Thanks to Brian from the Scottishgames.biz blog who kindly sent me this link to a recent interview with Gordon Rennie, well-known Brit comics writer (especially respected here for some of his top 2000 AD strips such as Necronauts and Caballistics; he’s also impressed so much he’s been let loose on Judge Dredd) and a man who has also become involved in computer games via the critically-acclaimed Rogue Trooper game. Gordon certainly must count as one of the few comics writers to have a BAFTA nomination! The interview ranges across comics, computer games, what both have in common with each other and what both can learn from one another, as well as discussing the arts in Scotland in general and what can be done to try and improve them.
Asked how the writing process for a computer game differed from writing comics or books, Gordon explained: “You’re not master of your own domain in games writing – i.e. it’s very much a team effort, and you have to be responsive to the developer’s wishes. In that respect, it’s not much different from writing film screenplays – the more money’s at stake, the greater the number of people whose input you’re obliged to listen to – although the technical limitations of what you can and can’t do are different, and that’s something you have to learn about quickly. In comics, I can blithely write a scene where a thousand dinosaurs come running over a hill, and the artist can get on with drawing it, because comics have an unlimited special effects budget. If I write the same thing in a film screenplay, the producer has a fit and wants to know how we’re going to pay for that. If I write it into a games script, the art department hunt me down and kill me because they’re the ones have to design and build all the models for it.”
Mon, Jan 29, 2007
Comics and cartoons, Interviews