Thursday, July 22, 2010

Video Game Comics!

Representatives from Mass Effect, Dragon Age, DC Comics, Dark Horse Comics, EA were among the panelists.

Editors, GMs, Writers spoke of the relationship between comic books and video games. Most fans who like one, tend to like the other. In variant degrees often, but geek love is geek love. And if there isn’t love, at the very least there is great respect.

I was interested in the honest collaboration between the two genera. Often when films are made out of video games or comics the stories are changed or fussed with (and usually not for the best). That doesn’t seem to be the case here. “Think EXPANSION PACK”

Many spoke of the challenges of developing a character w/o impeding on the players identity. For example FALL OUT is an RPG, so writers can’t use the main character as the focal point. Instead they decided to focus on all the characters who are trying to kill you. …no seriously. Personally I think it’s a brilliant idea. It maintains the personal attachment each gamer has w/ the main charter while still advancing the story in a completely immersed world.

When it came to continuity of story/environment/characters we were assured that events/actions that happen in the game occur in the comic book. References that appear in the comic book show up in the game. They are one living breathing entity across two interlocking genres. Many of the panelist discussed that keeping the continuity has been easy because who they seek out to write these comics. For example the lead writer of Mass Effect became a writer for the comic.

Keep an eye out for King and Leach, Ratchet and Clank, Gears of War, God of War…and Assign’s creed? Maybe?

World of war crap will have 4 different graphic novels released in conjunction w/ the game.

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