Welcome to the Bootleg artwork gallery, a place to view all the fun and interesting artwork produced during the arcade industry boom.  What is bootleg artwork you ask? In slang, bootleg means fake, unauthorized, illegal, or of low quality. Basically it was artwork that was produced without the original manufacturer’s authorization or licensing.  The 1980’s was like the wild west for the booming arcade industry, everyone wanted to cash in, and it was impossible to police all the pirated or bootleg product. It is difficult to know who was making some of this artwork, but the general consensus is that it was most likely 1) shady overseas or US manufacturer’s making pirated pcbs and artwork to sell as kits to operators at a lower cost. 2) made by the operators themselves because it was cheaper than buying OEM replacement parts, especially if they were operating hundreds of games. 3) game part distributors looking to offer cheaper products to sell 4) small print shops looking to cash in on the arcade industry explosion.  Or all of these, plus a variety of other possibilities. It is this bit of unknown that causes some difficulty with identification.  I’ve classified the artwork here as bootleg because it isn’t labeled with a name or part number, like Willis and Wico did. It isn’t the artwork on the original game as we know it, or the quality is just so bad it belongs here. Check out the different categories below as I slowly add content to this section. If you have a cool bootleg piece of art you’d like to share, drop me a line and let’s get it posted, thanks!

A gallery of bootleg or unidentified control panel overlays I’ve collected over the years.  This won’t be a comprehensive collection like the Willis cpo’s, but I’ll post as many as I can.  Now it is possible that one or more of the overlay’s in this gallery may belong in a different category, so if you recognize something as legit, or if you’ve seen it on a game, please let me know!