By Fernando Heinz Furukawa July 05, 2012

Fernando Heinz Furukawa is the artist of Legend of the Valkyrie and resides in Argentina.

Hello everybody! Let me introduce myself: I am Fernando Heinz Furukawa, artist of "The Legend of Valkyrie" webcomic. As this is the first time I write in this blog, let me tell you about myself and my relationship with video games.


I was born in Argentina, in 1983, so I'm a “veteran” in this adventure of living in front of a screen, whether at home or at my beloved arcades (nowadays almost extinct in this part of the world). Obviously, the Namco games were played over and over! PacMan, Galaga, Galaxian, Xevious, Mappy, Pac Land, Dig Dug, Lucky and Wild, Time Crisis, Tekken and of course, Valkyrie no Densetsu. Although Valkyrie was released only in Japan, that did not stop the game from arriving in my country! And so you could find a little dwarf of 8 years old (myself) playing it day and night… well, not so much at night as I had to go the arcades, so it was mostly being played over the day.


The vast majority of people in the suburban zones of Buenos Aires know pretty well about the golden age of arcade games (as we call it because of the many games and places where you can find them: From sport clubs, to supermarkets and gas stations, the machines were everywhere!), but the “video-games places” were, on our parents minds, seedy joints. Therefore it was difficult for a child, being so young, to be allowed to play alone late at night or even during the day. Lucky for me, I had an older brother who looked after me and spent hours in the arcades, watching me or playing himself!


So when Cryptozoic contacted me to work on this project, I was intrigued! At first I had no idea that Namco was behind this job, so I did research on the web and I found out about the comic I had to draw. It was based on a game I played as a kid! And besides everything else, I loved it! The fact that I didn’t understand the comic related to the game at first glance was because I never knew the real name of the game. On the game console, the name was written in Japanese! Yes, I have Japanese roots, but I don’t speak Japanese!

I hope you enjoy this version of the character and his world because more or less, this is the world that I imagined as a kid when playing in front of this wonderful game. And that's what excites me the most! To be able to be a part of this project, and extend somehow, the world of these beloved characters. I want to capture the attention of youngsters who had no opportunity to enjoy this classic arcade in a salon and to revive these memories in "old folks" like me, who spent entire afternoons, with many coins in their pockets, trying to beat the Final Boss.

In upcoming blog entries, I will be showing the process of creating the comic and provide some occasional anecdotes about the games from Namco. 

I will write about those wonderful years where arcade rooms were like a second home to me.