[ Retro Scan of the Week ] Blip: Marvel’s Video Game Magazine

Monday, April 20th, 2015

Marvel Blip The Video Games Magazine Debut Issue #1 Comic Book Cover Matthew Laborteaux - February 1983Marvel should turn this into a movie

In 1983, comic book giant Marvel experimented with publishing a video game magazine called Blip. Here is the cover of the premiere issue, which features Little House on the Prairie star Matthew Laborteaux.

Wikipedia says this about Laborteaux, who was apparently a dedicated video game fan:

Laborteaux is a skilled video game player. In October 1981 he finished in tenth place for Centipede at the Atari, Inc. world championships, and in April 1982 became the United States Pac-Man champion at a People-sponsored tournament, with a score of 1,200,000.

Celebrities are people too.

Regarding the magazine itself: Blip retained the size, shape, weight, and thickness of a typical 1980s Marvel comic book. It was even printed on the same type of paper, likely using the same presses Marvel used for its superhero books at the time.

I haven’t thumbed through this magazine in years — it’s currently in storage — but I remember being sadly underwhelmed by its content when I bought this copy off eBay about a decade ago. I recall thinking that the printing technology did not reproduce photos very well, which did not lend itself to splashy, colorful video game ads or screenshots. Perhaps partly because of this, the mag only lasted seven issues.

The Internet Archive currently hosts scans of all seven issues of Blip.

[ From Blip, February 1983, cover]

Discussion Topic of the Week: Have you ever read any comics (strips or books) based on video games? What are your favorites?

[ Retro Scan of the Week ] Mad: Computer Virus Edition

Monday, May 12th, 2014

Mad Super Special Summer 1991 Computer Virus Edition CoverHis missing tooth is a hanging chad

I found this in my old collection of Mad magazines. In 1991, computer viruses were relatively novel — although I did lose all of my early BBS data to a malicious virus just one year later (see the story in that link).

[ From Mad Super Special – Summer 1991, cover]

Discussion Topic of the Week: Have you ever had a computer virus that wiped some or all of your data?