In mid December last year, I started getting into Pac-Man. I don’t think there was ever a point where I didn’t like the pellet muncher. I’ve played the arcade game before, used him in Smash Bros. every now and then, and have even drawn him a few times. He’s been a passing thought that would pop up whenever I saw him for the most part. This time though, he was set on my mind.
It started with a fun little doodle of Pinky and Pac-man. I used a slightly updated design of the ghosts I made back in 2018, and for Pac used my usual style for drawing eyes. After I did this, however, I thought it would be fun to refine my look for Pac. So I got to work on it.
It’s mostly just a clear version of the Pac I already drew, but I liked it. Now at this point I was really curious about him, and as with anything I get interested in, I started diving into as much media of him as I could.
I started at the cartoons and found the 1982 series to be a really charming and strange ride. I thought it was interesting how they went about portraying the world the characters, and honestly found the wackiness to go quite well with him.
Looking further I came across a series of cute Japanese shorts made to go with a pop up retail chain called Pac-Store. I may not have know completely what was going on in each animation, but there was another fun portrayal and personality that oozed from it.
As I went on I kept looking deeper and deeper into information and media of a character I had only known on a surface level, finding out about different characters and facts I had never even known about.
While watching gameplay and reading wiki articles, I began to form a patchwork world in my mind based on all the different versions and stories of this single character. It would be amazing to see something where all these elements are combined in a way to make one big world we can explore with him. That’s when I realized there was one form of content of the yellow boy that I hadn’t seen yet: a comic.
Comics are full of opportunities to set up and explore the world, stories, and personality of a character in a way that you usually might not see in a game or other media in general. There are quite a few video game characters that have had comics made of them. Kirby, Mega Man, and Sonic the Hedgehog (who is still getting them made today) are some prime examples. With comics being my biggest passion, I had to find out if Pac-man had taken that opportunity.
To my surprise, he did. Sort of.
As far as I’ve been able to find there have only been three Pac-Man comics, two of which were made in France.
There’s Pac-Man Journal, written and drawn by Vince Ricotta, that follows the Hanna Barbera cartoon.
Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures by Delcourt Jeunesse Editions.
Then lastly a once lost Christmas comic in a Woman’s Day magazine, again following the 82′ cartoon.
None of these were what I was expecting, and didn’t really satisfy the itch of what I was looking for. The few of the Ghostly Adventure comics the fans translated are nice, but it only ran two volumes.
With ideas swirling in my head of the fun possibilities Pac-Man could bring to comics, and nothing pre-existing that offered it, I put my pen to the tablet screen and started putting these ideas out.
I started by imagining what kind of feeling a comic series about our yellow hero would have, then sketched some quick rough covers of vague ideas the issues would be about. Based on what I had seen, Pac-Man would be fun, wacky, whimsical, and exciting.
Next, I went and redesigned the ghosts. Now earlier I mentioned I did my own versions back 2018, but with those I was going mainly off the Ghostly Adventure designs. Now having learned about their in-game personalities and taking inspiration from different versions of them, I came up with much more fun and interesting takes than what I’d done before.
After all this, I began to look back at my initial Pac-Man design and felt very unsatisfied with it. Something felt off about him. His face was too small, and having completely watched through gameplay of Pac-Man 2: The new Adventures, I also realized he wasn’t nearly as expressive as he could be. I decided had to rework the design, and what I got connected with me.
Now this had way more personality. I love classic and modern Pac-Man’s look, and through this I felt I managed to blend the charm of each with my own style and inspirations.
Having the designs of the main cast covered and a style to go off of, I’ve been writing a slew of ideas and concepts for the world and mini comics to create since then. I plan on sharing each step of this fun exploration with you all as I go!
Until next time, thanks for reading!