I Read Eli Cymet’s ‘The Art of Cuphead’.

steve cuocci
3 min readAug 10, 2024

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As art books go, I would say that I typically look at them as background items, as props, as conversation starters. I have a few of them. Photography books of 1980s train graffiti, of Chernobyl, of video games I love. It wasn’t until this past week that I was finally caught up with all of the books that I received this year (so far) that I was going through the piles of books in my loft (as we move our book collection from one room to another) and saw it sitting in a pile where I said, “let me take a look at what this book actually has on offer.”

I adore Cuphead. I was a huge fan of it when it first came out and it drew a lot of the gameplay from my favorite game of all time: Mega Man 2. The sidescrolling, the boss battles, the constant movement and the difficulty spikes all drew me back to a place that I have always found to be the sweet spot in gaming. There is little narrative, little dialog, only an end-goal and the means in which to accomplish it. Considerably, though, the art style is what drew me to Cuphead over any of the other shmups or platformers. This game looks absolutely gorgeous and has such a characterized and specific look, drawing from 1930s cartoons as inspiration.

This artbook held 264 pages of robust art and drawing and sketches for what ended up in the final game. But the best part of the book overall were the blurbs placed through the book. It made sure to mention each game that inspired it (frequently speaking of Contra and Gunstar Heroes), which explained why and how levels, fights and overworld maps ended up shaping out the way they did. There are also frequent mentions of the specific animated shorts that helped to craft the style of the game. Works like Betty Boop are frequently mentioned along with Merry Melodies and in speaking of the gorgeous watercolor backdrops, they mention classic Disney quite often.

A book I had flipped through a few times when I had it out, but never quite made it front to back, looking at this book through a different lens was such a quiet joy. Again, I loved how this game looked, how it sounded, how it played. It has such an overwhelming feeling about it that was addicting and comforting in equal measure. It’s been a long time since I had my hands in it, so digging into this artbook brought back a great joy not only from getting my mind to revisit my time with the gaming experience, but also in its references to those games, toons and external influences. I knew this game was a labor of love, but having names associated with those positions, seeing art desks and living rooms contributing to the success of the game was marvelous.

Highly recommend this book if you are an art book person AND a fan of games. This book is more visual than verbal, so there isn’t as much to yield from it as a nod to gaming, but if you want to take another walk through a world you’ve conquered and have that sense of nostalgia and stylization wash over you, I encourage you to check it out!

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