[ Retro Scan of the Week ] Playing With Portable Power

Monday, December 8th, 2014

Nintendo Game Boy Now You're Playing With Portable Power flier flyer - 1989With great portable power comes great portable responsibility.

The box art for Game Boy’s launch titles was brilliant. So distinctive, playful, and irresistible. Even though the games themselves were blurry messes on the original Game Boy screen, the art makes me want to go back and buy those games all over again.

[ From Game Boy pack-in flyer, ca. 1989]

Discussion Topic of the Week: How many items on this flyer do you own?

[ Retro Scan of the Week ] Benj’s 1989 Christmas List

Monday, December 16th, 2013

Benj Edwards 1989 Christmas List Xmas List scan - 1989An early example of the rustic illustrated Christmas list

While sorting through my childhood papers and effects recently, I came across this amusing Christmas list from 1989. I was eight years old then, and I apparently ripped out pictures of the toys I wanted from weekly newspaper advertisements and pasted them on a sheet of 8.5″x 11″ wide-ruled notebook paper. The result was a rare illustrated Christmas list that I don’t remember making before or since.

(I’m not sure why there is a big chunk of the page missing in the upper-right corner, by the way. Perhaps I changed my mind on some item and physically removed it from my list.)

What’s notable for our purposes is the healthy contingent of video game related items on the list. There’s a wireless remote for the NES, a Game Boy (which had just been released that year), and even a Sega Master System.

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