Movies, Games, and Comics Panel
I was very fortunate to be able to attend the “MOVIES, GAMES, AND COMICS PANEL” this weekend at the Albuquerque Film Festival 2009. The speakers on the panel were T.Q. Jefferson: the Marvel Comics Director of Games, the Eisner-nominated Pander Brothers: Jacob and Arnold Pander, and a writer/director from Rogue Taurus Productions. It was a great relaxed panel where they told us about how they work with the story, licensing, and marketing of their projects.
T.Q. Jefferson from Marvel Comics showed us a trailer for the new Iron Man 2 video game, which by the way rocked! He also showed some awesome character design concept art for Iron Man and Crimson Dynamo. He explained how the video game and the movie are both coming from the same place, but can still stand equally on their own. The story in the game is not a retelling of the new movie, but just a new adventure with the same characters and spirit from the movie. The game has been in development for over a year now, so the creators know the general idea of the new movie but not the whole story. He hinted that the games for both the Thor and Captain America movies are already in development too.
I had missed seeing the Pander Brothers last year when they came to the Santa Fe Film Festival with their award-winning identity theft thriller SELFLESS, so it was a nice surprise to see them on this panel. Jacob and Arnold Pander are both well established comic book, writers and artists. They have worked for both Marvel and DC, in film, video, animation design, and illustration. Arnold Pander talked to us about his newest project Tasty Bullet, a graphic novel he’s working on with Jonathan Vankin. We got to see a really cool trailer for the graphic novel too. He also explained what type of promotions they have planned to bring readers to the book, including an ARG (Alternate reality game) and the creation of vintage commercials for the tasty drink. The graphic novel will be published by Image Comics.
Rogue Taurus Productions is an independent film company based in Albuquerque, NM. They have created several movies which were filmed in New Mexico. It was interesting to hear the writer/director from Rogue Taurus assess that comics, video games, and movies all come from the same place. The desire to tell a compelling and interesting story. He commented on how the beginning process is similar to each other, but they create completely different storytelling mediums.
This was a great panel and I really had a fun time listening to what they had to say. I learned some new information regarding the creative writing process when it comes to licensing properties. Thanks to the Production Central ABQ for hosting this panel through the Albuquerque Film Festival 2009.
This blog post was originally published on my other website Comic Book Graphic Design and has now been migrated here to RSC Arts, Ralph’s Art Blog.