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ATTABOY
"There's a video game from when I was a kid that no one else seems to remember."
Attaboy is a 74 page oversized treasury edition (12.75 inches tall 8.25 inches wide!) behemoth of comic disguised as an illustrated instructional booklet for a video game that may or may not have ever existed.
Attaboy is also the deceptively simple story of a boy robot avenging the destruction of his father and creator, Dr. Atta, by the sinister rebellious mechazoid Motherboard.
And finally, Attaboy is also the story of a video game the author and artist Tony McMillen remembers vividly from his childhood that no one else seems to know about. And how this inconsistency led to an obsession that threatened his grip on reality.
Attaboy is a 74 page oversized treasury edition (12.75 inches tall 8.25 inches wide!) behemoth of comic disguised as an illustrated instructional booklet for a video game that may or may not have ever existed.
Attaboy is also the deceptively simple story of a boy robot avenging the destruction of his father and creator, Dr. Atta, by the sinister rebellious mechazoid Motherboard.
And finally, Attaboy is also the story of a video game the author and artist Tony McMillen remembers vividly from his childhood that no one else seems to know about. And how this inconsistency led to an obsession that threatened his grip on reality.
- GenresComics
88 pages, Paperback
First published July 15, 2021
2 people are currently reading
33 people want to read
About the author
Tony McMillen
16 books49 followersTony McMillen makes comic books as well as some books without pictures too.
Even though those usually also contain a few pictures.
He can’t help himself.
He’s behind Attaboy, the new oversized graphic novel disguised as a video game manual. The heavy metal horror novel An Augmented Fourth published by Word Horde, the sci-fi fantasy graphic novel Lumen and Serious Creatures; his comic book series about a teenage special fx artist working in Hollywood, riding the wave of practical effects that carried the blockbuster movie industry of the 70s, 80s and 90s.
He thinks Alien is a better xenomorph movie but Aliens is a better Ripley movie.
His go to karaoke song is “On the Dark Side” by John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band.
He has recently started to add cinnamon to his chocolate milk.
Even though those usually also contain a few pictures.
He can’t help himself.
He’s behind Attaboy, the new oversized graphic novel disguised as a video game manual. The heavy metal horror novel An Augmented Fourth published by Word Horde, the sci-fi fantasy graphic novel Lumen and Serious Creatures; his comic book series about a teenage special fx artist working in Hollywood, riding the wave of practical effects that carried the blockbuster movie industry of the 70s, 80s and 90s.
He thinks Alien is a better xenomorph movie but Aliens is a better Ripley movie.
His go to karaoke song is “On the Dark Side” by John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band.
He has recently started to add cinnamon to his chocolate milk.
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
June 17, 2024
I like the concept! McMillen remembers a video game that no one else seems to recall... although it was quite popular amongst his old friend group. We get some pretty cool artwork showing off the fictional game, and slowly learn the secrets inside the mysterious game.
July 16, 2021
I did it again! Five stars.
August 2, 2021
An excellent fusion of false memory and classic gaming in the form of an oversized graphic novel/instruction manual. Highly recommended.
June 9, 2024
I take no pleasure in giving a book a low rating but I can only review it from my own personal perspective and enjoyment of the book and this one just wasn't for me.
I found the art style to be vibrant and stunning, which was ultimately why I picked up this book in the first place. Reading through though, I found it quite hard to decipher what was happening in many of the panels due to the rough/sketch like nature of the drawings. When the graphic novel relied on visual story telling, those parts of the story were often lost on me.
In terms of the story, I felt like there was barely a story there. I know there was probably a much more deeper and metaphorical story to take away from this little book, but it went right over my head. I felt like most of the book is just the narrator recounting the levels in a simple platformer game he remembered, with a bit of something deeper at the end.
Thank you NetGalley and Mad Cave Studios for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
I found the art style to be vibrant and stunning, which was ultimately why I picked up this book in the first place. Reading through though, I found it quite hard to decipher what was happening in many of the panels due to the rough/sketch like nature of the drawings. When the graphic novel relied on visual story telling, those parts of the story were often lost on me.
In terms of the story, I felt like there was barely a story there. I know there was probably a much more deeper and metaphorical story to take away from this little book, but it went right over my head. I felt like most of the book is just the narrator recounting the levels in a simple platformer game he remembered, with a bit of something deeper at the end.
Thank you NetGalley and Mad Cave Studios for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
January 29, 2026
I think the author took a risk when he made this one, but it certainly paid off. What was at times really experimental, but just a tad hard to follow every now and then made for such an enjoyable experience whilst reading.
For those of you who have read a lot of comics or none at all, there’s definitely something here for you. Attaboy was fun, pleasing to look at, and told a story that was deeply rooted in many of our childhoods.
For those of you who have read a lot of comics or none at all, there’s definitely something here for you. Attaboy was fun, pleasing to look at, and told a story that was deeply rooted in many of our childhoods.
June 20, 2024
Very touching book. I came into it expecting just robot action but what I got was feelings! Not expecting that. I think I read the book too fast and didn't sit with it to fully absorb what McMillen is doing in this book. This is a kind of book that demands to be sat with and poured over. It's a meaty book in a tight package.
April 30, 2024
Review posted on Twitter/X @AdamReadsComics for MadCave Studios.
May 8, 2024
Read the full review on urbaneturtle.com
The beautiful thing about the 8-bit era of video games is that these worlds were so limited, so abstract by necessity and design, that as children we could project anything we wanted onto them. There was only the barest notion of stories in games like Mega Man or The Legend of Zelda. They challenged you to expand your imagination, and the way you thought about seemingly simple puzzles and maps. Every blip and beep was a symbolic representation of something more complex and infinite. As technology has advanced, games have spent decades trying to make themselves more cinematic, more beholden to the familiar and prescribed language of film. But video games are, unlike films, to be participated in, defined in part by the player, to insert themselves into the narrative. The more they have tried to become prescriptive, interactive films the less special they have become as experiences.
In this way, games and comics have something in common. Comics are an incomplete art, disconnected images symbolizing movement and time through static lines. The reader must pull together these disparate elements to form their meaning.
...
Tony McMillen’s surreal, expressionist comic Attaboy, publishing this June through Mad Cave after being released independently several years ago, taps into the obsession and complex meaning-making of both video games and comics. The book examines the way these things can worm into our young minds and become an obsession. Presented as a fan-made instruction manual for a game no one else remembers, Attaboy is rendered with the frantic sketchiness of a child’s drawings in the margins of a notebook or on scrap paper. There is a frenetic incompleteness that gives this tale an emotional urgency. It is littered with references to McMillen’s influences, including Jack Kirby, Keiji Inafune, and even the horrible box art of the original US release of Mega Man.
The beautiful thing about the 8-bit era of video games is that these worlds were so limited, so abstract by necessity and design, that as children we could project anything we wanted onto them. There was only the barest notion of stories in games like Mega Man or The Legend of Zelda. They challenged you to expand your imagination, and the way you thought about seemingly simple puzzles and maps. Every blip and beep was a symbolic representation of something more complex and infinite. As technology has advanced, games have spent decades trying to make themselves more cinematic, more beholden to the familiar and prescribed language of film. But video games are, unlike films, to be participated in, defined in part by the player, to insert themselves into the narrative. The more they have tried to become prescriptive, interactive films the less special they have become as experiences.
In this way, games and comics have something in common. Comics are an incomplete art, disconnected images symbolizing movement and time through static lines. The reader must pull together these disparate elements to form their meaning.
...
Tony McMillen’s surreal, expressionist comic Attaboy, publishing this June through Mad Cave after being released independently several years ago, taps into the obsession and complex meaning-making of both video games and comics. The book examines the way these things can worm into our young minds and become an obsession. Presented as a fan-made instruction manual for a game no one else remembers, Attaboy is rendered with the frantic sketchiness of a child’s drawings in the margins of a notebook or on scrap paper. There is a frenetic incompleteness that gives this tale an emotional urgency. It is littered with references to McMillen’s influences, including Jack Kirby, Keiji Inafune, and even the horrible box art of the original US release of Mega Man.
August 21, 2023
I'm not much of a video game guy (had an Atari Lynx though!) and probably less of a comics guy (I did read X-Men and Dark Knight Returns like everyone else, and bought stuff up until about Hellboy?), but I always made a point to check out the most notoriously high-minded/lowbrow stuff, (Watchmen, Stray Toasters, V for Vendetta, Brat Pack, Lobo, Squeak the Mouse...), so I'm not not interested in these genres, particularly when it comes to Tony McMillen, who, for some insane reason, hasn't been swooped up by the big leagues, who you'd think would want a compelling and instantly recognizable voice and vision on the page. Seriously, one look and you'll realize McMillen has a style as unique and identifiable as Frank Miller's or Mike Mignola's (or Mattiolis!), and of the handful of books and comics of his I've read, regular themes and bugbears will always emerge. This new book of his is Jumbotron-sized though, so more of an experience than a story (think music video? Or giant video game cut scene?), and every other page is like the splash pages you'd hold your breath for as a kid. But, perverse as always, McMIllen's huge canvas here is supposedly utilized to tell the story of a teeny tiny game manual (not really). So the contrast between the description and with what's on the page is usually startling (just like the tension between linear videogame imagery and storylines and these jagged, chaotic explosions of art and color that the author can't resist), and that is where the real story lies, in that space between. For example, you'll have a line like "The game itself was easy enough..." but then the image accompanying this will be a frenzied and harrowing depiction of a very human-like game avatar crying over his dead father figure as his digital world fractures around him. In that way, it's sort of like how Tron (the first movie, or maybe it was the novelization) depicted a humanoid game creation down on the videogameland game grid boycotting "derezzing" (killing) another game dude, and up in the real world some brat is kicking the arcade cabinet, furious that it stopped working (yeah, it's totally Polybius meet Megaman meets both Trons). Other highlights were some reverse Kill Bill trickery with "black-and-white" (symbolism), and a truly alarming reveal about what happens to all those "lost lives." Anyhow, I'll pick up everything he does (Serious Creatures, his comic about a very Rob Bottin-esque FX whizkid in Hollywood, is probably still my favorite), and maybe whoever is in charge up there will finally notice this guy and reach down and pluck him up off the game grid just like his creation.
September 7, 2024
Summary:
Attaboy is a simple story that will resonate with many readers. Who hasn’t fallen down the rabbit hole, falling in love with a game, book, or movie that few people know of? It happens to the next of us.
This is the story of a video game the author remembers from his childhood. It’s vivid and surreal because there are so many details, and yet, so few people know what he’s talking about.
Review:
Attaboy is both wholly nostalgic and unique, all in one go. While the storytelling style (and art) is very original, the overall story is designed to resonate with fans. It succeeded! At least with this fan.
I really enjoyed the whole “video game that may or may not have existed” concept. I can list off a few books that I swear I read when I was a child, but now I probably couldn’t find any evidence of them. That’s one of the reasons this read was so charming and fun.
Then there’s the art style! Oh! I loved the colors and the bold shapes, especially how they combined with the more ragged edges. It all felt so vibrant and intentional. It was a spectacle for the eyes.
Highlights:
Quick Read
Fun
Sentimental
Relatable
You Can Also Find Me On:
Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks | Quirky Cat's Comics | The Book Review Crew | Monkeys Fighting Robots | Storygraph | Bookhype | Bookstagram | Twitter | Tumblr | Reedsy
Attaboy is a simple story that will resonate with many readers. Who hasn’t fallen down the rabbit hole, falling in love with a game, book, or movie that few people know of? It happens to the next of us.
This is the story of a video game the author remembers from his childhood. It’s vivid and surreal because there are so many details, and yet, so few people know what he’s talking about.
Review:
Attaboy is both wholly nostalgic and unique, all in one go. While the storytelling style (and art) is very original, the overall story is designed to resonate with fans. It succeeded! At least with this fan.
I really enjoyed the whole “video game that may or may not have existed” concept. I can list off a few books that I swear I read when I was a child, but now I probably couldn’t find any evidence of them. That’s one of the reasons this read was so charming and fun.
Then there’s the art style! Oh! I loved the colors and the bold shapes, especially how they combined with the more ragged edges. It all felt so vibrant and intentional. It was a spectacle for the eyes.
Highlights:
Quick Read
Fun
Sentimental
Relatable
You Can Also Find Me On:
Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks | Quirky Cat's Comics | The Book Review Crew | Monkeys Fighting Robots | Storygraph | Bookhype | Bookstagram | Twitter | Tumblr | Reedsy
April 29, 2024
Attaboy is a very different graphic novel, and I mean that in a complimentary way. The storyline is best suited for the upper high school to adult market, not because of anything salacious, but because of the life experience needed to truly appreciate it.
The story is situated around the memory of a game that others barely remember, or remember in a more pensive matter. The story is an allegory about self-exploration and family, but to say more would reveal spoilers. The artwork alternates from colorful in an early video game graphic manner to bright and neon (without pandering to typical 80s aesthetics). It’s beautiful and meaningful, so much so that I made sure that my child about to launch into college read it as well, so that he could absorb the message too. I recommend this for high school and public library collections.
Thank you NetGalley and Mad Cave Studios for this ARC.
The story is situated around the memory of a game that others barely remember, or remember in a more pensive matter. The story is an allegory about self-exploration and family, but to say more would reveal spoilers. The artwork alternates from colorful in an early video game graphic manner to bright and neon (without pandering to typical 80s aesthetics). It’s beautiful and meaningful, so much so that I made sure that my child about to launch into college read it as well, so that he could absorb the message too. I recommend this for high school and public library collections.
Thank you NetGalley and Mad Cave Studios for this ARC.
April 10, 2023
An elegantly delivered story about stories we tell ourselves. From a writing standpoint, McMillen cleverly picks and makes use of symbols to their fullest, manipulating them and exploring all their nooks and crannies in unexpected ways through masterful use of the medium and exposing them all to the reader, all within a relatively short book. The art is beautiful. Lines with a faculty of appearing nonchalant, crude, and expressive, form dynamic shapes and intensely convey a diverse pantheon of emotions despite their superficially aggressive appearance. Color palettes ebb and change with our main character. Panels are often arranged in an unconventional but fun way, bleeding into and shooting lasers at each other so that the pages are a joy to read. Very happy I came across this one.
January 27, 2026
This was a great book. The concept was genuinely interesting, and the artwork was excellent. I loved how both the writing and the visuals made it feel like you were literally playing the game itself.
It reminded me a lot of Animal Man by Grant Morrison the idea that these characters and stories are real, as real as you or I, maybe even more so. They’re all pieces of their creators, and in turn, pieces of ourselves: learning as we learn, living as we live, teaching us as they go.
But what I loved most about this book is how it reminded me of how fun it was playing Attaboy. I wish I’d played it more. It brought back so many memories. I’ll never forget that game.
It reminded me a lot of Animal Man by Grant Morrison the idea that these characters and stories are real, as real as you or I, maybe even more so. They’re all pieces of their creators, and in turn, pieces of ourselves: learning as we learn, living as we live, teaching us as they go.
But what I loved most about this book is how it reminded me of how fun it was playing Attaboy. I wish I’d played it more. It brought back so many memories. I’ll never forget that game.
October 5, 2024
This looks and feels like something created by a 10 year old boy. It's something to do with a video game that no one else remembers. There's no real story here or I couldn't follow it. The lack of panel structure in places makes reading text in the proper order real problematic. The art is awful. Just an all around fail, unfortunately.
June 27, 2025
The story of Attaboy, a game that the creator remembers but no one else does. The concept of this comic is really fun and it's a quick read. This story also reminds me of a game called The Eternal Castle Remastered, which follows a similar premise. The point of this story isn't whether Attaboy was real or not, but whether it was real to you.
Overall, a fun read.
Overall, a fun read.
January 26, 2026
What a great little comic! Very inventive and playful, while having a real emotional resonance. McMillen using the tropes of a side-scrolling platform video game as a basis of a personal quest of self-realization, and explores memory and loss, hidden behind a protective mask of a forgotten 80s video game. Highly original — worth seeing out.
June 1, 2024
absolute banger. evokes the feel games in the 90s had while being its own wholly new thing.
June 11, 2024
This was interesting. I can honestly say I enjoyed the illustrations more than the story. It starts by asking if anybody remembers this video game let alone the strange console. How at one time everybody was playing it, but nobody remembers it. The story constantly asks am I real is this environment? Is this book amongst the gameplay that is both wordless and you also have the players recollections of life. How he was with his mom or remembrances of his dad etc. There is this whole idea of what is real, am I real. I’m not going to say this was an easy read but I like the artwork enough that I want to see what this artist does next.
June 18, 2024
I really really loved this book. It makes me want to create something like it. Reminds me a bit of Tomorrow, Tomorrow, & Tomorrow, mixed in with a bit of the 4th wall breaking of Undertale.
December 27, 2024
Really cool conceit and the artwork is exceptional.
September 12, 2025
A Mega Man tone poem.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews