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If you grew up in the UK around the time of the SNES, then you'll almost certainly be familiar with the amazing Super Play magazine.
With its mix of talented writers, focus on import releases and adoration of Japanese culture, it became one of the most beloved publications of the '90s – and each of its issues had bespoke cover artwork by the legendary Wil Overton.
Overton still works in the games industry (he's currently employed at Rare), and his anime-style artwork is still in high demand; for example, he recently illustrated the covers of Bitmap Books' Super Famicom, Game Boy and PC Engine box art compendiums. He also created an entirely new cover for Super Play's one-off revival in 2017.
Now, Retro Gamer magazine – which has featured Overton's art on its covers in the past – has dug into the Super Play archives to resurrect one of the artist's most iconic pieces of work, which originally graced the cover of the magazine back in June 1994.
Retro Gamer is owned by Future, the IP holder of Super Play, and that will have no doubt made it easier for the magazine to re-use this incredible piece of artwork.
The bad news is that this cover is exclusive to subscribers, so you can't simply march into your local WH Smiths to pick one up.
Even so, it's really cool that a piece of magazine history is being honoured in this way, and we'd love to see more of this kind of thing.
Retro Gamer recently celebrated its 20th anniversary.
Comments 7
These covers were iconic pieces. I’d love to see a book celebrating the super play artwork, or better yet, to be able to purchase this artwork (without the front cover wording overlaid) to display on the wall.
My personal favourite was the issue 45 artwork of Chun Li (street fighter alpha).
Not sure how they got the license holders agreement to the first Christmas issue which featured Spider-Man and some Star Wars characters!
This really isn't a very good piece of art. Everything is out of proportion or at wrong angles, the face showing looks ridiculous. Though I would have thought it was really cool as a kid to be fair.
Always loved his work: a charming and idiosyncratic style of manga. Loved SuperPlay and all the successor magazines (N64 and NGC). Such a golden age of gaming journalism!
@rob7979 I don't know this for sure but I'm guessing they didn't ask for permission for the image on Christmas Issue 3! They would have just gone ahead and done it - all the magazines of the era seemed to use artwork from wherever often cutting them out of Japanese mags seemingly with no issues!? Back then maybe this slipped under the radar more easily? Plus this is bespoke artwork so maybe that also helps the copyright issue? Gary Harrod's Mean Machines images also spring to mind like his Turtles and UN Squadron covers which use copyrighted characters.
My issue of RG dropped through the letterbox today and it was a genuine joy to see this image again. Fantastic bit of artwork - what I like about Will's work is it doesn't slavishly copy the original but is his own interpretation but still instantly recognisable.
Another of my absolute fave's Will created (amongst many) is the one for Issue 36 where they reviewed Yoshi's Island.
I'd instantly buy a book with these covers collected together - kickstarter perhaps? I'm sure Will is reading this so how about it eh?!
I love Wil Overton. Ace guy!
Retro Gamer magazine is fantastic. I love Time Extension but it's important to also support the few remaining physical mags.
Will - if you are reading this you know what to do
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