Thursday 2 August 2012

Max Overload! - Part 1

Back at the beginning of 1994, Dark Horse decided to launch a video games magazine, for some reason. Dark Horse's background was, of course, in comics, so it seemed like they could offer something unique to the world of gaming magazines. And offer they did, in the form of Max Overload! (exclamation mark their own). 



And that unique thing? Comics, that's right. Other gaming publications had done this before - Sega Power had Captain Ages and his punk pal, Rewop (good, but more of a piss-take than anything else), whilst Sonic The Comic and Load Runner were more comics with magazine-ish bits in them. Max Overload was a "proper" magazine (with reviews and previews and news and stuff), but it had comics as "main features", so to speak. Hard to explain really - it's a magazine with comics in it. There we go. Oh, and this first issue includes some free Lemmings stickers.

In the first of a four-part series, we'll be looking at the comics contained within its pages. The first of these? It's based on Lemmings, which is nice. Drawn by Graham P. Manley (Judge Dredd, Diceman, Near Myths etc.) and written by Dick Hansom (Aliens, Predator - it pays to be a comics publisher if you're doing comics!). Here it is, enjoy!









Good, eh? Other comics in Max Overload! were based on ToeJam & Earl, Chuck Rock and Greendog (which is a LOT better than the game its based on!). As far as I know, the magazine only made it to two issues, which is a shame and a source of great sadness. Also, I've never seen the second issue anywhere, ever - only heard it mentioned in passing. Ah well. The rest of the comics are on their way in the near future, have no fear!

4 comments:

  1. Love obscure games comics! I found some issues online of Marvel's early eighties videogame comic--mag-type-thing Blip! That had some interesting Donkey Kong stuff, and some Spidey & Hulk game-themed stories too!

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  2. Never heard of Blip, sounds good though! One for the shopping list then...

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  3. I have a mint condition copy of the second issue. As far as I am aware I have one of the only remaining copies. I am interested in selling.

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    1. Wow, they're really that scarce? I have one too - found it earlier this year, after 23 years of searching!

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