Pac-Man debuted in Japan on this day in 1980 and changed the world of video games. I’m old enough to have been alive and gaming when that coin-op machine hit the U.S. later that year and transmitted Pac-Man Fever to the point that even my grandmother liked the game. While those who tout story over gameplay still claim that gaming is still waiting for it’s “Wizard of Oz” moment, I’d argue that way parents introduce their young’uns to the dot-eating hero has become just as much of a tradition as being off to see the Wizard.

To celebrate, I made a quick little sprite of Chomp-Chomp, the Pac-family dog as he appeared in the Ruby-Spears cartoon that went on to inspire later official Pac-games. He’ll be added to the GFX Generators in the small site update later this week.

There’s another update on the way some time this week, but I wanted to get Bravoman’s stuff on the site as early as possible to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of his game hitting Japanese arcades.

Bravoman’s custom sprite was improved a bit more, his Japanese arcade logo and ShiftyLook logo were converted to mini-logos, his game was added to the Game Index and sprite from that game kick off his sprite gallery. Any of those things that could added to his character in the fighting game-sized GFX Generators were added along with the GroupShot getting a new “Comic 88 x 136″ info layout based on the “Bravoman X Wonder Momo” cover by UDON.

If you haven’t checked it out, be sure to hit ShiftyLook.com and check out Bravoman-related celebration there, including his new cartoon!

I’ll be back later this week with another small update, including more Super-Skrull sprites!

… you won’t be able to tell from this small update.

GFX Generators –
VsMaker: Added X-Men: CotA name graphics for more Marvel characters (and a few others). There’s an issue with player 2 characters and that screen, but it’ll require a new thing for the engines and that might be a while.

New characters: Professor X, Magneto’s Acolytes, Forge
Updated characters: Magneto (spites added)

Mini-Logos: Marvel Super Heroes – Secret Wars and X-Men vs. Street Fighter (Secret Files) added to Marvel section. Those logos were added to the GFX Generators and work nicely with their counterparts in the Comic 88 x 136 layout in the GroupShot generator.

Here’s a list of everything that was in the comic book and superhero-themed updates for last week:

GFX Generators –

GroupShot: All 12 TMNT Tournament Fighters (SNES) stages were added to the “Boxes, Flyer & Posters 160×192,” “Avatar 100×100,” and “Comics 88×136 pixels” styles in the GroupShot Generator. X-Men vs. Street Fighter (Capcom Secret Files) added to the 88×136 comic cover styles.

Custom Sprites – The sprites added to the generators have all been added to their respective Marvel, and galleries.

Custom Sprites – Sprites were added to the following galleries
DC – Lois Lane, Bizarro, Braniac, Zod, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy
Marvel – the Super-Skrull, Spider-Man sprite edit (black costume), Storm (punk outfit)
TMNT – Master Splinter and Shredder (’80s cartoon versions)
Snow Job – Snow Job v.1
Data East – Chelnov (improved from Saturday’s version, added an alternate version)
Namco – Bravoman

Sprites
TMNT – TMNT arcade sprites added. Animated fighting stances of all 12 characters from Tournament Fighters (SNES) sprites added.

Mini-Logos – Bizarro (’80s), Brainiac (’80s), Despero (’90s), Lois Lane (original, early ’70s), Mera (’80s) added to DC. Iron Man (Heroes Return) added to Marvel.

Game Logos – TMNT Tournament Fighters (various versions) and Batman: Return of the Joker (NES) added.

Game Index – Captain America and the Avengers (Genesis), Spider-Man & the X-Men (SNES), TMNT IV (SNES) and Trojan (NES) added.

Vernacula-X – A few more terms were added and a few more terms were expanded. 1-UP, Versus Mode and Palette Swap were the most improved and now have small sprite or screenshot galleries.

It’s the last of the comic book updates! This issue has a lot of Superman-related characters to celebrate the 75th Anniversary of his (and Lois’) first appearance. There will be another chunk of Superman sprites later this year to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the arcade game by Taito.

GFX Generators
New characters:
DC Comics – Bizarro, Braniac, Lois Lane, Zod
Data East – Chelnov/Atomic Runner
Updated characters:
Marvel – Storm (new punk rock sprite, 2 palettes added), Iron Man (Heroes Return era mini-logo added)
GroupShot: X-Men vs. Street Fighter (Capcom Secret Files) added to the 88×136 comic cover styles

Custom Sprites – The sprites added to the generators have all been added to their respective Marvel, DC and Data East galleries.

Mini-Logos – Bizarro (’80s), Brainiac (’80s), Despero (’90s), Lois Lane (original, early ’70s), Mera (’80s) added to DC. Iron Man (Heroes Return) added to Marvel.

BTW: Data East’s Chelnov is celebrating its 25th anniversary so I thought it’d be nice if Data East’s superhero made his way into this update, too.

That’s the end of comic book week for this year. All of the update posts from this week will be merged into a Trade Paperback post tomorrow so those who weren’t following can see all the newness at once. Thanks to everyone who checked out the new things here and extra thanks to anyone kind enough to repost or like these updates on the various places I posted them. Be sure to look at the other updates if this is your first time back, especially if you didn’t know about the new MUGEN stage I added on Thursday. The site will be back to more game-related updates, but comic heroes and villains will be sprinkled in here and there, just as they’ve always been on this site. Have a good weekend!