Hello! Jace here. Kevyn and I recently recorded a podcast with games scholar + critic Dan Staines (Tweeter!) and cartoonist Patrick Alexander (Twooter!). If you haven’t listened to it yet, here it is. For those who may be unfamiliar with Dan and Patrick’s work that we discussed on the show, including GBA World, Total Gamer and Eegra, I’ll go over each briefly, showing a few samples I scanned that we mentioned along the way.

I’m sorry if these scans aren’t the best! I have a bit of a cheapo scanner, and I haven’t 100% figured out all the kinks. Not to mention I have had all these since I was a kid, so much of it is not in ideal condition and has been marked here and there. I’m hoping in the next few months I’ll undergo the long time coming pet project of scanning and uploading issues of GBA World and Total Gamer on its own little website, and am hoping for the quality to be higher for that. If you have any tips or feedback re: good scanners and ideal settings for magazines, don’t hesitate to shoot me a message on my personal tweetie-town page!

GBA World

GBA World was editor Dan Staines’ first magazine published by Next Publishing, with an obvious focus on covering Game Boy Advance hardware and software. It was a bi-monthly that ran from 2002-2004. While it was not nearly as consistently unhinged as its follow-up, there were several really funny, bizarre additions throughout its life – many of which Patrick was responsible for, which led to Dan bringing in Patrick as deputy editor on Total Gamer. Lets take a look at a couple of these moments!

(Y’all can click on these thumbnails to enlarge ’em to full size, come on back now, ya hear!)

GBA World Issue #9, May/June 2004 -Yu-Gi-Oh: The Sacred Cards review

The GBA was constantly barraged by seemingly endless games based on the Yu-Gi-Oh! Franchise – in this issue, two different Yu-Gi-Oh! games were reviewed back-to-back.

Patrick was assigned the task of reviewing a Yu-Gi-Oh! game. As you can see, he had some fun with it.

GBA World Issue #11, Oct/Nov 2004

The last issue of GBA World. Each issue had a few strategy guides for the latest GBA games in the last several pages of the magazine. Since it was the last issue, Patrick produced a very special walkthrough of a Dragon Ball Z: Legacy of Goku game which, similarly to the Yu-Gi-Oh! Franchise, had several entries on the GBA. What follows is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen in any magazine.

I still use this pancake recipe to this day.

Personal aside: I was nine in 2004, and when I read that GBA World had ceased publication, I cried, staining my Super Mario bedspread. But not to worry, you snivelling, lazy brat – Total Gamer was soon to follow!

Total Gamer

Ran from 2004-2006. Headed by Dan Dan the Editor Man and deputy editor Patrick, Total Gamer was bursting with eccentric personality and irreverent japes. Note that many of the covers for Total Gamer looked a lot like…

That’s it for the scans! After Total Gamer ceased publication, Eegra began in 2007 and was active until 2009, run by both Dan and Patrick with content in the same vein as Total Gamer with a more critical, mature spin. As it currently stands, Eegra and its articles have been lost to time, but you can find the Hilarity Comics made by Patrick that were once hosted there on his lovely little tumblr. While you’re at it, read his comic Tobias & Jube too – a new comic in the series titled Tobias and Jube and the Something Hat Mystery comes out September 25th on the stela app, and I reckon you oughta be excited about it.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed these scans from GBA World and Total Gamer and would like to see more, do not fret! As I mentioned, in the coming months I will be working on scanning many more pages from these precious little magazines and putting them up somewhere for the world to see – and there’s certainly a lot more to see! So look forward to it, and look out for any updates on my humble twootspace.

Once again, big huge thanks and hugs to Dan and Patrick for coming on the show – it means a lot to me and Kevyn, and somewhere deep inside of me I can feel my ten-year old form pooping himself with delight that this could even happen.

Talk again soon!