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Bitmap Books, purveyors of fine, papered publications, has announced that some of its best-selling, out-of-print titles will be returning to the store next month, following a new wave of much-requested reprints.
The four titles will be available to pre-order directly from the site October 1, with expectations to ship these orders the following week.
Artcade: The Book of Classic Arcade Game Artwork - Extended Edition. Originally published in 2019 and authored by Bitmap Books in association with artist Larry Day, Artcade is a celebration of the colourful, magnetic, and frequently lurid world of classic coin-op cabinet art.
The "16:9" style, 256-page compendium features high-quality digital scans of a huge variety of bezel artwork from the '70s, '80s, and '90s. The Extended Edition includes an interview with Day, as well as written pieces from contributor Escape Pod on the meticulous process of art restoration and recreation.
Go Straight: The Ultimate Guide to Side-Scrolling Beat 'Em Ups. Originally published in 2022 and authored by writer and comic-book creator Dave Cook, Go Straight is the ultimate testament to the side-scrolling beat-'em-up genre, with a mighty 450 pages dedicated to the walk-and-brawl titles that took the coin-op scene by (violent) storm in the late '80s and early '90s.
Double Dragon, Final Fight, Golden Axe, Vendetta, and Gaia Crusaders are among the 200 games showcased in Go Straight - complete with glossy images, write-ups, and a wealth of intriguing trivia. I personally have a copy of this excellent tome, and it makes for perfect reading between throwing thugs through telephone booths and eating roast chicken out of garbage cans.
The Art of The Box. First published in 2023, this tome puts the emphasis squarely on the artists themselves, interviewing a wide variety of talent who, at one point or another, spent their time, skill, and passion creating some of the most enduring images in home gaming history.
Bob Wakelin, Steve Hendricks, Ken Macklin, Tom DuBois, Steinar Lund, Marc Ericksen, Julie Bell and Susumu Matsushita are among the 26 artists featured in the book, complete with luscious, full-page replications of their art, reprinted in clean form without the sullying of branding, text, or logos. The 560-page book includes over 350 images and more than 100,000 words.
The Games of a Lifetime. Published in February of 2025 and selling out in double-quick time, The Games of a Lifetime is a five-decade recollection of legendary game critic Julian "Jaz" Rignall, told through the video games that have defined his life and career. While not an autobiography or an encyclopedic guide to gaming history, the book is more of a life told through the arcade, console, and computer games that punctuated it.
The 420-page book features hundreds of screenshots pulled from a plethora of games - ranging from platforms such as the Atari 400, ZX Spectrum, and Amiga, through the PC Engine, PlayStation, and Xbox, to modern classics of the PC and PS5 - all told with a contemporary, personal take on not just the games and platforms themselves, but the eras and attitudes that allowed them to exist, thrive, or indeed, crash.
All four titles will launch pre-orders on October 1 at 17:00 BST / 18:00 CEST / 12:00 ET / 09:00 PT on the Bitmap Books store. If you're interested in any of these releases, look sharp, as all four titles are currently OOP, and there's no telling when, or if, they will receive another reprint.
In addition to the above books, Bitmap Books is currently planning future reprints for some of its other releases, including Sinclair ZX Spectrum: A Visual Compendium and SNES/Super Famicom: A Visual Compendium