Written by Adam McCombs
On to part two of the cross sell art series!
Images come from Axel Giménez, Starcrusader, and my own scans and pictures. Unfortunately the quality of the Faker, Evil-Lyn and Screeech art isn’t the best, but it’s the best I have available.
Masters of the Universe Cross Sell Art:
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I may have missed this but who actually did the artwork for these?
We still don’t know who did the earliest illustrations. At one point William George started doing them. He did a lot of the box art starting in 1984, so I would guess the the 1984 cross sell art was also done by him
It’s a shame that many of these artists didn’t get the proper credit for their work. I’m glad you’re digging up as much background info as you can.
Thank you! Lots of people have tried to find out about who did the early cross sell art. Unfortunately even the people who were there at the time don’t seem to remember.
Love this series! Now, are you going to archive the black & white diagrams and cross-sell art from the playset boxes too? 🙂
Thanks Matthew! I hadn’t thought of that, but now that you mention it, that sounds like something I should also do 🙂
There are very few things that have spiked my imagination or stayed with me longer than _all_ the box art–front, back and sides–and text for Castle Grayskull and Eternia. Snake Mountain and the Fright Zone were cool too, but those two were especially impactful.
The only playset I had as a kid was Grayskull, but it definitely caught my imagination. I think I spent as much time with the box as I did with the toy 🙂
The original cross-sell art on the card backs and boxes are what inspired me to start drawing and writing when I was just a 3 year old. In the 80’s, toy-package art was truly art! Now everyone wants a computer to do the work for them. *sigh*