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Tim Lapetino | We Are the Willows
Episode 12 • 26th December 2016 • Cedar Cathedral • Cedar Cathedral
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Episode 12 features author and designer Tim Lapetino, sharing the story of how his infatuation with early-'80s video game box art led to the discovery of a design hero, George Opperman, as well as Tim's new book, The Art of Atari. With music from Twin Cities indie folk band We Are The Willows.

Transcripts

Steve Hendershot:

This is Cedar Cathedral, a podcast about

Steve Hendershot:

artistry, craftsmanship and the creative life in the Great

Steve Hendershot:

Lakes. I’m Steve Hendershot, along with Clare Hendershot,

Steve Hendershot:

from The Diving Bell, our band in Chicago. Here’s a question:

Steve Hendershot:

Where do bandwagons come from? What chemical reaction causes

Steve Hendershot:

someone to become the first superfan of the next cool thing?

Steve Hendershot:

I’ve jumped on my share of bandwagons, sometimes early

Steve Hendershot:

enough to get a pretty good seat, but I never stop to ask,

Steve Hendershot:

who was here first? Who was that first teenage girl who decided

Steve Hendershot:

the Beatles were worthy of manic shrieking? Or, which American

Steve Hendershot:

kid first decided to stake his entire identity on the coolness

Steve Hendershot:

of Hayao Miyazaki?

Clare Hendershot:

It’s hard to be that first superfan, because

Clare Hendershot:

it’s not trendy at that point. It’s lonely and obsessive. Yet

Clare Hendershot:

they hardly notice, because their passion is all-consuming.

Steve Hendershot:

And so it was with Tim Lapetino and George

Steve Hendershot:

Opperman. George Opperman, the relatively unknown creative

Steve Hendershot:

force behind the art of Atari in the late 1970s and early ‘80s.

Tim Lapetino:

He was like my white whale.  Anytime we were

Tim Lapetino:

able to uncover anything it felt like magic. It felt like

Tim Lapetino:

archeology and I was really chasing a ghost.

Clare Hendershot:

On this episode of Cedar Cathedral,

Clare Hendershot:

designer and author Tim Lapetino talks about his new book, The

Clare Hendershot:

Art of Atari, and its enigmatic star, George Opperman.

Steve Hendershot:

A quick disclaimer here before we get

Steve Hendershot:

into the story. Every episode of Cedar Cathedral to this point

Steve Hendershot:

has featured someone Clare and I didn’t know prior to working on

Steve Hendershot:

their story for the show. We have a lot of talented creative

Steve Hendershot:

friends, but we wanted this show to be about discovering and

Steve Hendershot:

building a broader Great Lakes creative community than the one

Steve Hendershot:

we were already part of. But this week is different. Tim and

Steve Hendershot:

his family are close friends of ours, and we’ve even worked

Steve Hendershot:

together on some projects—more on that later. But we want to be

Steve Hendershot:

up front about the relationship.

Clare Hendershot:

Now let’s head back to Tim’s office, where you

Clare Hendershot:

can sit on a couch surrounded by Tron memorabilia and play Atari

Clare Hendershot:

2600 games while you watch Tim work. Behind his desk is an

Clare Hendershot:

enormous wall of popular culture from the 1970s and ‘80s,

Clare Hendershot:

including pretty much every bit of product packaging ever

Clare Hendershot:

produced by Atari.

Steve Hendershot:

As we said at the top, when Tim became a

Steve Hendershot:

raging, diehard superfan of this George Opperman, he climbed

Steve Hendershot:

aboard a lonely bandwagon. More like a Radio Flyer that he had

Steve Hendershot:

to push himself. Tim became fixated on the artwork from the

Steve Hendershot:

boxes of early home video games, specifically the games you could

Steve Hendershot:

play on an Atari 2600 console in the late 1970s and early 1980s,

Steve Hendershot:

when George Opperman was Atari’s art director.

Tim Lapetino:

There's a particular moment in time where

Tim Lapetino:

video games were sort of just starting to come into their own

Tim Lapetino:

as a thing, and this illustration and this graphic

Tim Lapetino:

design helped birth it. Helped explain it. Helped sort of

Tim Lapetino:

champion it sitting on the shelf in a video game store and it

Tim Lapetino:

really gave focus to what it was, 'cause people were like,

Tim Lapetino:

"What is this thing?  Is it going to ruin my TV?"

Clare Hendershot:

Back when the games were just lines and dots

Clare Hendershot:

floating across a TV screen, the box art was what brought them to

Clare Hendershot:

life.

Tim Lapetino:

This is a cool thing. Look, it’s going to be a

Tim Lapetino:

game about Indy cars or space invaders destroying the earth.

Tim Lapetino:

And this was a familiar way of talking and visualizing those

Tim Lapetino:

things.

Steve Hendershot:

Tim grew up with these games, and got into

Steve Hendershot:

‘80s pop culture nostalgia as a college student at the

Steve Hendershot:

University of Illinois. But it was only after moving to Chicago

Steve Hendershot:

and working as a graphic designer that he began to see

Steve Hendershot:

early game-box art as an important chapter in design

Steve Hendershot:

history.

Tim Lapetino:

It just dawned on me, "Well, I'm a graphic

Tim Lapetino:

designer. These guys were doing what I did.”

Clare Hendershot:

So he turned to the Internet to learn more

Clare Hendershot:

about the artists who created the art of Atari.

Tim Lapetino:

And I couldn't find out. I couldn't figure it

Tim Lapetino:

out. I looked on the internet and just felt like that seemed

Tim Lapetino:

criminal to me, like who are these people? And so it started

Tim Lapetino:

out with curiosity. So I just fell down the Internet rabbit

Tim Lapetino:

hole and started researching this, not thinking I’m going to

Tim Lapetino:

create a book about it, but I just want to know who these

Tim Lapetino:

people are.

Clare Hendershot:

This was 2010, and soon Tim wrote a blog post

Clare Hendershot:

where he named some of the Atari artists he had uncovered,

Clare Hendershot:

including illustrator Cliff Spohn. And that led to a

Clare Hendershot:

breakthrough.

Tim Lapetino:

Somebody read it. This woman read it and she said,

Tim Lapetino:

"Hey, I grew up down the street from him. He's a family friend.

Tim Lapetino:

Would you like me to introduce you?" And that was the Pandora's

Tim Lapetino:

Box. I met him. We had this great conversation. He had all

Tim Lapetino:

of these great insights and recall on why he did these

Tim Lapetino:

things and I was so captivated by that information, but also

Tim Lapetino:

that insight. I was like, "You know what? If there's other

Tim Lapetino:

people out there like Cliff, there's a book. There's stories

Tim Lapetino:

to be told here."

Clare Hendershot:

Using Cliff as a connector, Tim started seeking

Clare Hendershot:

out people from Atari’s early days, both for interviews and to

Clare Hendershot:

see if they still had their old Atari artwork. He also started

Clare Hendershot:

to frequent strange corners of eBay.

Tim Lapetino:

It was an Easter morning and I said to my wife,

Tim Lapetino:

"Can I have a thousand dollars?" And we're getting ready to leave

Tim Lapetino:

for church, and she's like, "For what?" I was like, "Well,

Tim Lapetino:

there's this guy and he's selling a bunch of slides and

Tim Lapetino:

negatives and transparencies." And it was binders full of this

Tim Lapetino:

stuff and it was kind of a crazy thing to do because she was

Tim Lapetino:

like, "What are you going to do with those?" I'm like, "Maybe I

Tim Lapetino:

can do this Atari book," but it was years away, and so I bought

Tim Lapetino:

that stuff. But that absolutely convinced me that there's

Tim Lapetino:

something special here. I'm not longer just this nerdy guy. I'm

Tim Lapetino:

now the Indiana Jones of video game art and I've just rescued

Tim Lapetino:

something from destruction.

Steve Hendershot:

The Atari bandwagon was still sufficiently

Steve Hendershot:

spacious at this point that when Tim reached out to Cliff Spohn’s

Steve Hendershot:

old colleagues, he had to plead with those artists to talk to

Steve Hendershot:

him. Because, for one thing, his book was still just a dream, and

Steve Hendershot:

for another, most of them didn’t share Tim’s belief that their

Steve Hendershot:

early work was worth celebrating. Most of them, when

Steve Hendershot:

they worked for Atari, were college students or fresh out of

Steve Hendershot:

school. And they had long since moved on.

Tim Lapetino:

All of them would talk about Atari really fondly

Tim Lapetino:

at that time, but it's like a blip in their careers and it's

Tim Lapetino:

one part of one thing that they did. And nearly all of them went

Tim Lapetino:

on to other things. I think the emotion I got 90 percent of the

Tim Lapetino:

time was shock and surprise that someone was interested in this

Tim Lapetino:

part of their careers. These are people who've been working in

Tim Lapetino:

their field for 30 or 40 years. None of them thought that this

Tim Lapetino:

would be the phenomenon that it was. None of them thought that

Tim Lapetino:

someone would be calling them up interested in talking about

Tim Lapetino:

this. When you're making history, I don't think you

Tim Lapetino:

realize that you are making history.

Steve Hendershot:

This reminds me a little of the Folk Revival

Steve Hendershot:

in the 1960s, when musicians who had given up their dreams of

Steve Hendershot:

stardom decades prior were suddenly swarmed by adoring fans

Steve Hendershot:

who had discovered their music and made pilgrimages down south

Steve Hendershot:

to find them. The difference, though, is that those guys like

Steve Hendershot:

Son House and Dock Boggs at least thought that what they

Steve Hendershot:

done way back when was special, it just maybe failed to connect

Steve Hendershot:

with a wider audience. These Atari artists had to be talked

Steve Hendershot:

into the notion that game art was more than just a random

Steve Hendershot:

freelance gig.

Clare Hendershot:

Tim gradually made headway, though, collecting

Clare Hendershot:

interviews and images and building momentum around the

Clare Hendershot:

idea that he was going to write this book, and that it would

Clare Hendershot:

celebrate an important moment in design and pop culture.

Steve Hendershot:

And he discovered there was plenty of

Steve Hendershot:

latent interest—other people who loved ‘80s pop culture and

Steve Hendershot:

nostalgia, who loved Atari in particular. Who would want to

Steve Hendershot:

read about George Opperman if only they knew about him. They

Steve Hendershot:

just needed somebody like Tim to gather all the information. And

Steve Hendershot:

so once Tim put it out there that he was going to do this,

Steve Hendershot:

whole story on Tim’s book despite the fact that it still

Steve Hendershot:

didn’t exist — there was no draft, no publisher, just an

Steve Hendershot:

ever-growing trove of images stacked in Tim’s office in

Steve Hendershot:

between the beer fridge and his collection of bobbleheads.

Clare Hendershot:

Meanwhile, this was all a side project for

Clare Hendershot:

Tim. And while he started making headway in his search for George

Clare Hendershot:

Opperman, he ran into roadblocks elsewhere. Just as he and his

Clare Hendershot:

wife Emily were having their second child, he had to close

Clare Hendershot:

his six-year-old design studio because work had dried up.

Steve Hendershot:

Money was tight, but Tim used his free

Steve Hendershot:

time to shop his book around at the same time he hunted for a

Steve Hendershot:

new job. And finally, the book got some real momentum. Tim

Steve Hendershot:

started talking to actual publishers, like MIT Press. And

Steve Hendershot:

then just as he was getting close with MIT, a potential

Steve Hendershot:

disaster struck. Atari signed a licensing deal with a publishing

Steve Hendershot:

company called Dynamite Entertainment, and that deal

Steve Hendershot:

included a book on the art of Atari.

Clare Hendershot:

That meant Atari wasn’t going to license

Clare Hendershot:

its archives to anybody but Dynamite. In an instant, Tim’s

Clare Hendershot:

book went from a near-reality to life support.

Tim Lapetino:

It was kind of dumb what I was doing. I was

Tim Lapetino:

just writing a book without a contract. I was just going to

Tim Lapetino:

have this book ready because I thought it should be made.

Steve Hendershot:

After all those years of work, suddenly

Steve Hendershot:

Tim had one move left or his project was dead. He sat down to

Steve Hendershot:

write the biggest email of his career to the folks over at

Steve Hendershot:

Dynamite.

Tim Lapetino:

"Hey guys, here's a fun happenstance. I happen to

Tim Lapetino:

have 40 percent of that book already written. How would you

Tim Lapetino:

like to work together?"

Clare Hendershot:

And finally, Tim got his big break. Dynamite

Clare Hendershot:

said yes. And Tim got to work.

Tim Lapetino:

This had already been germinating for years, so I

Tim Lapetino:

was able to hit the ground running once I had the backing

Tim Lapetino:

of a publisher who was really excited and believed in this

Tim Lapetino:

book. They really let me go a little wild.

Steve Hendershot:

Tim’s Art of Atari book finally came out this

Steve Hendershot:

fall. I mentioned Tim is a friend; when Clare and I saw the

Steve Hendershot:

book featured on an endcap display at Barnes and Noble, I

Steve Hendershot:

pretty much lost my mind. The book is a big deal for Tim, both

Steve Hendershot:

because it’s fun to have a book come out, and because his dream

Steve Hendershot:

of celebrating these unknown Atari artists and designers has

Steve Hendershot:

finally become reality. Which brings us back to the white

Steve Hendershot:

whale, George Opperman.

Tim Lapetino:

He was the guy that super creative and who had

Tim Lapetino:

this huge impact on design and video games in the industry just

Tim Lapetino:

by the virtue of how he got this creative ball rolling. Almost no

Tim Lapetino:

one knows his name and I want to fix that.

Steve Hendershot:

Chain-smoking George Opperman died of lung

Steve Hendershot:

cancer decades before Tim started trying to find him. Tim

Steve Hendershot:

interviewed almost everyone for this book, except the one guy he

Steve Hendershot:

most wanted to talk to — the man who had led the art department

Steve Hendershot:

and designed Atari’s famous logo.

Tim Lapetino:

I felt like I was always two steps removed from

Tim Lapetino:

this person that I will never get to meet.

Steve Hendershot:

And yet, by introducing the rest of us to

Steve Hendershot:

George Opperman, Tim succeeded in his ultimate goal. He also

Steve Hendershot:

managed to start a conversation about the historical video game

Steve Hendershot:

art as an essential chapter in design history, with Opperman as

Steve Hendershot:

a central figure.

Tim Lapetino:

We in design circles, we're not holding up

Tim Lapetino:

George Opperman as one of the great identity designers, but in

Tim Lapetino:

video games, people aren't talking about the gestalt of how

Tim Lapetino:

do you lay things out. Those two worlds are so connected, but yet

Tim Lapetino:

they don't face each other, and so I really wanted bring those

Tim Lapetino:

two things together and talk about them that way. Critically

Tim Lapetino:

look at video games in design.

Steve Hendershot:

This holiday season, at fine booksellers

Steve Hendershot:

everywhere, you can buy Tim’s book, and revel in all this

Steve Hendershot:

vintage game art. Thanks to the passion with which Tim indulged

Steve Hendershot:

his fandom, and his dogged effort chasing a story that no

Steve Hendershot:

one else thought to chase, he’s brought to light a rich new

Steve Hendershot:

chapter of design history. And if by reading this book you turn

Steve Hendershot:

into a George Opperman superfan, it’s cool—the bandwagon is

Steve Hendershot:

filling fast, but there’s still plenty of room for you to grab a

Steve Hendershot:

seat.

Clare Hendershot:

For more on Tim Lapetino and his book, v

Clare Hendershot:

sit CedarCathedral.com. Also, f you’re in Chicago, head to 57

Clare Hendershot:

h Street Books in Hyde Park n Thursday, Jan. 5th to hear

Clare Hendershot:

Steve interview Tim about the new book.

Steve Hendershot:

Before we get to music, one more disclaimer,

Steve Hendershot:

now that we’re no longer at risk of a spoiler alert. Over the

Steve Hendershot:

last couple of years Tim has asked for my writing help with a

Steve Hendershot:

couple of projects. First something he’s still working on

Steve Hendershot:

called the Museum of Video Game Art. And then more recently,

Steve Hendershot:

talking about the possibility of some followup game-art books at

Steve Hendershot:

Dynamite. Nothing firm yet, but we are hopeful, and just in case

Steve Hendershot:

something happens I just wanted to put that out there to be

Steve Hendershot:

up-front about the relationship.  Now on to music.

Steve Hendershot:

On every episode of Cedar Cathedral, we feature a great

Steve Hendershot:

indie band from the Great Lakes. Today it's We Are the Willows,

Steve Hendershot:

from Minneapolis — we played with these folks last summer in

Steve Hendershot:

Chicago, and love them. The song is called To Me, From You, from

Steve Hendershot:

the record Picture (Portrait). Both the song and the whole

Steve Hendershot:

record are based on a long series of letters written by the

Steve Hendershot:

grandfather of songwriter Peter Michael Miller to his

Steve Hendershot:

grandmother during World War II.  So you think that those city

Steve Hendershot:

boys would search

Clare Hendershot:

This episode of Cedar Cathedral was produced

Clare Hendershot:

by us, Steve and Clare Hendershot from The Diving Bell.

Clare Hendershot:

Thanks to Tim Lapetino and to We Are the Willows. We’ll be back

Clare Hendershot:

directly with another tale of artistry, craftsmanship and the

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