Geek Ephemera: A look back at Marvel’s BLiP Video Game Magazine

Timing is everything.

Marvel Comics had previously had some success with their pop culture magazine Pizzazz (which I look back on fondly here), so after the video game craze hit the US by storm in the late 70s and early 80s, they decided to cash in on the mania. BEHOLD: BLiP, The Video Game Magazine!

Except… By that point there were dozens of video game magazines. Computer Gaming World, Electronic Games, Atari Age, Tilt, and more. And even worse, BLiP (Yes, that is how they spelled it, with a lower-case ‘I’) was printed in the standard comic-book size, and so retailers displayed it with the other comics. Video Game fans who were ALSO comic readers would be the only folks who would see it, and while that cross-section was significant… It probably wasn’t enough

And the killing blow came with the publish date of the first issue: February, 1983. While that is not the actual date the issue came out (that was usually two months before the cover date), 1983 was the year of the Great Videogame Crash, when a glut in the home game market and a flood of cheap Atari cartridges destroyed the burgeoning industry. So putting out your first video game mag that year was… Again, timing is everything.

Each issue had reviews of games, articles, bad jokes, comic stories, interviews, and some pretty weird stuff. My favorite thing in the seven issues Marvel published was in the second issue, where you have Spider-Man on the cover playing… Spider-Man, the new Atari cartridge. The article inside has pic of Spidey, Atari joystick in hand, being cheered on by kids and Stan Lee (!) and jeered by his arch-nemesis the Green Goblin.

It. Is. Awesome.

The last issue has the Hulk confronted with his ultimate enemy, a “Rubik’s cube”.

Back issues of BLiP are available on eBay and your local comic shops MAY have some, but no need to grab a physical copy: Archive.org has all issues available digitally. So check it out, if only for some of the great retro game ads.

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