Comic Book Story of Video Games, The

Description

A complete, illustrated history of video games--highlighting the machines, games, and people who have made gaming a worldwide, billion dollar industry/artform--told in a graphic novel format. Author Jonathan Hennessey and illustrator Jack McGowan present the first full-color, chronological origin story for this hugely successful, omnipresent artform and business. Hennessey provides readers with everything they need to know about video games--from their early beginnings during World War II to the emergence of arcade games in the 1970s to the rise of Nintendo to today's app-based games like Angry Birds and Pokemon Go. Hennessey and McGowan also analyze the evolution of gaming as an artform and its impact on society. Each chapter features spotlights on major players in the development of games and gaming that contains everything that gamers and non-gamers alike need to understand and appreciate this incredible phenomenon.

JONATHAN HENNESSEY is the author of three previous nonfiction graphic novels, The U.S. Constitution, The Gettysburg Address, and The Comic Book Story of Beer, as well as the history-based time travel series Epochalypse. Based in Los Angeles, he works in film and television. After receiving a BFA in illustration from Syracuse University, JACK MCGOWAN worked in-house for the Buffalo design firm Wynne Creative Group. Now freelance, McGowan focuses on drawing pictures, collaborative projects, and bringing a human story back into marketing and branding.

"For anybody wondering how we went from Pong to Pokemon Go in just a few decades, this history is a great starting point." -Publishers Weekly "A highly entertaining book that will resonate with gamers and nongamers alike. Grades 9 and up."-School Library Journal "Full of interesting information and insight."-Kirkus "[A] thorough, entertainingly illustrated account of an often overlooked corner of pop-culture history." -Peter Blenski, Booklist "The idea of telling the history of video games in a graphic novel is a radically inventive idea, and Jonathan Hennessey and his team have done an amazing job of it. It is chock full of fascinating stories about the people who laid the foundation for the technologies we take for granted today. I wish my history textbooks from high school had been this cool. I highly recommend this book!" -Warren Davis, designer/programmer of Q*Bert "The Comic Book Story of Video Games is fun, smart, and informative, all at the same time. Hennessey manages to be scholarly, too, as he blends forty years of sources, putting mysteries in context and settling controversies. The illustrations by Jack McGowan are terrific and appear lively enough to spring from the page." -Dona Bailey, Atari programmer of Centipede