Indie Pixel Art Revival × Story Manga

Expressive manga portraits in dialogue boxes give the tiny sprites a face, as many of these games do.

From the research on Indie Pixel Art Revival

Mix them and make something Indie Pixel Art Revival Story Manga

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Indie Pixel Art Revival, their arrangement from Indie Pixel Art Revival, the finish from Story Manga. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

What each style brings

Each part of the design comes from the style with the stronger say in it, and each style gives at least two.

Indie Pixel Art Revival Story Manga (Postwar Japanese Comics)

Type from Indie Pixel Art Revival: Bitmap & pixel
Eclectic mixing
Colour from Story Manga: Monochrome
Light ground
Form from Indie Pixel Art Revival: Stylised figuration
Rectilinear
Composition from Indie Pixel Art Revival: Full bleed
Illusion of depth
Surface from Story Manga: Halftone & Ben-Day dots

The type

Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.

Display · Indie Pixel Art Revival

Yay!

Pixelify Sans, standing in for Custom bitmap lettering drawn per game for titles and interface

Text · Story Manga

The black-and-white narrative comic of postwar Japan, from Tezuka Osamu's Shin Takarajima (1947) to the weekly boys' magazines of 1959 and 1968 and the paperbacks that collect them. Pages read right to left; panels change size and slant, bleed off the page and are broken by figures, cutting like film. Grey comes from dot screentone; motion and feeling from speed lines, focus lines and a codified set of symbols. Dialogue runs vertically in tall balloons, sound effects are drawn into the picture, and big-eyed, simplified characters act against detailed backgrounds.

Shippori Mincho; Story Manga used Anchi-goshi balloon setting and Fine Mincho balloon setting

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Story Manga, with a counter-accent from Indie Pixel Art Revival. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Indie Pixel Art Revival Story Manga (Postwar Japanese Comics)

#f6f3ea ground · 36%
#141414 ink · 14%
#d32f2f accent · 18%
#e0607e accent · 14%
#cfcfcf accent · 10%
#5fc9c4 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f6f3ea;
  --ink: #141414;
  --accent-1: #d32f2f;
  --accent-2: #e0607e;
  --accent-3: #cfcfcf;
  --accent-4: #5fc9c4;
  --font-display: "Pixelify Sans", monospace;
  --font-text: "Shippori Mincho", serif;
}

Use it with care

Story Manga (Postwar Japanese Comics): Manga characters and series, from Astro Boy to Dragon Ball and One Piece, are in copyright and belong to their creators and publishers, and manga is the living work of professional artists and assistants: draw original characters in the shared idiom, never ask an image model for a named series, character or artist's hand, and label generated pages as AI-made rather than presenting them as a manga artist's work. Some of Tezuka's own books drew foreigners, including Black Africans and Asians, in exaggerated caricature; after protests from September 1990 by the Osaka-based Association to Stop Racism Against Blacks, Tezuka Productions put a disclaimer slip into his books. Give every character the same drawing care, and never use skin, lips or dress as ethnic shorthand.

The two styles

A pixel-art poster titled “FARLIGHT” shows a scarf-wearing traveler and a small cat on a rocky ledge overlooking a vast city of towers, bridges, and turquoise waterfalls. A huge pink-orange sun glows behind the distant skyline beneath a dark, star-speckled sky.

2004–present · Global / networked, North America, Northern Europe, East Asia Indie Pixel Art Revival Low-resolution pixel art chosen freely by independent game makers long after the hardware limits were gone. The pixel grid stays visible in sprites, worlds and in-game text, but it carries what the old machines could not: wider views, extra colours, multi-layer parallax, soft light and mood-keyed palettes, often mixed with non-pixel portraits, painted cutscenes and high-definition interfaces. Tiny figures cross deep, atmospheric landscapes, so the tone is nostalgic but also contemplative and personal. It reaches key art, logos, crowdfunding pages, soundtrack sleeves and merchandise.

A vintage-style Japanese comic poster uses angled black-and-cream panels and red accents to show two children and a dog adventuring around a fortress island. Scenes include a steamship, a mysterious man in a hat, an ornate bird-shaped treasure, airplanes, and the children running atop a steam train.

1947–present · East Asia, Global / networked Story Manga (Postwar Japanese Comics) The black-and-white narrative comic of postwar Japan, from Tezuka Osamu's Shin Takarajima (1947) to the weekly boys' magazines of 1959 and 1968 and the paperbacks that collect them. Pages read right to left; panels change size and slant, bleed off the page and are broken by figures, cutting like film. Grey comes from dot screentone; motion and feeling from speed lines, focus lines and a codified set of symbols. Dialogue runs vertically in tall balloons, sound effects are drawn into the picture, and big-eyed, simplified characters act against detailed backgrounds.