 |
|
Home Columns  by Scott Tipton  by Chris Ryall  by Scott Bowden  by Joshua Jabcuga  by Jud Meyers    |  Ron Twoeagle |
Guest Lecturer
2008-03-14 - THE CROSSOVER INTERVIEW by Seth "4:10" Robison
The Crossover Interview: ARMY OF TWO’s John Ney Rieber
With their overlapping fan bases and compatible content, comic books and video games are coming together today like never before. A fine example is Electronic Arts’ ARMY OF TWO game and its prequel graphic novel ARMY OF TWO: DIRTY MONEY, published by Prima Games. To explore what it took to put a virtual world onto the printed page, I asked a few questions of its author, John Ney Rieber (BOOKS OF MAGIC, SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATER) about what it took to get the book off the ground, how he sees the gaming world and how he got into the heads of its leads: soldiers for hire Tyson Rios and Elliot Salem.
Seth Robison: How did you get involved with ARMY OF TWO, EA and Prima?
John Ney Rieber: The graphic novel credits Eric Trautmann with the lettering for the book. But Eric was much, much more than a letterer. Prima had worlds of experience creating videogame strategy guides. But graphic novels are a very different kind of beast. They brought Eric on to help them make the jump to the medium -- as their comics guru or mastermind, basically. It'd be oversimplifying to call him an editor.
And Eric and I had been trying to do a project together for dog years. Once upon a time, he approached me about doing a HALO book. The project evaporated. But our friendship didn't. Fast-forward a couple of years. He thought I might be a good fit for the script side of an ARMY OF TWO graphic novel. I thought I'd have to be crazy to pass up the chance to work with him on such a cool property.
SR: How much direction did you get from the creators of ARMY OF TWO about the characters and their world?
JNR: Tons. And very little. Sounds like a paradox. But really, the team--Dooma Wendschuh [lead screenwriter and producer of the ARMY OF TWO game -- S], especially--gave me the kind of guidance and support and freedom that freelance writers dream about and seldom see.
The only thing that troubles me about the book--I was tired and spacey when I wrote my endmatter thank-you piece, and I grievously neglected to give Dooma the paragraph or two or three of thanks he deserved.
He got me on track in Salem and Rios' world and he kept me on track -- but at the same time, he was totally receptive to my own approaches to the story. He was never too busy to answer the kind of random questions you come up with when you're working on a story that's a child of someone else's story. He went to bat for me a couple of times, when some scenario I wanted to do raised questions or eyebrows elsewhere. Great guy to work with.
SR: You were behind the dark, antiterrorism theme that the Captain America title took after 9/11; do you find it easer to write about similar subjects with non-established characters?
JNR: I don't know that I'd say it's easier to write about these themes when you're working with non-established characters. It's always like crawling through broken glass.
That said -- when you're dealing with new characters, fresh characters, characters people are going to read sans years of accumulated ideas or feelings or even convictions about those characters -- well, it may be easier to write and be understood. And it is easier to script characters as characters when they're not icons.
SR: ARMY OF TWO deals with actions of a private military corporation (PMC), something that's been in the news recently, how much have you drawn on reality for inspiration?
JNR: As thoroughly as I could. All of the missions -- the chapters of the story -- are based on political or historical scenarios. If not events that can be verified, at least events that could have happened.
I was really lucky that the ARMY OF TWO game spans as much time as it does -- the timeline of the rise and evolution of the modern PMC, basically.
It took some digging and some thinking to come up with stories that didn't echo or repeat each other too strongly. But because we had 12 years of history to mine, we managed.
SR: As a professional writer, what do you think of the typically non-linear narrative style present in most video games?
JNR: At this point in the evolution of gaming, I think it's just something that comes with the territory. The territory being about ninety percent mechanical -- based on the limitations of the hardware and the software available -- and about ten percent conceptual. That conceptual focus being people's natural tendency to create things -- art, stories, products, experiences -- that echo things that are familiar to them. Things they know and love and enjoy.
And economically -- things they have reason to believe their audience will accept. Can't forget that.
But I reckon that we're going to be seeing more complex (and infinitely replayable) narrative structures in videogames as the storage capacity of the physical game-delivery-mechanism increases, AI gets better--and more people realize that we've pushed the graphics side of the gaming experience about as far as it can go, and start to give character interactions and narrative complexity the same kind of attention they've been giving rendering engines and physics engines for the past ten years.
I think we're going to see the line between cinema and gameplay blur. Soon. And in a good way.
SR: What makes comics a good fit for telling these kinds of stories?
JNR: Well...that's kind of tough to answer. One of the first things that whacks you in the face when you start thinking about telling a videogame-based story in a static narrative form like a comic or a graphic novel is: you don't really have access to the same tools and techniques that make gameplay immersive and exciting. To pick an obvious example -- you can't show an explosion exploding. You can't make your reader feel that he or she is moving -- and in danger. You have to use other tricks to make the story matter.
Games and comics are both strongly visual mediums. But they have different strengths. And weaknesses.
With DIRTY MONEY, we decided that we should use the graphic novel as a way to expand or deepen our reader's connection with Salem and Rios. To show more of the Two and the dangerous black and white and grey and green zones of their world than the game's plot and scenarios could show. With the notion that if you sat down to play the game after reading the book, you'd be a little more involved with the characters than you might have been before.
SR: What do you say to the judges and critics who doubt the cultural value of videogames? Is it similar to the infamous so-called corruptible influence of comic books?
JNR: Well, I think it's kind of silly for folks to diss the cultural value of videogames. The fact is, they're here. They're a huge part of our entertainment culture, our social culture -- and, honestly, our day-to-day survival culture.
Sure, games can have an impact on the people who play them. But if I were going to fiat some kind of pop-culture police into existence, I'd sic them on the advertising industry before I'd unleash them on Rockstar Games.
For me, the bottom line is: if you want to get wound up about this kind of stuff, you'd do better to concern yourself with the roots of the tree than its branches. If you're concerned about violence in society, put down your magnifying glass and take a hard look at the realities poverty. Education. Family.
SR: Are you a gamer, and do you have any current or all-time favorite games? How about comic titles?
JNR: Oh, yeah, I'm a gamer. Or I used to be. My console and my games are six states away, though -- in storage, gathering dust on their jewelcases. It's been a little more than a year since I've played anything, I'm sorry to say.
I like FPS games and fighting games, and once in a while, role-playing games. At the risk of totally losing my gamer cred, I have to say -- nothing chills me out like a couple of hours playing KING'S FIELD. There's something about the surreal moving-through-molasses vibe of that game that does it for me.
I only have one game on my computer. RETURN TO CASTLE WOLFENSTEIN.
SR: Is there one gaming character that you would love to write for, and why?
JNR: There are a couple. I've thought for years that it'd be a blast to do something based on the DEVIL MAY CRY games. That's some nice twisted stuff.
But if you're talking about absolute unchecked even-though-it-could-never-happen love: ALTERED BEAST. Yeah. Oh yeah --
SR: What are you working on now?
JNR: Theoretically, another SANDMAN MYSTERY THEATER miniseries for Vertigo. It's not a done deal by any means, but version 14 of the proposal is on my editor's desk, and I'm daring to be psyched about it.
Otherwise -- I'm kind of living in working-on-too-many-spec-projects-at-once-land at the moment. Five very different stories. And they're all driving me crazy in various ways.
I'm working on a couple of collaborative projects, too. One screenplay, and two we're-not-sure-yets. Can't say much about any of them. Not because I'm inclined to be secretive. Because I'm inarticulate. Or just plain incoherent.
Writing is a funny way to make a living.
SR: John, thank you for your time.
JNR: Thanks for asking.
Seth “4:10” Robison, who holds court every Wednesday at Keith’s Comix in Schaumburg IL, is the gaming culture columnist for gamertransit.com. E-mail him at seth410@gamertransit.com. The above is © 2008 by Seth “4:10” Robison, used with exclusive permission by comics101.com. Reproduction without permission is prohibited. All images and characters mentioned are the property of their respective owners.
