this illustration was commissioned for a type-in program called Islands for the commodore 64, in the august 1988 issue of RUN magazine.
i am in love with the line-art/woodcut style, painstakingly inked and coloured. it was a different age in which a work of art could be commissioned for a BASIC game that a handful of people in the world would bother to hand-code and play.
this is better art than 90% of the physical big box games i own
update: as it turns out, there is not merely emulating etching/woodcut with inked lines, it IS an etching by artist doug smith who was famous for this style.
@vga256 And in the 80's, the page layout to get it into the book was probably still being done laboriously by hand, despite the book being about computer stuff. I don't think stuff like PageMaker was practical for a whole book with full color art yet.
@vga256 I remember seeing that illustration style a lot on 90s ads and packaging. (I think NeXT branding used this extensively; I always think of them when I see it.) I loved it.
@vga256 hmm. I'm trying to find them and the only thing image search is bringing up is that woodcut pile of cubes. I'm almost positive I saw at least one NeXT ad with a woodcut illustration of several people in front of a computer, but maybe I'm thinking of something else.
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