The story behind Keith Courage

[DragonmasterDan]

This explains nothing. So you had to use new art, get another artist. The US has thousands upon thousands of artists. Look at all the record albums and book covers and toys and whatever, sure, almost every one of them is terrible compare to anything involving the graphic arts because Japan is way ahead of everyone on that but the US version of the debut Pink Lady album doesn’t look like shit so why do all these video games? There was NOBODY in my 12th grade art classes that would make something like the Mega Man 1 cover.

This is more of a general question of "Where on Earth did they find the people who drew this video game covers in America and who thought these were good ideas for box art?". I suspect people in charge of packaging at a bunch of Video Game publishers said things like "Hey, my son made a great art project. It's on the fridge. I bet he could draw a guy exploring a dungeon" but we'll never know if they simply found the most inept professional illustrators around, or it was the work of family and friends of those in charge.

[spenoza]

I actually like the Dungeon Explorer box art. It just looks heavily stylized.

[DragonmasterDan]

I actually like the Dungeon Explorer box art. It just looks heavily stylized.

Quite frankly it looks like Napoleon Dynamite drew it and left out drawing him looking at a Liger.

It's stylized, but it's not a style I appreciate.

[Arkhan]

It looks like when children draw humans, and its all f*cked up.

I used to draw arms coming out of heads because I didn't understand what a body was apparently.


SOME of the USA art isn't awful, but generally still blows compared to the JP ones.

China Warrior was pretty OK.    In some ways, it was better than the PCE one since the PCE one is just electro-brucelee standing looking f*ckin jacked.

The Turbo one at least kind of depicts what the game is, and the color choices are actually pretty nice.

but, Ballistix is a good example of what art SHOULD have looked like.

There were plenty of those kinds of artists around back then.


Look at the D&D books from back then.   That stuff would have been perfect for Dungeon Explorer.

[Gypsy]

The real question is why they went with this game at all.

I don’t think licensing issues were a problem. If they were then simply changing the name and leaving all the very recognizable graphics wouldn’t be enough to get you out of that problem.

I know at least other publishers have had issues using the actual Japanese art on the outside of the packaging without paying additional royalties. This was at least partly responsible for some of the bizarre and hideous cover arts we saw in the 80s and early 90s.

This explains nothing. So you had to use new art, get another artist. The US has thousands upon thousands of artists. Look at all the record albums and book covers and toys and whatever, sure, almost every one of them is terrible compare to anything involving the graphic arts because Japan is way ahead of everyone on that but the US version of the debut Pink Lady album doesn’t look like shit so why do all these video games? There was NOBODY in my 12th grade art classes that would make something like the Mega Man 1 cover.

Heh. Yeah there is good US art out there but it sure af wasn't on video games in the late 80s/early 90s for the most part.

[Black Tiger]

The Dungeon Explorer art is at least stylized. CF2 is just awkward and amature looking.

[SignOfZeta]

Yeah, DE is clearly an actual piece of something. It’s not failing at anything, that’s what they were going for. I have no problems with it.

[Punch]

This is more of a general question of "Where on Earth did they find the people who drew this video game covers in America and who thought these were good ideas for box art?". I suspect people in charge of packaging at a bunch of Video Game publishers said things like "Hey, my son made a great art project. It's on the fridge. I bet he could draw a guy exploring a dungeon" but we'll never know if they simply found the most inept professional illustrators around, or it was the work of family and friends of those in charge.

I got a feeling that this was a combination of clueless japanese management assigned by nepotism plus someone pocketing money from the package art department.

[Arkhan]

I got a feeling that this was a combination of clueless japanese management assigned by nepotism plus someone pocketing money from the package art department.

wat? lol.

[Lost Monkey]

Now would be a good time to point out that the Atari releases for the 2600 had amazing art. Further to Zeta's point, it was quite possible in the 70's and 80's to produce good art.  It wasn't a question of talent or locality, it was a question of terrible choices...

Arkhan brought up Ballistix - the art was already around for almost 10 years when it was used on the TG16 game and had already been used on a book cover and an album cover...

[Arkhan]

Now would be a good time to point out that the Atari releases for the 2600 had amazing art. Further to Zeta's point, it was quite possible in the 70's and 80's to produce good art.  It wasn't a question of talent or locality, it was a question of terrible choices...

Arkhan brought up Ballistix - the art was already around for almost 10 years when it was used on the TG16 game and had already been used on a book cover and an album cover...

yeah. 

Boris Vallejo was around for art, too.

There was honestly no excuse for the dumb that transpired on many of these game's box arts.

[Phase]

Hey I got an idea guys.. I like Kieth Courages art so much, let's make a pack in poster with KC and some other generic characters. Make sure we add Dick Tracy, Dinosaurs and the Devil! Kids love that stuff.. oh don't forget Baseball... have a player yelling sports for sports games. Bring the Kieth art down to two colors so he blends in. Add checkers and small screen shots from our games!!!

[seieienbu]

I always thought Cosmic Fantasy 2's art wasn't exactly bad but instead was intentionally trying to look like Science Fiction artwork from the 70s.  It looks more dated than inept to me.

And as mediocre as Keith Courage is, I still vastly prefer it to Altered Beasts.

[Zero_Gamer]

I think KCs art is better than most. He looks pretty stupid, but at least it was hand drawn. Many look like they were created in Corel with clip art.

[Punch]

I got a feeling that this was a combination of clueless japanese management assigned by nepotism plus someone pocketing money from the package art department.

wat? lol.

It was 2 in the morning for me when I wrote that message.