Illustrator, game designer, and professional yo-yoer Brian "Doctor Popular" Roberts created this watercolor and ink remake of Activision's Atari 2600 cover art for Pitfall. Inspired by the comic book recreations at Covered, he added a few details like the broken ladder rung, underground human remains, and the scorpion's lobster claws, while keeping the art as colorful as the original.

"Pitfall was one of my earliest video game addictions," says Roberts. "As a longtime fan of the 'platform game' genre, I’ve always considered Pitfall to be the godfather of the genre. Although it’s not technically the oldest side-scrolling game, I feel that modern platformers more closely resemble Pitfall than Donkey Kong. The art on all the classic Activision games were great and usually worked the Activision rainbow into the art in interesting ways."

He continues, "I particularly like the art on the Pitfall package and enjoyed having an excuse to study it more. One of the surprising things about this classic cover is that the protagonist is the least interesting thing on the whole image. I doubt that was on purpose, so I was glad to add a little more depth and excitement to our swinging hero."

Roberts says he painted the piece over a week's worth of BART rides, but you can hardly tell it was painted on a train! You can compare his version with the original below: