Game Boy (comic)
| Game Boy | |
|---|---|
| |
| Writer | Various |
| Artist | Various |
| Publisher | Valiant Comics |
| Label | Nintendo Comics System |
| Original language | English |
| Translations | Danish1 Finnish2 French3 Norwegian1 Swedish1 |
| Issues | 4 |
| Release dates |  1990[1] Spring 1990–October 1991[2][3] Summer 1990–October 1991[?] Summer 1990–October 1991[4] 1992[5] Summer 1991–Fall 1991[6] |
Game Boy is a 1990 four-issue series within Valiant Comics' Nintendo Comics System brand, acting as a spin-off to the main Super Mario Bros. title. Though the titular video game system features prominently, the comic is moreso a tie-in to Super Mario Land, featuring the premise of the game's characters invading Earth.
Overview
- “Look around you! This is the real world, where Super Mario Land is only an exciting video game, where Mario, Princess Daisy, and the mysterious spaceman Tatanga are just images on a screen. But today, that will change, thanks the power of... GAME BOY”
- —Opening narration, variants of which are featured at the start of all but the second issue
Herman Smirch, a bitter and self-centered clerk at Lev's 'Lectronics, is surprised when he sees tiny versions of Tatanga, Princess Daisy, and the various enemies from Super Mario Land materialize out of his Game Boy. Explaining that Herman's misanthropy and weak will makes him a perfect vessel to activate a conduit between reality and the world of the Game Boy, Tatanga's loyal minion Pionpi and his forces proceed to cause chaos in a bid to conquer the "giants." Two teenagers named Josh Campbell and Rick manage to summon Mario from their own copy of Super Mario Land, who beats back Tatanga's assault and forces them to warp back to the Game Boy with Mario in pursuit.
The next issues follow a similar formula: Herman Smirch, despite his attempts to stay out of conflict, is hypnotized into playing the Game Boy and summoning Tatanga into the real world. With Herman's assistance, Tatanga's troops attempt to weaponize or fortify a location or vehicle while Tatanga unsuccessfully courts Daisy's affection. A person witness to the commotion and with the knowledge of how to summon Mario grabs a Game Boy to play Super Mario Land and gets Mario to materialize. Mario, with some help from his human allies and Daisy, uses his skills to foil Tatanga's plot and the villains retreat back to the Game Boy. Mario exchanges some parting words with his ally-of-the-month before doing likewise.
To convey the "clash of the worlds" theme, the backgrounds and human characters are illustrated in a realistic style while the Super Mario Land characters are drawn with a more cartoonish appearance, faithful to their game artwork. An exception to this is Tatanga, who is redesigned to look taller and more muscular. Mario, though similar in his appearance to his game self, is portrayed as a quippy smart-aleck eager for a fight, quite unlike his personality in the main Super Mario Bros. comics.
The comic series is slightly more serious and action-focused than the main Super Mario comics, featuring such plot developments as Herman Smirch being on the run from the authorities due to his role in hijacking an airliner and Mario narrowly averting a nuclear reactor meltdown and becoming ill from the resulting radiation exposure. Like the other Nintendo Comics System titles, Game Boy featured one-off gag pages, framed as tabloid headlines from the International Enquisitor.
Synopsis (from In the Palm of Your Hand...)
"You're just little bytes of data from a chip!"
So says a confused and frightened Herman Smirch to Pionpi, who is standing on Smirch's chest at the time. It's true enough. Pionpi, Tatanga, Princess Daisy and even good old Mario himself are merely tiny flecks of energy organized in precise patterns.
But, on some level, aren't we all? Aren't our thoughts and feelings mere flickering of electricity along the circuitry of our brain? Isn't all this real, ultimately and fundamentally, an organization of energy?
We draw a line between the real and the imaginary. We, the imaginers, who are patterns of energy, declare that our imaginings, which are patterns of energy, are not real.
But, what if one of them stood on your chest one day and said 'Hmmph! You seem rather improbable to me, giant! Now, then... what is this place?'
This place is whatever we imagine. It's as real as we believe. It's GAME BOY. Power in the palm of your hand. Believe it.
Publication history
The Game Boy comics were first published in 1990 as heavy stock under their titular label, which solely included these comics.[1] The comics were also featured as the first four issues of the soft cover Nintendo Comics System featuring... comic series, which featured comics from a certain comic series of the Nintendo Comics System, mainly Game Boy and Super Mario Bros.
Two hardcover collections were also published. The Best of the Nintendo Comics System, published in 1991[7], contains most comics of all comic series published under the Nintendo Comics System except for Super Mario Bros., which is published in its own book. This book also contains the first two comics of the Game Boy comics, In the Palm of Your Hand... and It's a Small World After All. The Valiant Illustrated Action Book Super Mario: Tatanga Invades Earth, also published in 1991[8], solely features these comics.
Comics
| Issue | Description | Date of release | Image |
|---|---|---|---|
| In the Palm of Your Hand... | Having had a bad trip to work, Herman Smirch services himself by stealing a Game Boy from his workplace and inadvertently summons the characters of Super Mario Land while playing the game. Tatanga and his minions attempt to remodel the World Trade Center into World 1-3 of Super Mario Land, but they are foiled when teenagers Josh Campbell and Rick summon Mario with their own copy of the game. | 1990[1] Spring 1990[2] Summer 1990[?] Summer 1990[?] 1992[5] |
 |
| It's a Small World After All | Herman is convinced by his mother to give up gaming and go back home, but it is not long before he is hypnotized into summoning the villains again. When he suggests that Tatanga takes Princess Daisy to Disney World, they hijack a Boeing 747 airliner, but Tatanga soon thinks up a more ambitious plan after he speaks with space shuttle-loving Tannis Rhodes. | July 20, 1990[9] January 1991[10] January 1991[11] January 1991[12] 1992[13] |
 |
| Team Play | A fugitive after the events of the previous issue, Herman is probed by Pionpi on the best location to set up a fortress and enslave a lot of humans. Answering China, Herman flies Pionpi and his soldiers to an unhabited island in the Pacific Ocean. An ensign on the nearby USS Nimitz summons Mario while casually playing Super Mario Land off-duty and helps Mario destroy the well-defended Fortress Tatanga by giving him access to the carrier's military weapons. | August 21, 1990[14] May 1991[15] May 1991[16] May 1991[17] |
 |
| Pipes is Pipes | For Daisy's birthday, Tatanga warps into Seaside Heights, New Jersey and hatches a plan to get rid of Mario by triggering a meltdown at the nearby nuclear power plant. While Mario flies off to avert nuclear disaster, Michael Hallis tries to rescue Daisy himself. | October 19, 1990[18] Summer 1991[6] September 1991[19] September 1991[20] September 1991[21] |
 |
Releases
- Main article: List of Game Boy (comic) releases
Staff
The first and third issue were written by George Caragonne, while fellow Playhouse Comix creative and regular contributor on other Nintendo Comics System titles Mark McClellan wrote the second and fourth. The comic had a rotating stable of artists, though Art Nichols worked on the first three issues.
Writers
- George Caragonne
- Todd Haedrich
- Mark McClellan
- Bill Vallely
- Mark McClellan
Artists
- Art Nichols
- Gray Morrow
- Paul Creddick
- Ken Lopez
- The Gradations
- Dennis Francis
- Art Nichols
- Jade
- The Gradations
- Paris Cullins
- Art Nichols
- Jade
- Rainbowhead
- Bill Vallely
- Gray Morrow
- Pocho Morrow
- Jade
- The V-8's
References to other media
- In Pipes is Pipes, Mario mentions that he managed to travel from Flatbush to Fifth Street without any problems, alluding to his hometown in The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!
- In In the Palm of Your Hand..., Rick and Josh ask Herman, who has been left in charge of Lev's 'Lectronics, if he has cartridges of Super Mario Bros. 3, though the two leave when he, in a trance and staring at his Game Boy, does not answer them.
Gallery
- For this subject's image gallery, see Gallery:Game Boy (comic).
Daisy and Tatanga
Translations
French translations of the Game Boy comics were included in the last two issues of Le Journal Nintendo, which included In the Palm of Your Hand... and It's a Small World After All. The Game Boy comics were later compiled in the book La BD de Game Boy, released by Glénat in 1992 under the Comics USA label.[22] Additionally, while not receiving their own comic series, Finnish, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish translations of the comics appeared as sections of the Nintendo-lehti and the Nintendo-Magasinet, Nintendo's magazines for Finland and Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, respectively.
All translations of the Game Boy comics omit the International Enquisitor sections.
Names in other languages
| Language | Name | Meaning | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| French | La BD de Game Boy[5] | The Game Boy Comic Book |
Footnotes
1 - Never published as its own series; published in the Nintendo-Magasinet.
2 - Never published as its own series; published in the Nintendo-lehti.
3 - Never published as its own series; published in Le Journal Nintendo.
References
- ^ a b c Nintendo Comics System Book Collection
- ^ a b Nintendo-lehti (1990-1994, Finnish)
- ^ Nintendo-lehti (1990-1994, Finnish)
- ^ Nintendo Magasinet 1992 Nr 10
- ^ a b c Le Journal Nintendo - N°3 / Entre Vos Mains - Jeux -
- ^ a b https://www.faraos.dk/antikvarisk/blade/boerneungdomsblade/nintendomagasinet
- ^ Best of the Nintendo Comics System
- ^ Tatanga Invades Earth
- ^ International Enquisitor
- ^ Nintendo-lehti (1990-1994, Finnish)
- ^ Nintendo magasinet salgsutgaven nr. 1 - 1991
- ^ Nintendo Magasinet 1991 Nr 01
- ^ le journal Nintendo 4
- ^ International Enquisitor
- ^ Nintendo-lehti (1990-1994, Finnish)
- ^ https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=3778472538862659&id=232336263476322&set=a.628847053825239
- ^ Nintendo Magasinet 1991 Nr 05
- ^ International Enquisitor
- ^ Nintendo-lehti (1990-1994, Finnish)
- ^ https://www.finn.no/recommerce/forsale/item/408880796?
- ^ Nintendo Magasinet Nr 9 1991
- ^ nintendo la bd de game boy occasion
