GameFan Magazine (2010 version) Retrospective Chat with Special Guests Rob and Jim!

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another special edition of the Renegade Pop Culture podcast! This one is a very cool and unique episode, where I basically just chat with a couple of friends about video games, comic books, gaming magazines, art direction and graphic design, and even a little bit about Spyro the Dragon and Crash Bandicoot since one of our guests worked on the modern versions of those games as a character designer. I’m talking about Rob Duenas, who also works under the name Sketchcraft, and who was gracious enough to spend over two hours talking to me about his time as Art Director at GameFan Magazine, which was relaunched in 2010 (after going defunct in 2001) and lasted about nine issues before it stalled out again. My other guest, James Bacon, was Managing Editor at the magazine beginning with issue six, which meant that he and Rob did most of the work for Editor in Chief Dave Halverson and received little to no compensation for their efforts.

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Pictured here is concept art by Rob of Crash Bandicoot, which we’ve reprinted here with permission from the artist himself. All images used in these show notes are the property of Rob Duenas.

I realize this is all a little more “Inside Baseball” than we normally get on this podcast, but I wanted to talk to these two about their time at GameFan since the 2010 relaunch of the magazine isn’t really spoken of by most people who know the history of the publication in the 1990s. There are MANY forum threads and articles about the magazine, and we did mention it on our second Mental Health podcast and in the show notes for that episode, as well. In spite of all the issues that people faced working there and producing the magazine, there was still something special about it. Those who read GF know what I’m talking about. It was sometimes the least “professional” gaming publication out there, and there were crazy incidents that occurred during its time. Dave Halverson, the aforementioned Editor in Chief of the magazine, was maybe not the guy you wanted in charge of payroll. Like, ever. And there was more staff turnover there than my four-year stint working at Starbucks. It sounds like everything that could go wrong did indeed go sideways during GameFan’s multiple publishing runs.

An example of the layouts Rob designed for GameFan magazine.

And yet…

Nineteen years after the original GF went defunct, and ten years since the relaunch that James and Rob worked on went under, here we are still talking about it. There was something intangible about the magazine, some kind of mystique surrounding it, which I think was a result of the editorial voice and artistic style found within it. There was passion and a degree of imperfection to the writing, which made it the polar opposite of Edge/Next Generation and their ilk. Each issue featured thousands of screenshots and game logos and little artistic flourishes that really added flavor and color to the text. Layouts were the opposite of uniform; they were messy and haphazard and I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

The first issue of the relaunched magazine in 2010. Cover art not by Rob; but the layout was.

GameFan was never for everybody, and it didn’t claim to be. It was fiercely independent, brash, and kind of the blue collar/”everyman” video game magazine. During the late Eric “ECM” Mylonas’ tenure as Editorial Director in the late ‘90s, it was downright argumentative when it came to topics like the greatness of Final Fantasy VII, the surge of 3D games design, and exactly what it meant to be a “hardcore gamer.” While Rob and James didn’t seem to be fans of that era of GF, I certainly was. They earned the title of “Last True Enthusiast Magazine,” and I don’t believe anyone since then has even come close to usurping it from them.

In 2010, when I suddenly came across the first issue of GameFan 3.0 (as I’ve unofficially named it), I was surprised, to say the least. Aside from Halverson himself, most of the editorial team was new, and I quickly thumbed through the issue to see if it followed the art style and aesthetic of the original GF. It did, and it was because of a guy named Rob Duenas. Years later, I became Facebook friends with James, Rob, and a few others who had a hand in producing my favorite gaming publication ever. Which has led us to this moment in time. Hope you all enjoy the podcast!

If you want to find out more about Rob’s art, visit his DeviantArt page!

One of my favorite pieces by Rob, which was used as a GF cover image.

Thanks for reading my rambling nostalgic notes about GameFan. The magazine holds such a place in my heart, and I can’t really explain why. It’s a bit of an oddity to those who don’t really know about its place in the apocrypha of video game history, but those of us who remember it know its importance. I hope that this podcast and the links in these notes inspire you to understand GF in the same way that it inspired the genesis of this website, and I hope that we all take the time to appreciate the creative writers and artists who work on our favorite games, comics, movies, music… whatever you enjoy, especially during these unprecedented times.

Until next time, stay safe, Renegades!

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As an added bonus, here’s Episode 2 of the Mental Health podcast, where we mentioned GameFan and the late Eric “ECM” Mylonas, who was the magazine’s chief editor in the late ‘90s, and who passed away in January 2018. Rest in peace, ECM. Thanks for the inspiration.

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