What brought you here to Retromags?

[Liquidd]

Being an artist, I actually came to Retromags searching for specific old issues of PSM, PlayStation Official, and EGM. Back in the day I submitted art to various contests and forums these mags featured.  I only won a few controllers, but at the time I was young and just stoked about seeing my art within the pages. 

[BlitzFitness]

Hi Liquidd, 

I heard about RetroMags from an article on either Kotaku or RockPaperShotgun, and love the work they've done and the organizing behind it.

You mention being an artist and looking for old PSMs.  It just so happens, that was the only mag I ever subscribed to.  I recall for a while there they were hiring artists to do their (the artists') own version of game characters and so on for the covers, rather than the somewhat more standard use of official art.  I bring it up because I'm curious if that was something that was important to you given your art inclination?

Also, great question, hope plenty of others reply as well. 

[JimJam78]

Mostly, looking for issues of magazines I followed that I missed when they came out.  It was frustrating missing things, and now I can fill the gaps in.

[Liquidd]

@BlitzFitness 

Thanks, Blitz. I hope others reply as well, I'm very curious if anyone else has a similar reason for coming. As to the importance of cover art, I was still wet behind the ears as far as actually trying to get my work on their covers, but I was inspired by seeing artists such as Jim Lee and Andy Park grace their covers and pages. I eventually went to college, honed my craft, and became a freelance illustrator/Graphic Designer, but that was years after PSM became defunct.

I remember a particularly humorous event though - which occurred in the forums of either PSM or EGM - where a reader complained about all the scantily clad female game character art stating that she would be happy to see just a pic of Cloud Strife (FF7) in his underwear. So I drew a pic of Cloud in his skivvies and sent it in. They printed it under the headline "One Reader Comes Through For Another" lol. Unfortunately, I'm still looking for that issue, but I'd love to see how much my art has improved since that piece.

 

[Liquidd]

@JimJam78

Yeah, I can see how it would be frustrating. I spent a small fortune monthly collecting every magazine, so I never missed one, but over the years I had to get rid of them. I kept the ones with my art in them, but again after years of moving around they were lost.

[BlitzFitness]

@Liquidd

Oh man, I really hope that issue gets uploaded here at some point, I would love to see that artwork!