Video games and comic books are such underappreciated art forms. These fields have just as much potential as any art form.
Some of the greatest storytelling I have ever known has come from video games and comic books. Things like Calvin and Hobbes, Legend of Zelda, classic Final Fantasy, Carl Barks's classic Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck comic books (I grew up with their TV adaptation, Ducktales!), these, among many things in these fields, have simply incredible storytelling with stunning visuals! Work comparable to something like the original Star Wars trilogy!
And there is a second thing in this subject that I would like to talk about.
Which is this: that despite technical limitations, some real great creative work was done in video games before the time of the original Playstation, in the time of things like the original Mario Brothers and the original Nintendo Entertainment System.
Take the Mario Brothers games, for example. The classics.
I cannot imagine a work like this- a video game that functions in part as a kind of video game equivalent of a competitive athletic sport, with the character running and jumping and things like that, as they do in the classic platform games- done any better as a work of art than the classic Mario Brothers games.
Simple but memorable characters following a simple but engaging story, running and jumping through an absolutely staggering example of what I call 'cartoon worldbuilding', building a fascinating colorful cartoon world of endless fascination!
Another is some of the music created for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The NES was extremely limited in its sound chip. But just like Bach created incredible music for nothing more than solo cello or violin, just like Dr. Seuss created memorable and engaging children's books using nothing more than the most simple, easy to read words in books like 'The Cat in the Hat', so talented composers working on classic games like the Ducktales video game created music that was written around the limited sound chip of the NES, taking the technical limitations as a challenge, for this is something that people, including artists, often do so well- to take technical limitations as a challenge to spur their creativity!
And so as we look at underappreciated art forms, let's also consider that, just as Bach could write stunning music for nothing more than solo cello or violin, fascinating worlds upon worlds were created around the technical limitations of the original Nintendo Entertainment System on games like the original Mario Brothers, creating classic works that in the field of art represented by platform games like Mario Brothers will probably never be surpassed.
Underappreciated art forms, and greatness despite technical limitations!
God loves you!
Sincerely,
David S. Annderson