By Todd Russell
Feel like I vaguely — and like distantly — remember there being some sort of comics associated with Atari 2600. The name, of these DC comics were: Atari Force. They were smaller-sized comic books included with some of the games. It was the first kind of DLC as we know today sold with physical games that I remember, anyway.
“Back in the heyday of the Atari 2600, several games were shipped with mini-comic books as an added bonus. In total, 10 different comic books were created, most of which were produced by DC Comics. Of these ten comics, two formed a related series of books: Atari Force and Swordquest. The Atari Force comics shipped with the games Defender, Berzerk, Star Raiders, Phoenix, and Galaxian. Atari Force would later become a full-size comic with a run of 20 issues. The Swordquest series of comics, also created by DC, accompanied the games of the same name and were part of a grand contest comprising four games with spectacular prizes created by the Franklin Mint. Unfortunately, only three of the four games (Earthworld, Fireworld and Waterworld) were released, the contest was never concluded, and the last comic, Airworld, was never inked. The last two comics are Centipede, another DC creation, and a comic done internally for Yars’ Revenge called The Qotile Ultimatum” – AtariAge – Atari Comic Books
Atari Force comics available via Internet Archive
https://archive.org/details/AtariForceComicBookCollection
You can read these comics (in CBZ format) in MComix:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/mcomix/
Examples of the comics pictured below from the first issue.
Would you like to see comic books packed in with games today? What do you think? Sound off in the comments.