Illustration Friday – 80′s (Donkey Kong!)

Donkey Kong cut-paper art by Patrick GannonGrowing up in the 80′s, the good ol’ cathode ray tube burned a million images into my young, impressionably squishy brain. The worst offenders were the video games. I read once that they steal your dreams. It’s no lie. Play for long enough and all you’ll see when you close your eyes is pixelly goodness. Today’s games with their fancy graphics and cinematic cut-scenes and plots can’t hold a candle to the primary-colored power of Pac-Man, Joust or Pitfall!.

monkey faceDonkey Kong is right at home in the 80′s. He also fits my own personal theme for Illustration Friday this year. He’s had a bit of a makeover in the past few years, but I prefer his original flat charm to the new version with his three-dimensional pompadour.

Click the image to see gorilla-sized Kong.

  1. put out the big light’s avatar

    oh i am a big fan of this one! i was never much of a video game player but donkey kong was an exception…..!

    Reply

  2. garth’s avatar

    yeah, he stole a few of my dreams as well, along with Drangon’s Lair and Tron. Stupid cool video games.

    Great illo! I like your style.

    http://www.artofgarth.com

    Reply

  3. South Ocean’s avatar

    hehe, you got that cut out from his face, thats funny :D
    This was my favorite Game & Watch title, this sure brings back lots of memories! Great illo!

    Reply

  4. Brian B’s avatar

    Ahhh…the deadliest of the ninja clan…the paper cut ninjas…oh-wait that is cut paper ninja….but I digress…Your paper cut illustration is great…I always put those at the top of my list as far as favorites because they can be exceptionally difficult to pull off well…very nice and great textures…

    Reply

  5. peruvian princess’s avatar

    really cool. like all of it. :)

    Reply

  6. MiJa’s avatar

    i likie! I used to have the hand-held donkey kong game that I would play for hours! Nicely done!

    Reply

  7. Your neighbor down the hill’s avatar

    Shigeru Miyamoto was a new staff artist for Nintendo and he knew nothing about programming—Hell, he had grown up without a television. This was to be his first video game. Although his ideas seemed to come from old King Kong movies from America, he didn’t know what the hell to call it, and since the game would be played in arcades in the US, he needed another name for his main character besides King Kong. Something that described how “GANKO” this creature was. Something that just wouldn’t do what it was told. He already had one animal. What other animals were known for being notoriously hard to deal with? Mules… camels… donkeys…

    And that was it.

    Donkey Kong.

    Reply

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