It’s “Nutty Namco Week” here at GamerDad, where we’ll take a look at new books and games featuring odd Namco characters!  First up is Bravoman!  Bravoman is a classic arcade game by Namco, makers of Pac-Man.  The Bravoman arcade game was released in Japan only, but it did get ported to the US by way of the TurboGrafix-16 game console (and Wii Virtual Console).  It’s a 2-D platformer beat ‘em up featuring a super hero who can stretch his arms and limbs to punch and kick bad guys.  The game is meant to be a silly parody of super heroes and video games.  While Bravoman has made cameo appearances in other Namco titles, he would’ve faded into obscurity had it not been for Shifty Look.  Shifty Look is an online web comics site who has recently published strips featuring obscure Namco game characters.  Bravoman is probably their most successful and long-running series, and has spawned into a high quality web cartoon (featuring prolific cartoon voice actors like Rob Paulsen), and even a tablet game (that one’s not so good).  And now you can buy a hardcover book with the first 100 or so strips from the Bravoman web comic!  Click here to take a closer look!

First of all, the book is a pretty high quality hardcover piece of reading material.  Here’s a closer look at the front cover:

The first part of the book has a foreword and intro by some of the folks at Shifty Look.  I was very impressed that they really did their research on filling readers in on the history of Bravoman, spin-offs, cameo appearances, and other details.  Of course, they could’ve saved some time and just called me instead of doing all that research.  I liked classic and obscure Namco characters before it was cool.  Yeah, I know, I’m such a hipster.  Anyway, here’s a look at the foreword and intro pages:

The majority of the book is dedicated to the web comic, with a strip on each page.  What’s really cool is that on nearly every page are behind the scenes comments and quips from the artists and editors, as well as preliminary sketches.  I’d almost say this book could be considered educational, especially for folks aspiring to make their own web comics someday.  Here’s a look at one of the pages:

When I was a kid, I used to read all the Garfield books.  You know, the ones that were rectangular shaped?  (Jim Davis actually pioneered that unique shape of book).  Anyway, I wish Jim Davis would’ve used the format that this Bravoman book has, with insights and quips of his own on every page.  I would’ve loved that.

Anyway, the last few pages feature concept art and sketches.  Here’s a sample:

And they also have promotional art posters featuring different styles from various artists.  Here’s one of my favorite pages of that:

Finally are some ads.  I put this page in here so I can talk about them.  They advertise the Bravoman game for tablets, which plays like one of those continuously running games.  Unfortunately, it’s really awful.  Sorry Shifty Look, I love the Bravoman web comic and animated series, but not the game.  As a game reviewer, I have to be perfectly honest and call it as I see it.

The other ad is for the Shifty Look site and web comics.  I really need to get in the habit of going to the site and reading it.  They have comics featuring all sorts of cool Namco characters I like, including Valkyrie, Katamari Damacy, and even Klonoa!  Unfortunately, I’m so used to reading comic strips in books and newspapers (yeah I know, I’m old fashioned).  That’s why I’m glad they made a Bravoman book!

Anyway, that’s all that’s in Bravoman Volume 1.  I hope they make more volumes!  It’s fairly family friendly, with only a few slightly off-color gags and cartoony violence.  I guess the only problem I have with the Bravoman comic and cartoon is that they rely too much on fourth wall gags.  But I wanted to buy the book anyway to show my support for Shifty Look, since the web comics and cartoons are free.  I really don’t know how they make any money off of this.  But you can show your support, too, by buying the book and it’s really easy.  Just click on the Amazon.com link on the GamerDad.com site, and then search for the Bravoman book.  It’s a reasonable price (around 15 bucks) for such a high quality, color hardcover book.  Next time we’ll take a look at another one of their books, featuring Wonder Momo!  –Cary

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