I didn’t really appreciate what a huge impact Robin Williams had on my youth until he was gone. Growing up in the early 90s meant I was caught in the middle of Williams’ family-friendly hit streak. Hook, Jumanji, Aladdin and Mrs. Doubtfire were huge movies for me. I watched them all many times over, especially Aladdin. Like thousands of other fans, it’s been a joy to relive the memories of my youth by watching all of my favourite Williams movies over the past two weeks.

There are so many great obituaries and tributes online at the moment, but in my opinion, if you want to get a real glimpse of what Williams was like, I recommend you listen to his WTF Podcast interview with Marc Maron from 2010. It’s an extremely honest and interesting conversation, and you can tell Williams is just being himself (very quiet and soft-spoken) and isn’t trying to be ‘on’.

I had no idea how to approach doing a comic about Williams until I read that he was a huge video game fan. In fact, he was so obsessed with the original Nintendo system and games that he named his daughter Zelda. Here’s a TV ad Williams and his daughter appeared in to promote Ocarina of Time on the Nintendo DS. Over 100,000 people have signed a petition asking Nintendo to name a character in the upcoming Zelda game after Williams. Here’s hoping they will. And in case they don’t, I’ve decided to pay my own 8-bit tribute to the great man.

RELATED COMICS: Roger Ebert On Kindness. Amy Poehler Great People Do Things Before They’re Ready. Bill Hicks It’s Just a Ride.

– Although this version of the quote is the most popular, I found a clip of Williams saying it with a slightly different wording.

– Thanks to everyone who sent in requests asking for a RW comic.

– This will be the first and last time I use a pixel art style for a comic. I take my hat off to those artists who illustrate in this style. It’s freakin’ hard!