An excerpt of the Mario cartoon from Legends of the Joystick.
Gene Luen Yang and Thien Pham, author and illustrator of the recent Level Up graphic novel, have been having fun with classic video game characters over at Tor.com. Each four-panel comic is a sort of “where are they now?” with famous characters like Mario, Centipede, Q-bert, and Frogger. So far there are only four strips up but they’re all great. I think the weird cognitive dissonance of seeing digital characters rendered in Pham’s soft watercolors is part of the charm.
The site says there will be strips “twice a day this week” but I don’t know how many strips there will be in all. I’m hoping to see Pac-Man, Link, and Tetris before long, though.
Just a note: cute as they are, the strips are intended for adults. Your kids probably wouldn’t get the jokes anyway.
Check out Legends of the Joystick here.
