NAMCO BANDAI SHIFTYLOOK Bringing Videogame Characters to LIFE
At C2E2 this past weekend I had the opportunity to attend the SHIFTYLOOK’s Video Game Characters Reborn Panel (scored some pretty awesome swag too). It’s very interesting what Namco is doing with its comic book division. To stir more interest in their retro franchises they are creating web comics to flesh out each games storylines. And since SHIFTYLOOK is based inside the NAMCO BANDAI worldwide headquarters in Tokyo, Japan, these writers aren’t just writing stories based on a license agreement with NAMCO.
The SHIFTYLOOK website currently has seven FREE web comics including classics like Xevious and SkyKid. The SHIFTYLOOK team assured us they will be adding stories such as, Rolling Thunder, down the line. Some of the stories are to games that have never been released in the states so keep your eyes peeled for that.
They will also be releasing SHIFTYLOOK party kits at your local comic book shops and videogame stores. These party kits will contain NAMCO BANDAI swag such as t-shirts and high quality comic art prints.
Since video games have such a long turnaround time per iteration publishing a web comic can help keep a series relevant and its subscribers interested in the game itself. Currently there are a lot of publishers taking advantage of this relatively inexpensive format, hopefully we will see a lot more following suit in the near future.
In the mean time check out SHIFTYLOOK at http://shiftylook.com/ and be sure to leave some feedback on their blog!
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