Review of The Comic Book Story of Video Games by Jonathan Hennessey and Jack Mcgowan

A pretty dense information dump of a graphic novel. I’m a sucker for narrative and when narrative is lacking, as it is here, I have trouble focusing. Just page after page of this guy (and I mean guy in the literal sense, since the history of video games, at least in this iteration, is very dong-owning-focused. Obviously Hennessey and Mcgowan can’t rewrite history to include more women, but as a woman who’s been playing video games since 1987, it kind of sucks that the history is so masculine) made this game and then this guy made this other game. Also, no mention of Nethack, which I guess is okay when there are cameos by The King of the Cosmos and his son. I think I’ve been spoiled by Halt and Catch Fire when it comes to technology histories. I want plot and females and stories I can identify with, not just a timeline recounting of what happened when that (inadvertently) makes me feel that I’m always going to be excluded from one of my hobbies. Where are Cameron and Donna when I need them? Mutiny 4 evs!

The Comic Book Story of Video Games by Jonathan Hennessey and Jack Mcgowan went on sale October 3, 2017.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.