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I've been reading comics since the mid-80s and enjoy going back and reading series that I haven't looked at in years. I recently decided to re-read a run of "Green Lantern: Mosaic," a bizarre short-lived early-90s Green Lantern comic starring a hero who tried to keep piece on a multicultural world.*
I've found that old comics are stuffed with old video game ads. The old ads are fascinating for a gaming obsessive like me. The ads in "Green Lantern: Mosaic," for example betray the values and aspirations of the 16-bit era. I lost count of the number of ads which sported clumsy sprite graphics and yet touted how "real," or "so real" their games were. It gets me thinking that "realism" then is what "maturity" is now: the quality isn't quite there yet but which the game-makers and game marketers vocally aspire to.
Anyway, my two favorite ads from the first few issues of "Green Lantern: Mosaic" are reproduced here.
One is for Sega Genesis game "Kid Chameleon." I like this one because of the highlighted feature. Who could remember that, in the old days, a game publisher could boast about the number of screens a game has?
The other ad I liked was "Smartball," just for the novelty of seeing a Super Nintendo game made by Sony.
*(I was inspired to re-read the run when I bought a comic that was a precursor to the series in a comics shop in Halifax. The comic had its hero, John Stewart confront the beginnings of conflict on this multicultural world. Instead of doing the normal super-hero thing of flying down and physically breaking things up, he flew to a library and read some books about how to establish peace.)