Issue #17: Thank You, Mr. Iwata – September/October 2015

Issue #17 is our tribute issue for Mr. Iwata, the beloved President of Nintendo who lost his battle with cancer in July 2015. A celebration of his life and achievements forms the core of the issue’s content in the Features section, the Retro section looks back on some of his most obscure games, the Interview section compiles quotes directly from the man himself and much, much more. It’s cover-to-cover Iwata, in memory of a great man taken from us far too soon.

Speaking of the cover, it was created in participation with Omni Jacala, Chris Szczesiul and Sean Hicks, also known as YouTube’s “Smashified!” art team. This mega-talented trio usually spend their time taking popular video game characters and creating new artwork of them to speculate what they’d look like if they were added to the Super Smash Bros. series as playable fighters. But we convinced them to take a bit of a break from that and collaborate on an epic cover spread honoring Mr. Iwata! If you’d like to see how each different piece of the art came together, they’ve posted a series of six time-lapse videos on YouTube. Search for the “Artsy Omni” channel to find them!