In the week leading up to the 2017 Will Eisner Awards voting deadline this Friday, the Comics Beat will feature a series of “For Your Consideration” posts highlighting a number of the nominees as a celebration of their well-deserved acknowledgement. We’ll feature some never-before-seen behind the scenes content and some of the books’ gorgeous interiors. We encourage all of our readers to check these titles out and all of the eligible comics industry members to vote for the titles they think best exemplify what make comics great.
Tetris: the Games People Play is about more than just bricks. The Observer’s Brady Dale described Tetris as “a comic about business, videogames and (believe it or not) Cold War geopolitics. It should appeal to anyone who likes innovation, history and new perspectives on the stuff people get moved to make.” It’s a fascinating, multifacted gem of a comic.
Tetris: the Games People Play is up for the Eisner Award for Best Reality Based Work. The book’s creator, Box Brown, is up for the Best Writer/Artist award.
Here’s the official story summary from publisher First Second:
It is, perhaps, the perfect video game. Simple yet addictive, Tetris delivers an irresistible, unending puzzle that has players hooked. Play it long enough and you’ll see those brightly colored geometric shapes everywhere. You’ll see them in your dreams.
Alexey Pajitnov had big ideas about games. In 1984, he created Tetris in his spare time while developing software for the Soviet government. Once Tetris emerged from behind the Iron Curtain, it was an instant hit. Nintendo, Atari, Sega—game developers big and small all wanted Tetris. A bidding war was sparked, followed by clandestine trips to Moscow, backroom deals, innumerable miscommunications, and outright theft.
In this graphic novel, New York Times–bestselling author Box Brown untangles this complex history and delves deep into the role games play in art, culture, and commerce. For the first time and in unparalleled detail, Tetris: The Games People Play tells the true story of the world’s most popular video game.
In this fascinating interview with Brown following Tetris‘ release, he dives into his writing process:
I heard an interview with Louis CK recently and he was talking about the way Alan Alda acts. He just kind of goes through the script and feels it out. I kind of make comics in the same way. I tell stories to my wife and friends the same way too. There’s some sense of story and sequence and build but I guess it’s non-traditional. I’ve actually attempted many times to follow 3-act structure and journey of the hero and all that but it just doesn’t feel right to me. Although, I do have a fantasy of creating an epic hero.
I’ve actually attempted many times to follow three act structure and journey of the hero and all that but it just doesn’t feel right to me. Although, I do have a fantasy of creating an epic hero / Dragonball type story that would maybe follow more of a real structure but I’d probably veer off.
For your consideration, First Second has provided us with an excerpt from Tetris:
Check out of all of our 2017 Eisner coverage.
