The Comic Book Story of Video Games: The Incredible History of the Electronic Gaming Revolution will be very popular with our video-game-hungry students - the fact that it's presented in comic book format is another big tick. This is likely suitable for lower high school and up due to the complexity of writing/vocabulary, but there will certainly be students in upper elementary that will enjoy this title.

A graphic novel history of the development of the hardware and software that have evolved into modern video games and their platforms.

Wow. I can’t imagine the amount of time it took Hennessey and McGowan to do the research for this. It is downright jaw-dropping. This is an exhaustive history of video game development (think college-level textbook exhaustive). Hennessey went all the way back to the very first games played on any kind of screen, follows the development of many of the backbone hardware items (screens, memory storage devices, and processing hardware) and highlights the inventors that developed landmark games or hardware or software along the way. McGowan added impressive illustrations that depict the historic items and people, as well as often incorporating allusions to modern and historic iconic video games. Both of these men obviously put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into this book. Highly recommended for those who are interested in going into video game development, teachers of history of video games, or avid gamers. If you have only a passing interest in video games you may start to feel overwhelmed and suffer from a bit of information overload. If you’re in that latter group, I recommend this in small doses, maybe a chapter a day. I’m somewhere inbetween the two. I find tech history fascinating but I’m not a gamer or anything. I read this faster than a chapter a day and started to feel the danger of information overload a few times (it also got to be more challenging to follow as we got into the 80s-modern times as he started going back and forth in time more to follow a topic). Still impressed with the scholarship put into this and will be purchasing it for the gamers at our school.

Notes on content [according to the ARC]: About three swear words in quotes (one stronger word partially asterisked out). Brief mention that old arcades sometimes featured porn and were run by the mob. The violence of shooter games is somewhat described and the Vietnam War and Kent State incident are mentioned.

This being a graphic novel rather than a textual history of video gaming really made this an interesting proposition. Whilst not being wowed by the art style from the beginning it grew on me and made a lot of sense to how the story was being played out i.e. over decades giving a consistent feel.

This is a great recap on how history shaped the early days of video gaming. Very much to the point and with humour. The short character profiles gleam just enough about the key people, allowing the reader to go off and discover more should they wish without impacting the flow of the graphic novel format.

I really thought the first two thirds were a lot stronger than the final third however this may be because I was discovering new things about the history early on and just wondering why certain aspects of gaming over the last 20 years have not been included at the end.

THE COMIC BOOK STORY OF VIDEO GAMES by Jonathan Hennessey and Jack McGowan looks at the history of video games and how their origins kept spilling out of computing innovations over the years. The artwork is classic comic book, fun and informative without being over stylized. The graphic novel I found to be a great way to educate interested parties on video game origins, with Hennessey and McGowan balancing detailed research, fascinating anecdotes, and some hilarious tongue and cheek moments that made for a entertaining read.
A great gift for video game historians and enthusiasts, I plan to buy several copies THE COMIC BOOK STORY OF VIDEO GAMES as gifts for my gamer friends.

I love books about games just as much as I like playing them. Technology in general has always fascinated me, just looking at those circuit boards and the size of my CPU and i wonder "how on earth they managed to invent this?!, like, one day someone woke up and said "heeey, what if I make a microprocessor?". Well, I loved this book because it narrates just that, the human side of how things came to be; their desires, influences and choices. It is packed with historical facts about the early days of video games; all the way from the creation of the cathode ray tube (CTR) to Minecraft.

The book is presented in an old comic art style (think Jack Kirby) with semi-chronological order. I say semi because it takes priority of concepts and people over time frames. So be prepared to jump back and forth in time and enjoy the ride. I think the drawing style adds up to the nostalgia feeling, something older generations would surely appreciate. Which takes me to the next point: if you belong to generation X or like figuring things out as you go, start reading without further ado, else you can enhance your reading experience with general knowledge of the 20th century, digital revolution and video games. Keep in mind this is an enjoyable read, not a history text book, so take your time to look at the illustrations, research further, reflect and hunt for some easter eggs!

A charming history of Video Games.

The Comic Book Story of Video Games is a graphic novel depicting their entire history from Alan Turing's WWII mainframe Chess game to Pokemon Go. Turing's logic in the Chess game was used to break the German's supposedly enigma code.

There are many fascinating facts here. Here are only a few examples. Sega is an acronym for Service Games. The company was started to repurpose slot machines, made illegal in the United States in 1951, for our armed forces overseas. Sony, the maker of PlayStation, was started in a WWII bombed out Tokyo department store making rice cookers! Steve Jobs was hired by Atari in 1974 even though he was "a shiftless, unscrubbed teenager." "An overnight shift was invented for Jobs because few could tolerate his body odor or his judgmental attitude."

The Comic Book Story of Video Games bogged down slightly in the beginning. There seemed to be excessive detail about the evolution of the underlying mechanics of video games. However, once the first computer game was created, the path to cell phone games was engrossing. The text made you root for some of the innovators even though those with the best ideas didn't always win fame or fortune. The illustrations are full of clever references to video game characters both old and new. I especially enjoyed the depictions of many of the video game pioneers that are included with a full page biography.

If you have any interest in the mechanics or history of video games, the Comic Book Story of Video Games will be a joy.

Thanks to the publisher, Ten Speed Press, and netgalley for an advanced review copy of the Comic Book Story of Video Games in exchange for an honest review. The book will be published on October 3, 2017.

I'm a huge fan of video games. I was around and geeking out on Rogue in 1980ish. In fact, the following words still have the ability to make me smile and sigh nostalgically.

"It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue."

*aaaah*

Anyhow, the point is, I have loved video games (and game theory and just plain games) forever. I was so excited about getting to read this book.

I may well have had inflated unrealistic expectations. It's also possible that any real comprehensive history of video games really needs to build up an extensive background context. It might be something entirely different. Whatever the reason, the reality of this book didn't live up to expectations.

I found the pacing very very slow and scattered. The art is somewhat rough and some of the character renderings I should have been able to recognize were not at all clear to me. Most of the drawings had labels so the characters (or historical innovators) were recognizable to me.

I did, however, learn quite a lot from this book (including the origin of the Sega games name). And I did finish it, but it was a close-run thing. It wasn't an easy read for me.

I wish the creators well, and I truly do hope this book does well, because video game history and electronic technological development is so integral to our shared human experience, especially in the last 60+ years. The book just wasn't for me.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher.

Love video games, but the thought of a dusty historical tome on the subject might be a bit much. The new book The Comic Book Story of Video Games takes the fun of video games, the fun of comic books, and combines the two into an interesting look through one of our favorite nerdy past times. This is a great book for those who love their comics and want to know more about the creation of video games.

It is really what it says it is - a history of the electronic gaming evolution. So if you, just like me, wanted to see different video games released in different eras and what compulsed their popularity, you will be disappointed.

This is still a great coffee table book, and I would love to have something like this in my living room to pull out from time to time and learn some new nerdy facts, but it was not a book that you could easily read in one sitting.

I found it rather boring to read all at once, but as I said before this would be a great book to read from time to time and feel good about yourself for learning new things and fun facts.

Other than that, I felt like there were a lot of illustrations of people and not enough of games!
Afterall, I wanted to see games and gaming consoles more than the portraits of all the important people in 19th and 20th centuries…

Overall interesting graphic approach to the history of video gaming. I feel that this medium works well since video games are so graphically centered.

I talk about The Comic Book Story of Video Games in my May Wrap-Up starting from 2:46 and ending at 5:13

https://youtu.be/Yg5zlVOcuS4?t=2m46s

Fairly interesting, although to be honest, in spite of the early chapters being educative in their own ways, I would’ve preferred to see the focus more on the actual video games (and industry) themselves, rather than also on the electricity/industrial revolution parts. The art style, too, was not always consistent, and sometimes too stiff.

On the other hand, I appreciated the inclusion of actual video games characters in panels, as watchers or part of the ‘narrative’; just trying to remember or find out who they were, was in itself another, different dive into history. (Well, maybe it wouldn’t work that well on someone who knows less about such games, but for me, it worked.)

I also liked how the book included some of the backstage workings behind the whole video games industry; they were plenty of things I didn’t know, for instance Sony and its Playstation, I had no idea there had been a deal in the plans with Nintendo for CD games, and that it completely fell through. (I’m not feeling younger, though. Being reminded that this PSX I got in 1998—and I made it a point to get a US model, too, since the European one didn’t run the games I wanted—was even a few years older than that… well…)

Conclusion: An informative and colourful read. I do wish it had spent just a little less time on the really early years, where ‘games’ per se weren’t so much concerned (to be fair, I already know a lot about computer history in general).

I wasnt much of a gamer growing up but im in love with the history of arcade games. This story doesn't disappoint. It is amazing to learn about the creators and the influence of arcades on the world.

The art is definitely not the best art I've ever come across, but the use of the graphic medium allows for excellent storytelling. This makes a great addition to the genre of non-fiction graphic novels, which is small but slowly and surely growing.

The Comic Book Story of Video Games by Jonathan Hennessey and Jack Mcgowan, published by Ten Speed Press, publication date October 3, 2017.
This is my first non-fiction review, so be gentle on me :o)
I'll begin by saying how surprisingly interesting I found the subject to be; I intended to read this to see if my high school Manga-loving students would like this. I've decided that, even if they wouldn't, the robotics-, engineering-, and coding-type gamers would! There were so many interesting factoids in the telling of this history. (I'm tempted to leak a few to you here, but I wouldn't want a spoiler alert tagged to this review.) Suffice it to say, that in 181 pages of story, I annotated 24 or so places with 'interesting factoid.'

The vocabulary might be a bit elevated for some high schoolers, but those with an interest in this topic will probably glean or look up the meanings of the unknown terms; it doesn't happen often enough to turn off a reader. There were a few places where I felt a chronological disconnect to the unfolding of the history, almost as if the author thought the relevance of a fact was more important in deciding its placement than pure chronology; if only that were always the case... at least twice I needed to reread sections because I thought I had 'missed' something, but rereading didn't clarify the information placements. Still, it was historical, so I tried just to absorb the significance of the information without the need to strictly enforce the chronology.

The storytelling depends heavily on Moore's Law without ever explaining it. (see http://www.wired.co.uk/article/wired-explains-moores-law if you, too, don't know Moore's law.) There were also a few places where I would have liked to have been told the source of the information being touted as fact since I practice a healthy skepticism of weighted adjectives that appear alongside data.

The distractions described were fairly minor to my overall enjoyment of the history of video games (hint: my first personal awareness of video gaming coincides with page 87 or so). I thoroughly enjoyed the many pop culture, political, and historical gaming evolutionary connections the author made throughout the story. Psychology, marketing, politics, war, engineering, computers, electricity, culture... the author included something with which a multitude of readers could engage. (Simply put: something for everyone.)

My enjoyment was OBVIOUSLY enhanced by the clever, detailed, and engaging drawings in this graphic novel. At least twice I full-stopped reading just to appreciate the humor and allusions the drawing provided to heighten the experience. The pictures were not merely embellishments; they sometimes were the story! Some of the best pictures were enough to jog my memory, explain something new, or complete a written explanation. [Note: The cover doesn't do the inside any justice.]

I'm looking forward to recommending this title to my non-fiction readers as well as my computer, gaming, coding, and Manga-ing students (and teachers!)

It was exactly as advertised in it's title. No more, no less...Breezed through it fast, but without as much interest as I'd hoped.

I've read enough of historical story type of comics about almost anything and there's always one evident problem in them. The need to start the history basically from the Big Bang. I do get that background info is important, but this comic is mostly about everything else but actual video games. The beginning is very scattered and slow-paced and mostly, nothing seems to make sense until the end when we get to the 1980s. The history of Tetris comic is better, but has the same problem. I'd say the highlight should be the golden and silver age of video games and there was hardly anything about the current times, which was a bummer. We hardly get to know the makers or why they ended up creating the iconic stuff they did and this was a huge letdown. This is what makes these types of comics and it fell flat. The structure is unbalanced and tenuous at best and simply boring considering we are talking about fun and awesome games. Towards the end the comic got better and the 1980s and 1990s were surely the best part by far, but they didn't salvage the end product.

The art is OK, but quite stiff and the faces of the people are made from wood. The panels don't seems to follow one another seamlessly and there's a lack of direction too. The colors are nice, but shading and retro style would've made this better. Art for the decade kind of thing. A thinner line work would've given a face-lift and refreshed the comic a lot. The Comic Book Story of Video Games doesn't feel like it's ready and it's quite sporadic, but gets better if you don't lose your mind before the end. Perhaps the comic would need more pages and well, it would surely need better pacing and more simplified "plot" that's actually about video games.

Francamente mi ha lasciato piuttosto fredda. Pur ottimamente documentato dal punto di vista storico, fallisce nello spigare quali fattori hanno visto affermarsi i vari generi di videogames. Questo perché purtroppo l'autore non sembra porsi mai la domanda di quali fattori, aldilà della grafica e del puro piacere della sfida mano/occhio ci leghi ai giochi. Un po' come dire che, prescindendo un attimo dall'informatica, siano divertenti i giochi di abilità o destrezza, ma che non siano rilevanti i giochi di ruolo o quelli di strategia.

In più, anche se qui entriamo nel campo dei puri gusti personali e non mi provo neppure a razionalizzare, non sono riuscita a farmi piacere la grafica, cosa che naturalmente influenza il grado di apprezzamento di una graphic novel :(

Beautifully put together, though the content might be a little dry for some.

Great book. Good use of the medium, it presents the information accessibly and entertainingly. Each page comes with a warm glow of nostalgia.