Hey Giant Bomb Fam,
I finally put my Volume 1 issue of Nintendo Power Magazine signed by the Giant Bomb original 4, up for an online auction with 100% of the proceeds going to Penny Arcade's Child's Play Charity. So I'm not here promoting my auction, because I have nothing to gain from it. It's 100% for charity. Also, you don't even have to try and find the auction, because I'm going to include the details of the whole nerdy adventure here. Just wanted to share a Giant Bomb and Ryan Davis story with the folks I know would enjoy it most.
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Oh boy, here goes... Finally parting with my Original Premier First Issue of Nintendo Power Magazine I got in 6th grade in 1988. Dang...
*** 100% of the sale price of this magazine goes to Child's Play charity which provides toys (and video games) for kids in hospitals ***
So there's the magazine, you probably know what this is if you're already to this point. The foldout Zelda map is not included. The magazine otherwise is in pretty good shape, see the pics. There's one rough edge, but no tears or creases. The magazine includes big spreads for some super-classic NES games including Double Dragon, Contra, Super Mario Bros. 2, and the Second Quest of the original 8-bit Legend of Zelda.
Also note here is an official Nintendo write up of the Contra code (or the Konami Code). It was in the Classified Information section of this magazine. The world probably knew of the code before this, I'm not going to go so far as to say that this is the first time it was ever published, but it's certainly a VERY EARLY instance and since this magazine went out free to probably millions of Nintendo fans, there were bunches and bunches of folks who first learned of it from this magazine.
One last thing. This is the issue with Cliff Blezinski's name on the top scores page. Cliff Blezinski ended up being kind of a big deal in gaming, I'll let you look him up.
-------------------------But let's talk about the ADVENTURE (the signatures)--------------------
I went to PAX the Penny Arcade Expo in Boston in 2012. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity. I waited for years for it to come to the east coast and then longer to try and find money for the trip. But it was my first chance to be in around the icons of this industry that I've grown up knowing. I wasn't going to play games or see previews. I was going see people. I wanted to hear Ken Levine talk about Bioshock Infinite, I wanted to see the Giant Bomb crew live and maybe I'd even run into the Penny Arcade guys or the cast of CGW/GFW Radio, the greatest video game podcast ever (it's a 2007 thing... you had to be there). Some people want to meet Tom Cruise, I wanted to meet Jeff Green!
So at PAX I did go to the Giant Bomb panel and after the panel the crew did come out and sign stuff and it was pretty great. I'm a terrible introvert and I had a million excuses in my head why I should abandon my quest and just leave back for the hotel.. but I stuck it out and sure enough the guys eventually came out and split into 4 different corners of the lobby area and lines formed and we all got stuff signed. I of course had my first issue of Nintendo Power, the very item you're bidding on now, because it's the oldest and coolest video game thing I had and it was more than 20 years old at the time, so it spoke to my history in the medium and I hope it made the signers feel important because it was a real collectors item they were about to scribble on. I went to Vinny first, he was charming like Vinny always is and it eased my nerves a bit. I remember Drew Scanlon was kind of standing behind him with all the camera stuff and he wasn't part of main crew at the time and it was an awkward moment of "should I ask Drew to sign this too?" ultimately I decided not to, my bad, because it turns out Drew is super awesome. Then I think was Brad Shoemaker, I mentioned that he and I are from the same state and he was very pleasant and immediately noticed what he was signing and even thumbed through the magazine and commented on a few things before he signed it. I think Jeff had the least to say, just "hi how are you", I imagine its very difficult to stay "on" 100% of the time. In the PAX environment, Jeff Gerstmann is probably about as big a celebrity as you get, it's probably fatiguing. Finally Ryan Davis was last, I remember Ryan saying "I'm going to deface Mario" and he signed it right over Mario's face on the magazine. This kind of perturbed me at the time because there was plenty of room to sign w/o messing up the key image of the cover, but Ryan was so enthusiastic it was hard to stay mad for long, I did ask him for his autograph after all. Just in case you don't know, Ryan Davis died a little more than a year later at the far too young age of 33 I think. So there's no more Ryan Davis autographs happening on this planet. Get this while you can. You and Ryan together are contributing to a very worthwhile cause, Child's Play Charity. Bring some happiness to some young folks in bad situations.
Also got Mike Krahulik's signature. He's the artist for the Penny Arcade comic and part of the team/company behind PAX. What was funny about this was that I out-of-nowhere caught him coming across the skywalk/skybridge thing inside the BCEC over the show floor and I'm pretty sure he was trying to zip into a side door because when I said his name he had a deer-in-the-headlights look, knowing he'd been caught by a fan. I kind of felt bad about it but it's literally his job to tend to his fans and he seems to be very humble about his celebrity and very dedicated to his fans. The thing is that I had to pull my magazine and sharpie out of my backpack and that held him up for a few seconds and after he signed my magazine there was a crowd around him and when I left some guy was telling Mike about his Bioshock tattoo. Sorry Mike. He was very friendly to me and I'm glad I got his autograph. I did not get Jerry Holkin's autograph that weekend, that is left as an exercise for the buyer.
Finally sunday morning, the last day of PAX I saw Jeff Green. There was no CGW/GFW Radio reunion at this PAX so that ship had sailed, but I knew Jeff was around that weekend and I was absolutely star struck to see him. And it was sunday morning and NO ONE was around, so I thought I'd just sit down and chat with Jeff for a while. He was employed by Pop Cap at the time and he was playing Plants vs Zombies on 360. I was as friendly as I could possibly be but Jeff barely made eye contact. I tried to start a couple conversations with him about PC gaming or PvZ, but he shut every one of them down. I finally decided that he was probably hung over and couldn't have carried on a conversation if he'd tried. Because there was absolutely nothing else there worthy of his attention, he was just to be on-site schmoozing with fans, and he was hung over and incapable. When I pulled out my magazine he was like "What's this? this isn't mine". I decided not to bother him with why my magazine was still awesome, despite not being one he worked on. Still love Jeff Green though. Motorcycle ridin', Pop Cappin', Hit Detectin', Brodeoin', Xanthor Cudgelin, Black Dragon Twitchin', "You're not the Lord of the Rings!" dreaming Jeff Green. So awesome... I just caught him on a bad day. :)
So there's the story of this signed magazine. I hope you'll love having it as much as I have. Definitely some poor sick kids somewhere will be happy you have it. BID HIGH! HELP KIDS!!
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