Back in June of 2020 I interrupted Summer with a Christmas tradition from Norway. At the time I had very little information on the book. By accident I was able to find out a little more, so here’s an update:

The julehefter, or Christmas booklets, have been a Norwegian tradition for over two centuries. Lately the term julehefte has become a synonym for comic book. The first julehefte was printed in 1817 and was a collection of social and drinking songs. It wasn’t until 1845 juleheftes were geared more for children. Their popularity grew and by the end of the 19th century they included  a variety of themes including art, literature, recipes and religion.

2009

The first Christmas comic book was based on the U.S. cartoon The Katzenjammer Kids and published in 1911. Eventually other licenses would join the fold such as Donald Duck, Tom & Jerry, Calvin and Hobbes and, obviously, Marvel titles such as Spider-Man.

Apparently there were three published between 2009 and 2011.

Currently there are around 50 Christmas booklets published each season, some selling as many as 150,000 copies or more.

So, while there’s still snow on the ground and portions of Christmas somewhere undiscovered till the spring clean, here’s a little more information on the tantalizing illustration from a couple years back. To see the original post, click here.

2010

2011

Not to be confused with Video Game Day, National Video Game Day is held Sept. 12 each year allowing the armchair enthusiast their day in the sun – so to speak.

Most video game historians consider 1971 the dawn of video games. In 1971 Computer Space was released by Nutting Associates for the commercial market. Pong followed the next year, released for arcades by Atari.

Spider-Man for the Atari 2600

It was also the year Magnavox released the Odyssey video game system. Pong followed suit in 1976 with the home-system release of Pong.

In 1977 Atari unveiled the Atari Video Computer System. The system allowed for individual games to be stored on cartridges which could be interchanged enabling the system to play more than one game.

Not until 1985 did the floodgates open with the Nintendo Entertainment System.

Over the years video games and comic book characters have intermingled. One of the earliest is Spider-Man for the Atari 2600. Marvel’s loveable web head battled the Green Goblin on a paltry 6502 microprocessor with an anemic 128 bytes of RAM on the Stella graphics chip.

The game was released in 1982 by Parker Brothers for the 2600 and Sears clone, the Sears Video Arcade. Spidey webbed his way to the top of high rise while defusing the Goblin’s bombs.

Not exciting by today’s standards, but the game was a success.

As of this writing, the most recent Spider-Man video game is 2018’s action-adventure game by Insomniac Games. The PlayStation 4 exclusive sold 3.3-million units in its first three days of release, earning an estimated $198 million.

So, take time to remember the superhero games that have come before and enjoy a day of vintage or current punch outs and puzzles as your favorite hero tackles their toughest villains.

This is just a fun looking Christmas comic book. C’mon, Spidey and the Green Goblin duking it out over Santa? How could it get any better?

Maybe with some translation and background?

Good luck with that.

About all I could glean from the cover was the Danish to English translation stating the book has “posters, activity pages and lots of Christmas fun.” Secondly, it’s a Christmas booklet.

Hanging 10 on the ‘Net, I’ve not been able to find much on this comic book. If you have any knowledge, please contact Jeff or I. We’d love to feature this with more information.

Thanks to Yet Another Comics Blog for the heads up.