For our 30th Anniversary Celebration, we have an additional, special episode of the Pistol Shrimp podcast with UQM illustrator George Barr. George was responsible for many of the iconic, physical illustrations which would then become digitized for use in UQM. Beyond UQM, George contributed artwork to science fiction and fantasy works from books, to magazines, to Dungeons and Dragons rule books.

This interview was originally conducted when Paul and Fred visited George’s residence to acquire some of his original works. George talks about his beginnings in art, what it was like to be in Los Angeles on the set of Star Trek, and his techniques for working with physical mediums. It contains several sections where George, Paul, and Fred are rifling through sheafs of artwork which, unfortunately, are not able to be appreciated entirely in an audio recording.

A text transcript is also available.

However, this interview is also special for another reason. In Paul’s own words:

“George Barr was instrumental in creating the fantasy world and adventure of The Ur-Quan Masters. We very much want him involved in this new game. Unfortunately, he’s suffered vision loss and is unable to create new artwork. We decided to come up with a different plan. We went through some of his original artwork that he was able to sell and license, and by god we are going to find a way to use it because George is awesome.”

Some of this artwork was, indeed, created for other purposes without UQM2 in mind. We wanted George to be a part of UQM2 just as much as we wanted him to be a part of UQM, and we’re excited to show you some of his involvement. Spoiler Alert: These images are going to be part of UQM2. Also Spoiler Alert: We may or may not have no idea how or why just yet. Maybe you can tell us!

We hope you enjoy this conversation with a key member of the original UQM team and a first look at some of the new pieces that have been created for UQM2 (even if no one knew it at the time).

Last but not least, some of the original UQM pieces seen here are being provided for the first time in the form of high-resolution scans. They contain many pixels and can be downloaded in a very large zip file here.

All the photographs and art for UQM and UQM2 are available on our Patreon.

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