Taylor Gilbreath's RadiumZ rant on Batman Arkham City

Taylor's fed up with the frantically verbose Ad-itorially overblown rhetoric, and who can blame him? My friend makes kindly reference to me in his pointed excoriation of the most recent box cover for Arkham City, calling it more 'Billboard than boxcover', and reflecting back to the day when we ink stained (or more likely acrylic stained) illustrator wretches toiled, turning out full blown paintings that graced the covers of the games many of you remember from your earliest days as gamers.

I agree with Taylor's contention that the prior box art for the Arkham release was a fine illustration, pulled from the excellent work the animators did on the game itself. Trying to capture, with my old Thayer Chandler  airbrush, all that can be garnered from the tons of data available to today's box designers would require me to have a Cray in my cranium, and have Terminator hands...in fact, it would require I be a cyborg with Maya capability.

I'm not and I don't.

It's difficult for a guy to used to do paintings for the video game industry to make any complaints about what is out there regarding quality imagery, because in point of fact it's mind blowingly fantastic, exactly like the games are today.

It is the only the tactile actuality of the final art that separates us tellingly from the current crop of box artists. As fantastic as the art is, at the end of the day it only lives as data. It's outstanding, and you can print it out as often as you want, but there was never an original. Which is exactly why I have had numerous calls offering to buy the few originals I still own. There are breath takingly few originals to be had, despite the huge number of paintings produced, as they most often fell into the hands of the game makers, and were often destroyed during Chapter 9 declarations, down sizes, and realignments.

The days when gaming was young were a blast, and it was wonderful to be involved. I'm pleased to have created imagery that still lives today, perhaps not as the original art it once had the power to be, but more importantly to me personally, as fond memories in the lives of fans like Taylor Gilbreath, and perhaps , you.