See Mikeatron’s artwork at www.mikeatron.com
E-Mail: Mikeatron@geekerific.com
Hello! I’m Mike, or as some call me: Mikeatron!
Time for a story about video game nostalgia.
My fledgling experiences with gaming were very early in my life playing Number Munchers and Oregon Trail. It was excitement for me to stay in from the sun during recess to bask in the artificial blue glow of the class Apple IIe. Shortly after my foray into Cholera and Troggles, I contracted Gameboy brick fever.
I crammed the Gameboy into my pants and as my sidekick, it accompanied me everywhere. I made friends with a group of kids who played Gameboy and tolerated my huge wireframe bifocals and hair my dad cut. We avidly played titles like Final Fantasy Legend 2, Castlevania and Super Mario Land into memory.
I was the same as most kids I knew, I did not have enough money to buy video games of my own. The new video games I received happened only during special occasions as a gift. A game had to last a good portion of the year and when I received my shiny copy of Dragon Warrior 1 from Nintendo Power, an unholy transformation began.
When I had devoured all the Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior that there was at the time, I filled the video game void with extremely difficult games like Super Ghouls n’ Ghosts, Smash TV and Seventh Saga. To me, the extreme difficulty of a game extended the replay value due to the necessary mastery that was required. I still love the particularly frustrating games, and the controllers of my past bear the marks of my teeth as a result.
The tradition of being broke continues today in my vocational choice as an illustrator. My quest for games with a large amount of replay has transformed over the years, from basic RPG’s to Mudding, and eventually into the dark cold forest of MMO’s.
My geekiness has slowly metamorphosed into style. Goofy glasses and awkward hair are now part of the quirky nostalgia of my past that fuels the style of art I create today. My plan is to use the podcast and it’s revival of the video games that inhabited my past to influence new work. You can expect me to create reinterpretations of old video game characters and they will be viewable as part of my contributions to the site.
