Comic Book Story of Video Games: The Incredible History of the Electronic Gaming Revolution

Author Jonathan Hennessey and illustrator Jack McGowan present the first full-colour, chronological origin story for this hugely successful, omnipresent artform and business in the form of a graphic novel. As he did with The Comic Book Story of Beer, 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 analyse 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. The result is an easily digestible, giftable package that contains everything that gamers and non-gamers alike need to understand and appreciate this incredible phenomenon. --From the Back Cover

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