B0NK'S ADVENTUREThis ad ran, among other places, in Todd McFarlane's crack at Amazing Spider-Man #1 -- at its time the best-selling single comic book issue of all time, before he jumped ship to Image. You've certainly seen the cover artwork of the first issue of his Torment storyline. In any case, I imagine it ensured that this ad got seen by a lot of kids -- but even they weren't enough for the TurboGrafx-16 to be a viable platform on this side of the water.
A LONG, LONG TIME AGO, LATER THAN YOU THINK AND SOONER THAN YOU KNOW, THERE WAS A STRANGE AND TERRIBLE KINGDOM..."HELP! BONK! SAVE ME!"
TREE: "I WOULDN'T WANT TO BE IN KING DROOL'S SHOES ONCE BONK BONKS HIS WAY TO HIM!"DROOL: "BONK... HAH! THAT CRUDE CAVEBOY WILL NEVER MAKE HIS WAY HERE... I'VE SEEN TO IT! YOU'RE MINE, PRINCESS!"
PRINCESS ZA: "YOU MUST BE JOKING! NOTHING CAN STOP BONK!"BONK: "SHE'S NOT TALKING THROUGH HER CROWN, EITHER! BRICKS AND STONES MAY BREAK MY BONES... -- BUT NOT WHEN I BONK 'EM WITH MY HEAD!"
TREES: "WOW! THAT'S... REALLY USING YOUR HEAD!" [B0NK!]
BONK: "WOAH! I WASN'T COUNTING ON YOU SHOWING UP!"
DINO: "I'M COUNTING THE PAY DROOL GAVE ME TO STOP YOU! I'M WORKING FOR HIM NOW!"
FLOWER: "BONK, OVER HERE!"[ROARRRRR] BONK: I DON'T HAVE ENOUGH POWER YET FOR A HEAD-ON COLLISION WITH YOU... BUT I WILL WHEN I PICK THIS FLOWER..."
BONK: "... AND CHARGE UP WITH MEAT AND OTHER GOOD THINGS AND -- [WHOOSH!] ... GO NUCLEAR!"
BONK: "YIKE! THE TERRIBLE T. RACTORHEAD! IT'S ONE THING AFTER ANOTHER IN THIS PLACE!"
BONK: "TO BONK HIM, I'LL NEED ANOTHER FLOWER FOR TWICE THE POWER!"
BONK: "OOOPS! A VENUS BONKTRAP! I'M STUCK!" [CHOMP!]
PRINCESS: "I'M DOOMED... UNLESS YOU SAVE BONK SO HE CAN RESCUE ME... IN THE ALL-NEW TURBO-GRAFX 16 BONK'S ADVENTURE"
A caveman protagonist was rarely enough on its own to float a game; by this sophisticated era they also needed to ride skateboards, a la Encino Man (or more to the point, Wonder Boy rebranded as Master Higgins). Eventually we got Caveman Ninjas and, well, then the whole thing started to fall apart. Though NEC never got a better mascot than Bonk together, the shine fell off his tenure when his debut game appeared on the NES -- a mercenary move, Hudson!
A blogger with less restraint than I might not have been able to avoid a joke in that "twice the power" panel. Me, I like how several times over the course of this strip, Bonk appears to be an angry baby.
Was this one of the ones I scanned for you? I am thinking it was.
ReplyDeleteThis was one ad in comics we both owned (how else would I know what issue it was printed in?) You did a scan of this one for me, but as with some of the spreads where I tried to cram in two pages into the scanner at once, I only ended up with either the spine or the edges in focus and not both. So yes, it is, but this is not that scan -- it's a collage of two pages I scanned and pasted together. (Inexactly, as you can see in King Drool's opening speech.)
DeleteThanks anyway, though! These are just about my favorite synthesis of video game and comic book.