1/29/2024:
This is the zone for miscellaneous topics I may have not addressed in the retrospective. This will be updated over time with more important subjects as they come to mind.
Five more I Spy books were published during and after Treasure Hunt’s creation, all named some variant of Challenger. These books contain additional, well, challenging riddles for existing scenes. These stand as a testament to the I Spy series’ incredibly intricate craftsmanship. Five entire volumes were able to be created with entirely new riddles that don’t refer to objects used in riddles in previous books. Each challenger book also has double-length sections of extra credit riddles.
That’s as much as I have to say about the challengers, though. My retrospective has mostly been about the evolution of Walter Wick’s photography, and they don’t contain any new scenes. Still, don’t take that to mean that the challengers don’t have worth, they’re a fun experience for skilled I Spy players!
Over the years, a lot of I Spy games were released on numerous platforms. I wrote about one of these before, Treasure Hunt, but that was more of a discussion of its emotional resonance instead of a proper analysis. I specifically did not talk about the I Spy games in my retrospective because I was specifically focused on the evolution of Walter Wick’s photography. However, the evolution of Black Hammer’s work on the I Spy games could form the basis of its own complete retrospective. I am not sure if I want to do that, their early games are really rough and hard to run on modern devices, even with virtual machines.
There are other I Spy games other than Black Hammer’s PC games, but I must admit, I have barely played any of them. I played I Spy Challenger on the GBA as a child, which was kind of awful, and I very recently played I Spy Castle on the DS, which was a kind of janky, quaint experience, but wasn’t quite as evocative as Black Hammer’s work. I am… not that interested in covering I Spy games beyond the PC games. I do mean to play I Spy Universe, as it is highly regarded in the community!
There was an I Spy TV show on HBO. I remember having DVDs of it as a child, waaaaay back, but even then, I remember it feeling kind of kiddy, and like it looked down on the audience, especially compared to the tone of books and the games. I felt that way about the pokemon anime as well, when I was in… probably second grade, so this wasn’t exclusive to the I Spy show. I am not that interested in TV in general, and I don’t plan on covering the show in the future.
There’s a gaggle of miscellaneous I Spy media, from puzzles, to games on obscure children’s consoles like the Leapster, to JP only merchandise. There’s only so much I can talk about, and they always just use the existing photography, so I wouldn’t have that much to say.
Walter Wick’s work does not end with I Spy. Five years after the release of Treasure Hunt, Wick would release Can You See What I See, the first book in a successor series to I Spy where he both writes the rhymes and takes the photos. As of 1/25/2024, when this is being written, there are ten Can You See What I See books available in English. There is one additional book only available in Japanese, which is scheduled to have an English release in 2024.
I will not be doing full retrospectives on the entire Can You See What I See series, as they are not quite as culturally impactful as I Spy was, but I will absolutely write about some of them at a future date. For now, though, I need a break.
This project would not be possible without the help of my three editors: Sophibeans, Sonic-Nancy Fan, and of course, my dear mother. It’s always excellent to have extra eyes on your writing, to properly get it into shape, and they were an enormous help. I would also like to thank the anonymous contributors to the Walter Wick Wiki, who provided the images of the books I used in this retrospective. Additionally, I would like to thank the Can You See What I Spy discord community. Without everybody there, this retrospective series would have never existed. Finally, I would love to acknowledge the original creators of I Spy itself. Walter Wick and Jean Marzollo both have websites where they have written about their creative process, and they provided enormous amounts of insight that was very helpful for writing about their works.