GAME GUIDES OCCUPY a unique space in the present-day videogame universe. As with the guidebook industry as a whole (including everything from travel guides and maps to cookbooks, legal guides, and repair manuals), the option to simply consult an online forum is nearly always present. The result is a greater pressure on printed guides to offer beauty and substance, and to exist as complementary projects that stand on their own.
CLOCKING IN AT 536 pages, NES/Famicom: A Visual Compendium offers a wealth of retro goodness for die-hard gamers, nostalgia seekers, and pixel-art fans alike. In addition to its eye-popping visuals, the book includes features on major developers like Konami and Capcom, extensive box art, interviews with developers from both Japan and the west, and fan tributes both written and visual.
GROWING UP, I had a closer-than-usual relationship with Atari’s games: with a close family member who worked at the then-young Silicon Valley company, I had access to dozens of games, sometimes even in pre-release builds. With most of the games I played existing only on floppy disks, this mind-bending cover art (not to mention any sort of packaging, background info, or instruction manual) was totally absent from the experience. This meant contending not only with the games’ built-in learning curves, but also figuring out the frequently bizarre lore and background stories of the games only through their totemic, rudimentary pixel art.
BEN CATMULL IS an Oakland artist who works in various combinations of ink, watercolor, and scratchboard. He is currently branching out into metal plate intaglio printmaking and combining handmade miniatures with filmmaking (no, not stop motion). His letterpress prints (including the moth image below) started as simple pen-and-ink drawings and were printed by Volta press.
Ben’s published works are Ghosts and Ruins (2013) and Monster Parade (2006), both from Fantagraphics, and Paper Theater (2001, Xeric Grant). Physical copies of Monster Parade are sold out, but it can be read online here.
