Club Nintendo (German magazine)

Issue 3/1997 of Club Nintendo, promoting Mario Kart 64.

Club Nintendo was Nintendo's official, bimonthly published magazine in Germany, with issue 1/1998 also in Austria and Switzerland. It can be seen as the German equivalent to the American Nintendo Power. The first issue was published in 1989. Its precursor called Play Nintendo was already published in November 1988. This one had only eight pages and was more a form of a newsletter. Until 2001, the number of pages was greatly increased throughout the years. In 2000, one issue of Club Nintendo had over 80 pages.

In 2001, because of redeployment at Nintendo of Europe, the old staff of the magazine was laid off and a German publishing company called Computec Media carried it on with a new staff. The new incarnation had much less pages and was aborted with issue 4/2002.

Club Nintendo is also the name of official Nintendo magazines from various other countries, mostly also aborted. One which does still exist is Club Nintendo México, official Nintendo magazine in Latin America.

Comics

A very special feature of the magazine were the Nintendo comics, most of them exclusively released in the magazine. The comics in the issues from 1991 to 1998 were drawn by Japanese manga artists (Mangaka), while the stories and texts were written by the German editors of the magazine themselves. In 1999 and 2000, they were replaced by a comic series called N-Gang, which are completely German productions. N-Gang features teenage human characters as protagonists, but still a lot of appearances of the Nintendo characters.

While some of the comics are closely related to the games, there are also stories which are rather obscure and take place on Earth instead of the usual environments of the various Nintendo characters. Also 3rd party characters do appear both in the N-Gang and the prior comics.

After 2000, when the magazine was published by Computec Media, no more comics were released in Club Nintendo.

List of comics in regular issues

Comics with no characters from the Mario series as main characters are excluded. The N-Gang is described in a separate article.

Issue	Title	Translation	Pages
4/1991	Mario will hoch hinaus	Mario is Aiming High	2
5/1991	Wart steht unter Strom	Wart is Tensed Up	2
6/1991	Süße Weihnachten	Sweet Christmas	2
1/1992	Marios Rückkehr (direct sequel of Mario will hoch hinaus)	Mario's Comeback	2
2/1992	Ostern im Schwammerlland	Easter in the Mushroom Kingdom	2
3/1992	Super Mario: Die unheimliche Begegnung der Yoshi-Art (direct sequel of Ostern im Schwammerlland)	Super Mario: The Close Encounters of the Yoshi Kind	2
4/1992	Super Mario: Im Rausch der Geschwindigkeit	Super Mario: In the Flush of Speed	2
5/1992	Super Mario Klemp-Won-Do: Muskeln sind nicht alles!	Super Mario Plumb-Won-Do: Muscles are not Everything!	4
6/1992	Super Mario: Die Bescherung	Super Mario: The Giving out of the Christmas Presents	2
1/1993	Super Mario: Die Verwandlung	Super Mario: The Transformation	4
2/1993	Super Mario: Coole Klänge	Super Mario: Cool Sounds	4
3/1993	Super Mario: Mario im Wunderland	Super Mario: Mario in Wonderland	4
4/1993	Super Mario: Erholung? Nein, danke!	Super Mario: Recreation? No, Thanks!	4
5/1993	Super Mario: Verloren in der Zeit (part 1)	Super Mario: Lost In Time	4
6/1993	Super Mario: Verloren in der Zeit (part 2)	Super Mario: Lost In Time	4
1/1994	Super Mario: Verloren in der Zeit (part 3)	Super Mario: Lost In Time	4
2/1994	Super Mario: Verloren in der Zeit (part 4)	Super Mario: Lost In Time	4
1/1995	Donkey Kong Country (part 1)	-	4
2/1995	Donkey Kong Country (part 2)	-	4
3/1995	Donkey Kong Country (part 3)	-	4
4/1995	Mario's Picross (part 1)	-	4
5/1995	Mario's Picross (part 2)	-	4
6/1995	Warios Weihnachtsmärchen	Wario's Christmas Tale	8
1/1996	Super Mario: Die Verwandlung (reprint)	Super Mario: The Transformation	4
2/1996	Mario in Mariozilla (part 1)	-	4
3/1996	Mario in Mariozilla (part 2)	-	4
5/1996	Super Mario in Die Nacht des Grauens (part 1)	Super Mario in The Night of Horror	6
6/1996	Donkey Kong in: Banana Day 24	-	6
1/1997	Super Mario: Die Blume meines Herzens (reprint of Super Mario: Coole Klänge with changed texts)	Super Mario: The Flower of my Heart	4
2/1997	Die Jagd nach dem Nintendo 64: Krawall im All	The Race for the Nintendo 64: Ruckus in Outer Space	6
4/1997	Blast Corps in Yoshis Knallkekse	Blast Corps in Yoshi's Bang Cookies	6
5/1997	Die Nacht des Grauens (part 2)	The Night of Horror	6
6/1997	Super Mario: Mario im Wunderland (reprint with changed texts)	Super Mario: Mario in Wonderland	4
1/1998	Sag niemals Holerö! (part 1)	Never Say Holerö!	6
2/1998	Sag niemals Holerö! (part 2)	Never Say Holerö!	6
3/1998	Rummelplatzquatsch	Fairground Nonsense	6
4/1998	Super Mario in Aloha Hawaii	-	6

List of comics in special issues

Beneath the regular issues, also special issues were published, mainly to promote new Nintendo games and other products.

Issue	Title	Translation	Pages
1	Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island	-	32
2	Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest	-	32
7	Auf der Suche nach dem Glück!	In Search for Happiness!	9
7	Die Nacht der leuchtenden Yoshis!	The Night of the Shining Yoshis!	9
7	Das Lied der Yoshi's!	The Song of the Yoshis!	1
GB Camera	Das Vermächtnis des Dr. Lichtblitz	The Legacy of Dr. Light	6

Gallery

A choice of different issues showing the development of the cover design.

• 

  Issue 1/1991

• 

  Issue 6/1991

• 

  Issue 6/1992

• 

  Issue 5/1995

• 

  Issue 6/1996

• 

  Issue 2/1998

• 

  Issue 6/1999

• 

  Issue 4/2001

• 

  Yoshi's Story Comic.

• 

  Reverse of Yoshi's Story Comic.

External links

• Online versions of some of the comics in regular issues
• Online versions of most of the comics in special issues
• Spreadsheet of all comics printed and links to fan translations