I illustrated a flurry of Retronauts podcast covers in the back half of 2025 and the start of the new year. Retronauts is a long-running video game podcast about old games and gaming history, and it has the incredible tradition of hiring illustrators for episode covers.
While I'm not a guest on any of the episodes, I do have to do a good amount of research for the games and topics, especially since many of the covers I do are usually a mix of the more historical (the 1980s and sometimes earlier) or the covers where the subject isn't obvious (Mario or another recognizable character is nowhere to be found).
Above: My favorite cover of the year about the Turbografx-16, a system from Hudson Soft and NEC that came out in the late 80s. I picked up some inspiration from the gritty, bold system box designs and Hudson's bee mascot.
Below: The first one is a cover for the Intellivision system, featuring very sports journalist/pitch man George Plimpton. He has never looked so ethereal while talking about the powerful graphics!
Below right: An episode cover for the Dartmouth Time Sharing System and the birth of BASIC gaming. This is just about the earliest history of computer games. One of the most popular early games coded for the machines was simply "FTBALL."
Below left: An illustration for the In Memoriam episode remembering some of the great video game creators who passed away in 2025. One of the notable losses was Rebecca Heineman, the first U.S. video game champion for Space Invaders and a trailblazer as a transgender developer.
