Donkey Kong's 1981 flyer art and the arcade flyer archive

Nintendo R&D1 developed Donkey Kong, and Nintendo released it in Japanese arcades on July 9, 1981. The painting behind its North American flyer survived because a Nintendo of America advertising manager took it out of a dumpster during a storage room clear-out. It is now in an auction that closes October 28, with an estimate of $100,000 to $150,000. The printed flyer it became costs nothing to look at.

Nintendo hired Leslie Cabarga to paint the flyer

Nintendo commissioned Leslie Cabarga to illustrate the North American flyer. The piece is acrylic on celluloid. Cabarga is a New York author and artist whose work has appeared in Marvel, Dark Horse and National Lampoon. He sold cartoons to underground newspapers from age 14 and was making covers for Time, Newsweek and Fortune by the early 1980s.

Nintendo of America needed the game to work. Its president, Minoru Arakawa, had bet the startup on a large order of Radar Scope cabinets, and that game flopped. He then asked Hiroshi Yamauchi for a conversion kit with new software, which became Donkey Kong. The flyer was a sales tool for that kit, aimed at the operators and distributors who would buy cabinets. It also ran in a trade magazine.

The cast on the flyer was still being named. The hero had no name in the Japanese release, and the operations manual called him Jumpman. The woman started as "Lady" and became Pauline, after Polly James, the wife of Nintendo's warehouse manager. Mario came later, named after Nintendo's landlord in Washington state. The name shows up on the back page of the US flyer. The Japanese flyer does not use it. On the US back page he talks to Pauline: "But wait! Fear not, fair maiden. Little Mario, the carpenter, is in hot pursuit of you this very moment." The Super Mario Broth account dug that line up in 2023.

The flyer was first published on October 1, 1981. The original painting is multi-layered, about 19 by 15 inches and well preserved. It is one of the first public images of Donkey Kong, Pauline and Mario.

Darbous took the envelopes out of a dumpster

Donna Darbous was an advertising manager at Nintendo of America. Nintendo unexpectedly emptied a storage room. The company wanted the space as offices for the growth Mario brought. She grabbed envelopes from the dumpster and saw that they held artwork. One of them held Mario's first appearance, though she did not know it. Her boss said she could take them home.

At home the envelopes went into a coffee table drawer. They stayed there through several moves, one of them to the East Coast. When she opened the drawer, she panicked at first. She found the painting among lithographs from a trip to the Czech Republic. VGC describes the rediscovery as a bin of Nintendo keepsakes in the garage.

Darbous told the Times: "I don't think anybody knew that it would turn into what it has become." She doesn't think Nintendo did either. Her reason for selling is that it was not serving a purpose in a drawer: "There's a much better place for it."

The auction closes October 28 with a $100,000 to $150,000 estimate

The sale is called Jumpman: The Beginning of an Icon, run by LandryPop. It has 49 lots, 36 of them from Darbous's collection and the rest graded black-box NES games. The Donkey Kong art carries an estimate of $100,000 to $150,000. The highest bid was $80,000 on October 15. Before the sale the painting was shown at New York Comic Con and then at the Rago/Wright gallery in Manhattan from October 20 to 23. The auction itself takes place in Lambertville, New Jersey. Travis Landry, who runs the auction house, told the Times: "This is the first time the public laid eyes on Mario."

Original art for the Mickey Mouse and Mickey & Donald Game & Watch handhelds is estimated at $8,000 to $12,000 each. The sale also has Super Mario Bros. production art and a Goomba concept piece.

A sealed Super Mario 64 sold for $1.56 million at Heritage Auctions in July 2021. The Nintendo PlayStation prototype came from a Nintendo and Sony deal that collapsed. A maintenance manager had bought it for $75 in a bankruptcy lot. Heritage sold it in March 2020 for $360,000.

Where to see it today: the printed flyer is in public archives

You do not need $80,000 to see the flyer. The International Arcade Museum lists Donkey Kong flyers from the USA, France and Japan, all dated 1981 and two pages each. The museum also runs the Arcade Flyer Archive, a repository of coin-op advertising flyers with separate galleries for video games and pinball.

The Video Game History Foundation Library holds a 1981 Donkey Kong flyer in its collection of assorted video game flyers. Its catalog record says the library believes the copy was cut from a coin-op trade publication, and that it is partially cut off at the bottom. I think the scans are the better way in for most people: the painting at auction is only the front, while the printed page carries the name Mario on the back.

Questions people ask

Who painted the Donkey Kong arcade flyer?

Leslie Cabarga, a New York author and artist. Wikipedia credits him with the North American flyer, and the Times says Nintendo hired him for it.

Is the Donkey Kong flyer in the Arcade Flyer Archive?

The International Arcade Museum, which runs the Arcade Flyer Archive, lists the USA, French and Japanese Donkey Kong flyers on its game page. The Video Game History Foundation Library has a digitized 1981 copy too.

Did the Donkey Kong arcade flyer call him Mario?

The US flyer names him Mario on its back page. It is the only Donkey Kong flyer that does. The Japanese release left him unnamed, and the operations manual called him Jumpman.

How much is the original Donkey Kong flyer art worth?

The auction estimate is $100,000 to $150,000. The highest bid VGC saw was $80,000 on October 15, and the sale closes October 28.