I AM THE DOOMGUY.
July 19, 2017 7:54 PM   Subscribe

Doomguy's Identity by John Romero “Don Punchatz, the illustrator who created the DOOM logo and the famous front box cover art came over to id in mid-1993 with a male body model. Don brought a nice camera to take pictures. The model's job was to strike various poses for the marine who would be on the cover of the box. [...] The body model took his shirt off and started posing with our plasma gun toy. Don asked us for suggestions so I started telling him that the Marine was going to be attacked by an infinite amount of demons. It would be cool if he was on a hill and firing down into them. The model was holding the gun in various positions and none of them were interesting to me.”
posted by Fizz (23 comments total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
I'm sure a lot of it has to do with the nostalgia I have for the original DOOM game but that cover is still one of the most amazing video game covers I've ever seen. It's one that regularly finds its way on to my desktop background. This is a fun little Easter egg.
posted by Fizz at 7:58 PM on July 19, 2017 [1 favorite]


The thing that gets me about that cover is that the demon grabbing his arm doesn't look angry or evil so much as... hopeful. Like he wants to do that leg-grabbing thing from Boris Vallejo's Vacation poster, but hopes that it's not too much to ask.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:03 PM on July 19, 2017 [9 favorites]


We all know deep down these demons are hoping to get gunned down by the legendary warrior. He's just saying "Yo dude, save a bullet for this face over here."
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 8:10 PM on July 19, 2017 [2 favorites]


Of course Romero is the Doom guy. When he takes his helmet off do his beautiful long locks spill out in flowing cascades? Also, if Romero is the Doom guy, does that mean the whole game (well, up to Doom 2) is really a metaphor for destroying one's inner demons? ("to win the game, you must kill me, john romero").
posted by dis_integration at 8:15 PM on July 19, 2017 [4 favorites]


Semi-related nerdery: John Romero has been dealing with a number of tweets that have been sent his way as loving tributes. There's just one problem. He's not George Romero. And he's not dead.
posted by Fizz at 8:16 PM on July 19, 2017 [2 favorites]


I'ma calling this being John stroking his own ego. He's apparently still pissed he never made me his bitch.
posted by Samizdata at 8:16 PM on July 19, 2017 [11 favorites]


Man, Doom, I used to have dreams of the different levels, I played it so much. But here's the thing, after not playing it for decades, I was at a video games exhibition at the science museum in Montreal. There was a setup with the original Doom so I lined up to revisit the game for old times sake. OMG, what a shock. I guess it's because of everything that's happened in game tech since then. The game was all pixelly, the movement of those brown monkey-demons were so jerky and linear. The little pistol with its bang-bang....

You can't go home again. And you can't play the old video games either.
posted by storybored at 8:27 PM on July 19, 2017 [5 favorites]


You can't go home again. And you can't play the old video games either.

This is true, but new DOOM is a loving tribute and worthy successor.
posted by Fizz at 8:50 PM on July 19, 2017 [4 favorites]


NO I'M DOOMGUY
posted by turbid dahlia at 8:57 PM on July 19, 2017


his is true, but new DOOM yt is a loving tribute and worthy successor.

To paraphrase an ex, it makes my socks go up and down.
posted by Samizdata at 8:57 PM on July 19, 2017


Also I'm going to go ahead and say it: I had way, way more fun with Brutal Doom than I did with the DOOM reboot.
posted by turbid dahlia at 9:00 PM on July 19, 2017 [3 favorites]


I had more fun with DoomRL... excuse me, DRL. (Happy, Bethesda?)

Also, now that I think of the DOOM box art for the first time in 20+ years, it comes down to this:

1) Why are you shooting that demon, rather than the one actively grabbing you, the one throwing a fireball, or the ones with which someone apparently took the time to replace their arm with a gun?!
2) Now I'm just going to think that the Space Marine is yelling "This wasn't the .plan!"
posted by sysinfo at 9:16 PM on July 19, 2017 [4 favorites]


That thing that gets me about the cover: I went most of my life thinking that Doomguy was holding a gun in each hand. That was my Berenstain Bears moment.
posted by danb at 9:30 PM on July 19, 2017 [6 favorites]


It is extremely in keeping with the impression I got of John Romero from reading too many video games in the 90s that he completely hated what the guy they brought in was doing, so he took off his shirt and demanded that he be the model, giving it a whole new sense of vision by "aiming the gun in a slightly different direction".

It's also hilarious to me that they both had their shirts off for essentially no reason. The cover Doomguy's torso is covered except for a weird ab cutout that I very much doubt has any relationship to 90's John Romero (or the model unless he's a professional bodybuilder).
posted by Copronymus at 9:51 PM on July 19, 2017 [9 favorites]


Carmack and Romero are the Lennon and McCartney of our generation.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 10:41 PM on July 19, 2017 [1 favorite]


The soundtrack was amazing.
posted by jjwiseman at 11:10 PM on July 19, 2017


That and Command and Conquer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b5X69vREAg) were part of my life's soundtrack. (Well, the real Doom soundtrack).

(And that Doom inspired metal band. I want to say Digital Mayhem, but that isn't it.)
posted by Samizdata at 12:33 AM on July 20, 2017 [3 favorites]


Semi-related nerdery: John Romero has been dealing with a number of tweets that have been sent his way as loving tributes. There's just one problem. He's not George Romero. And he's not dead.

But they've got to be related, right?
posted by Naberius at 5:20 AM on July 20, 2017 [1 favorite]


You can't go home again. And you can't play the old video games either.

For certain definitions of "old", I guess? Half-Life 2 absolutely still holds up, as do the Monkey Island games as of the last time I played them maybe five years ago or so. Rogue's still pretty good, and nethack is even older than Doom if need the maximalist version.

(I won't comment at Doom itself, because I was never into it at the time.)
posted by tobascodagama at 7:59 AM on July 20, 2017 [1 favorite]


The original Thief also still holds up, but it can be a bit of a bitch to get to work on modern PCs.
posted by Fizz at 8:22 AM on July 20, 2017 [1 favorite]


From Polygon: "Legendary game developer Brenda Romero’s husband John Romero said that the model they had hired for the photo shoot for the cover art just wasn’t understanding what they were looking for. So he took matters into his own ... pecs."
posted by thecjm at 12:53 PM on July 20, 2017


From Polygon: "Legendary game developer Brenda Romero’s husband John Romero said that the model they had hired for the photo shoot for the cover art just wasn’t understanding what they were looking for. So he took matters into his own ... pecs."

I am going to loop that back around to my earlier statement, as Romero and Braithwaite weren't married until 2012.
posted by Samizdata at 1:10 PM on July 20, 2017


For certain definitions of "old", I guess?

For FPS, the cut-off is probably when mouse look became standard, since that's now the default control set. Having also re-played some DOOM (and Heretic) the lack of mouse was the biggest hurdle to re-learn. That and the games are paced so damn fast.
posted by Panjandrum at 3:57 PM on July 20, 2017 [2 favorites]


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