LEGO® bricks in new role as comic strip
The familiar LEGO® City universe is set to become a cartoon community. It’s an online project – driven entirely by consumers and their imagination creating stories in Comic Builder.
The familiar LEGO® City universe is set to become a cartoon community. It’s an online project – driven entirely by consumers and their imagination creating stories in Comic Builder.
Comic Builder is a new function on the LEGO.com website. The new web application allows the visitor to build a unique and personal comic strip.
Where classic comic strips like Donald Duck & Co and Beetle Bailey are centred on Duckburg and Camp Swampy, users of Comic Builder will be able to place their stories in the LEGO City environment, combining words, bricks and minifigures to produce a comic strip.
“Comic Builder is not a game. It is more like a tool for storytelling. There are no rules, no points and no end. You could say that it is a toy-like tool – but closer to toy than tool,” says Fraser Lovatt, senior producer and one of the creators of the Comic Builder application.
Letting minifigures speak
When you start your Comic Builder adventure, you first decide the layout of your cartoon strip. You can choose between rectangular or small square frames – or a combination of the various possibilities.
Then you decide different backgrounds for each of your frames – from street scenes to harbour quay.
Every cartoon series needs a gallery of characters, and this is where LEGO minifigures come in. Cops and robbers can be turned and placed in different positions, and provided with coffee cups and crowbars depending on the story.
Their words and thoughts are entirely up to you. There are speech bubbles and thought bubbles. All the available accessories are there to encourage creativity and the joy of making up your own story.
Digital tool for the fantasy
Just as happens when LEGO bricks are poured across the floor or play table, it is creativity and imagination that take over in Comic Builder.
“It has surprised us how the kids have used the functions. We’ve seen them use the tools and backgrounds in ways that we didn’t expect. That’s the beauty of doing this. There’s a flexibility to using the products in unexpected ways,” says Fraser Lovatt.
Comic Builder is an important link in the digital strategy of the LEGO Group. The LEGO Group’s ambition is to transfer the LEGO concept of “System of Play” to the digital platform. And to encourage children to contribute – and not just consume – digital content.