Lawrence Fletcher (1954–2022)

Lawrence Earl Fletcher, Jr. ("Larry" or "Lars" to friends) was an illustrator and concept artist from Buffalo, New York. An alumni of California State University, Long Beach (1989) and ArtCenter College of Design (1998), Lawrence worked for decades in Los Angeles, California and was best known by game art collectors for his illustrations for publisher Vic Tokai.

Frequently signing his art "Lars," Lawrence was responsible for the art for nearly every Vic Tokai title between 1989 and 1991, illustrating more than 10 covers for Vic Tokai as well as numerous full-page magazine ads.  Lawrence’s first cover illustration for Vic Tokai was Clash at Demonhead, released in January 1990 and painted in 1989. His final work for Vic Tokai came in 1995 with two illustrations he did for PC titles released by Nova Spring, a trademark of Vic Tokai: Alien Virus and The Scroll (the CD release of Daughter of the Serpents).

1. Clash at Demonhead (NES, 1990)
2. Kid Kool (NES, 1990)
3. The Mafat Conspiracy (NES, 1990)
4. Daedalian Opus (Game Boy, 1990)
5. Aerostar (Game Boy, 1991)
6. The Krion Conquest (NES, 1991)
7. Imperium (SNES, 1992)
8. Time Slip (SNES, 1993)
9. Scratch Golf (Sega Game Gear, 1994)
10. Alien Virus (DOS, 1995) by Nova Spring
11. Daughter of the Serpents / The Scroll (DOS, 1995) by Nova Spring

Lawrence also illustrated a handful of covers for Vic Tokai games that were ultimately never released: Mariner’s Run, Secret Ties, and Shogun Maeda for the NES and Dweebers for Game Boy. Notable full-page ads Lawrence painted for Vic Tokai NES titles for which he did not illustrate the covers include: All-Pro Basketball, Conflict, and Golgo 13: Top Secret Episode. 

Lawrence’s non-Vic Tokai work includes work for Tecmo and Mentrix Software. His earliest work for Tecmo appears to have been the arcade art for Tecmo Knight (1989), with Lawrence illustrating the arcade flyer as well as marquee and bezel art. Lawrence additionally painted the Tecmo box art for Bad News Baseball (NES, 1990), Tecmo World Wrestling (NES, 1990), Power Racer (Game Boy, 1990), and Solomon’s Club (Game Boy, 1991). For Mentrix Software, Lawrence illustrated two titles released on the Sega Genesis: Caliber .50 (1991) and Championship Bowling (1993). While little is known about Mentrix Software, it was located in Torrance, California, as was Vic Tokai.

Lawrence also did two game boxes for New World Computing, Inc., surprisingly more than 5 years apart: Nuclear War (DOS, 1989) and Chaos Overlords (Windows, 1996). 

Lawrence moved from Los Angeles, California to Yucatan, Mexico in late 2021 and was living in Mexico at the time of his passing in July 2022.