Cover Gallery: Electronic Games, Halloween 1983

There have always been horror-themed videogames in the mix, even as far back as 1983, when Electronic Games magazine ran this Halloween cover.  Unfortunately, the industry didn't yet have any recognizable horror-themed mascots -- no Silent Hill Pyramid Heads or Castlevania Belmonts -- so the artist had to make do with the usual suspects, cast into a Halloween milieu:

 

See, they're celebrating scary games, and the 3rd birthday of Electronic Games magazine.

Ummmmm... yeah.

So let's see -- at the top we have the mad bomber from Activision's Kaboom!, a generic dragon beautifully painted for an early issue of EG and frequently recycled during the magazine's run, a red cartoon ghost with a Crazy Climber obsession, and a penguin who appears to be unhappily participating in Konami's Pooyan.

At the bottom, we see Donkey Kong, a remarkably muscular Mario, and his original, buxom main squeeze Pauline from the days before he decided that royal chicks were his thing; Q*Bert, apparently playing a tune on his nose; a couple of drug-addled Smurfs; a toothy beer-drinking Pac-Man; and a mustachioed gentleman I take to be Bounty Bob of Miner 2049er fame, based on the presence of his faithful mule. 

Terrifying!