I was really looking forward to opening up this package to get a first hand look at the artwork. I ran some errands with my kids, recapped a wg4900 series chassis, and just kept busy. I would check the FedEx website every 30 minutes or so to see if anything had changed. Nope, it was still on the truck for delivery. By about 6pm I started to get a little worried, but the status hadn’t changed so I figured the holiday packages had kept the driver behind schedule. At 8pm I figured I was screwed, but it wasn’t until 8:20pm that I saw this…

I could think of lots of things to say, but none of them are nice. It looks like I’ll have to wait until tomorrow. Stay tuned.

The sign has the standard Willis logo, date and trademark info right on the front, typical of Willis artwork. Being just a sticker, it wasn’t printed using the heavy duty 3M paper and adhesive, just a generic plain backing. I can’t recall ever seeing these on games back in the day, usually it was just a hand scrawled note that said “Out of order” taped to the bezel. Not sure if sticking one of these on a game would have been a good idea anyway, would they come off easily? Doubt it.

The Deep is an obscure game from the late 80′s that appears to have submarines, ships, missiles and sharks in its theme. It is tough to tell if this game is just a variation of the classic sub vs. ship game, or if sharks and other obstacles are actually included. Little information is available about it. If I had my MAME setup running, I could try it out, I suppose. The game was manufactured by Wood Place, Inc. and the US version was licensed by Profit Vending of Glendale, CA. They must have purchased just the circuit boards because the artwork produced by Profit Vending is in sharp contrast to the polished art on the Japanese flyer. (Thanks to TAFA for the flyer image)

If I had to guess I’d say that Profit Vending was simply producing conversion kits. They would buy the game from the Japanese manufacturer and then repackage it with their own bad artwork. The poor quality of the overlay puts it in the same class as many of the bootlegs I’ve come across and I can’t imagine that helped sales. If anyone has any more information, cabinet or game images, drop me a line. Or if you fire it up in MAME, let me know if there are sharks involved, thanks.

This overlay is made up of four colors, black, gray, red and blue with the character face utilizing the white paper for its color effect. A pretty simplistic overlay with only one small piece of character art in the center. Character art that was lifted from the instruction card, not even original artwork. The lack of depth in the sunburst pattern, a popular motif in the 80′s, gives the overlay a very flat appearance. This overlay is a poor attempt to represent the game as seen in the Capcom flyer. The control panel overlay has no markings of any kind that might help to identify its origin. The plain white waxy backing paper means it was done cost effectively, or “cheaply”. Solid evidence for bootleg status.

Considering Galaga was produced by Midway (with a Namco license) in 1981, it didn’t take long for the people at Willis to scoop up the rights to make this alternate cpo, dated 1982. I imagine that new original replacement overlays were still available, so my guess is that Willis was the cheaper, licensed alternative to buying a new cpo directly from Midway. Perhaps this was one way the major manufacturers dealt with piracy, which was rampant throughout the industry. Cabinets, pcbs and artwork were all getting bootlegged. Anything an operator could do to save a buck. Offering the op a lower cost alternative overlay, might keep him from making his own cpo’s and bypassing the system completely.

Willis may have made some “interesting” artwork back in the day, but they certainly had higher manufacturing standards than this. The Popeye cpo bootleg was probably made by a large scale operator looking to avoid the high priced Nintendo kits. It’s in great shape and a fantastic bit of cheesy, 80′s arcade art. I’m happy to add it to the archive.

A true piece of 80′s cheese, for sure, but if you can get past the airbrushed silkscreen fantasy cover, you will find a few nuggets of classic arcade history.

The first paragraph talks about turning visual ideas into bottom line profits using the Willis illustrators and color psychology as a way to create compelling game art. What? I thought Willis just made those bad replacement overlays? Nope. The images on the inside cover clearly show artwork done for some of the major manufacturers of the day. Assuming Willis used the images as a sort of portfolio of past work, then Phoenix, Carnival, Spectar, Targ and Eagle art packages were all cranked out by Willis. Oh, but there is more.

The next paragraph talks about, “Willis pioneered the reverse-printed, pressure-sensitive, polycarbonate control panel for video games.” Whoa. Now Webster describes pioneer as, “to originate or take part in the development of”. So are we to assume that Willis helped turn around an industry practice of printing on metal control panels (think berzerk, gorf, asteroids, etc) and introduced the industry to a whole new way of thinking? Or were they perhaps just at the right place and time and picked up on the idea from others in the business? They were located in San Jose CA, so it is possible that they were influenced by Atari or the printer doing the work for Atari. I can only speculate without more data at my disposal and sadly much of what is known about Willis seems to be lost to the ages.

The back cover of the brochure highlights some of the comments Willis received from clients such as, Gemlin, U.S. Billiards, Centuri, Exidy and International Game Technology or IGT. So Willis did more than just crank out replacement overlays, they had a hand in the creative development of some true 80′s classic games. Think twice next time you come across that cheesy Willis cpo. Even the cheese has a place in arcade history.

A good friend of mine, Jeff Rothe of rotheblog got hooked on the game during one of his visits. The game is just one of those sleeper hits that once you play, it quickly gets added to your list of favorites. Jeff has taken on the ambitious project of putting together a Mad Planets game and asked me if I could take some scans of the artwork on the front. Since he is interested in reproducing the art for his personal project, there is a good chance this artwork will see the light of day. Good news for any Mad Planet owners with games needing some TLC.

I took as many scans as possible with my HP window scanner and then followed up with some high resolution shots in macro on my digital camera. Hopefully Jeff will be able to piece the stuff together and make it look good. Watch for progress on his work over at coinopspace the arcade forum dedicated to the arcade collecting hobby. None of the BS, just loads of fun. Happy gaming.