Okay, of course Gordon Rennie writes – he’s a writer, for Grud’s sake. What I mean is he has started a new column for Spong, the computer game site, which shouldn’t be that surprising since, as well as being a highly respected comics scribe – the wonderfully odd Necronauts, the psychedelically looney-but-brilliant (in a superfreak way) Storming Heaven – also writes for video games, bringing some decent story and characterisation to a medium which is now realising that with more complex games which verge on cinematic it isn’t enough to have lovely graphics, you need real characters, proper dialogue, motivations, scenarios – in other words you need a proper writer. Gordon’s first column is here (complete with a cool ‘Judge Rennie’ graphic by PJ Holden) and there is also a short interview with him (mostly games related) here. I can’t help borrowing this quite from him about writing comics for a living though:
“I write comics for a living. I tell people that when asked – it’s generally not the sort of information you’d willingly volunteer about yourself, and, unless you’re a character in a Kevin Smith movie, it’s definitely not ever going to get you laid – and the look I get back is part sceptical bemusement – that’s a job, is it? – but mostly just the kind of reaction you’d expect if you’d told them that you were severely autistic.”
(thanks to Matthew Badham for the tip)
Fri, Nov 23, 2007
Comics and cartoons