/2014 at 12:00 AM by Bronty

Jan 6, 2014 at 12:03:12 AM
Bronty (65)
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Originally posted by: buyatari2

Originally posted by: Bronty

Both great covers though

+1 love them both.

Mickey Mouse Les Clark hands circa 1932.








Those are so great. So expressive

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WTB Cdn sealed black boxes, sealed Cdn first party titles.    I.e. the "mattel" Cdn boxes with both french and english.   Mainly black boxes, zelda, link, and tyson, but let me know what you have.    I am interested in anything I don't already have!