Here's some exciting news to start off the day. This morning Stern Pinball announced that it has officially hired the renowned artist Jeremy Packer aka Zombie Yeti as an employee. Jeremy was essentially already part of the Stern team after doing the fantastic artwork for a number of games, including Foo Fighters, Primus, Ghostbusters, Deadpool, Avengers: Infinity Quest, Godzilla, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Iron Maiden, and Venom.
Also, this morning the Loserkid Pinball Podcast released a very timely brand new podcast episode featuring an interview with Jeremy. The episode contains a ton of great information about Jeremy's past projects. At the 56 minute mark in the interview he says that Stern Pinball does not currently have the Back to the Future license.
"First off, I have to say this. I'm not the guy for everything. So don't worry people who don't like me, I won't do your favorite game. For instance, I would not do "Back to the Future." It's not that I don't love that era and those movies...I'm just not the right guy for it because I know a better guy for it and I know someone who would be better at it. Again I don't know if that game ever gets made. I don't know if it does if it's Stern. I've heard all kinds of wonderful rumors. By the way when I make that joke - Stern does not have Back to the Future. Trust me on that one."
In response to a report by Kaneda's Pinball Podcast that Stern Pinball's beloved designer Keith Elwin has two games coming in 2024, Jeremy hinted that Elwin may have more games than that coming in next year.
Jeremy also talked about how he thinks that video games may be the next big frontier for pinball machine themes, which I can totally see happening.
So those are a couple of interesting tidbits from the interview, but Jeremy may just have been messing with us all :). Either way, Congratulations to him and Stern for making this great combination official!
STERN PINBALL WELCOMES JEREMY PACKER AS PROJECT ARTIST
CHICAGO, IL – August 2, 2023 – Stern Pinball, Inc. (SPI) has announced that Jeremy Packer, former Principle at Zombie Yeti Studios, has officially joined the Stern Pinball team.
With his impeccable draftsmanship, innate sense of balanced composition and commendable attention to detail, Jeremy has cemented himself as a top-tier talent in the illustration business. His portfolio features a vast array of iconic Stern Pinball games, including Foo Fighters, Ghostbusters, Deadpool, Avengers: Infinity Quest, Godzilla, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Iron Maiden and even more to come!
Most recently, Jeremy worked as the lead artist for Stern Pinball’s all-new line of pinball games, Venom, which was released during San Diego Comic-Con and features a collection of his hand-drawn comic book style artwork.
“Jeremy’s work speaks for itself and it’s no surprise that the games he works on wins award after award for having the best artwork. We’re beyond excited to add his tremendous talent to the team and already look forward to sharing his upcoming work on future games around the world,” said Seth Davis, President and CEO of Stern Pinball, Inc.
I have embedded the a brief video titled "Inside the Stern Studio with Zombie Yeti" that Stern released in conjunction with the announcement, a bunch of pictures of Zombie Yeti's amazing art below and a link to the podcast below:
Loserkid Pinball Podcast - Ep 114: Year of the Yeti part 2 with Jeremy Packer
Zombie Yeti joins us to talk about his art from Foo Fighters and Venom along with the past years at Stern. Plus, a special announcement from Jeremy Himself
