 WIZARD UNIVERSE WEEKLY FEATURES |  | WIZARD Q&A: ANTONY JOHNSTON | | Image's new book 'Dead Space' hits shelves today, so Wizard caught up with the writer to see what crafting the backstory to a video game is all about. | | | By Kevin Mahadeo | | Posted 3/5/2008 | |  | | WIZARD: How did you get involved with Dead Space?
JOHNSTON: Well, I was contacted directly through a media agent. Basically, they knew they wanted to do the comic—it was their idea. And my agent recommended me, they looked at some of my previous work, I had a couple of phone conversations with them to check we were on the same page, and to my delight, the approach they wanted to take was pretty much what I would have done anyway: the sort of intelligent, psycho horror more than blood and guts gore. So, it all came about pretty quickly and pretty easily, really. It was kind of like, “right, okay, you’re on board.” The next thing was we got Ben (Templesmith) on board, which was partially my doing. They were clearly looking for somebody of Ben’s style, and so I said, “Well, I know Ben. Why don’t we just get Ben?” [Laughs] | | 
So, it was just that easy?
Yeah. I was like, “if you want somebody in that style, why don’t you just ask Ben himself.” And I’ve known Ben for many years, so they got in touch with him and he said yes. It’s all been really quite smooth.
You mentioned it was more psychological than blood and guts gore, is that what attracted you to the project to begin with?
Yeah. I mean, my favorite video game series is “Silent Hill.”
I love “Silent Hill!”
Doesn’t everyone? “Silent Hill” obviously does have blood and guts, and Dead Space will have blood and guts, but one of the things I like so much about “Silent Hill” is that so much emphasis is placed on character and story, and the psychological horror aspects—the suspense, the tension, the sort of completely messed up psycho-sexual horrors. I just really like that. I’ve always been into that sort of thing. So when I first learned about it and saw some of the very early pre-production material I just thought, “Oh yeah, this could be really good. This is right up my alley.” And that turned out to be the case.
Are you a big gamer?
I’m not a big gamer. I don’t have the time to be a big gamer, unfortunately. I still haven’t even played “Silent Hill 4.” It’s sitting on my shelf. I still haven’t gotten around to playing it, which is terrible, I know.
I actually just played that one recently, about a year [ago]. It’s actually pretty different from the previous ones.
Yeah, so I’ve heard. It’s just that, and god knows, [another] half dozen games sitting on my shelf waiting to be played. My favorite video games are of that narrative driven sort of thriller and intense drama type games. Not necessarily all horror, but that sort of really intense, story driven game. Which, I suppose you might say is natural being a writer. Although, my other favorite game series is the SSX Snowboarding series, which I absolutely love.
Are you a snowboarder yourself?
No, that’s the thing. I’ve never snowboarded in my life. [Laughs] I live in the middle of England. I grew up in the middle of England. There’s no snow around here. I just absolutely love those games. But mainly, it’s the sort of story adventure games.
How did the plot of comic series come about—did they give you a general outline or did they pretty much hand you over the keys?
It was kind of a bit of both. Basically, they already had a background for the game worked out. That’s all fully fleshed out. There’s a major, major backstory behind all of the game, which explains all of the events in the game. The focus of the game has always been the investigation of the ship that sends the distress signal.
I can’t actually remember which of us had the idea to set the whole of the comic on the colony. I think because they wanted a prequel, it was pretty much a given. It had to be on the colony because there was no one else. Apart from that, I was pretty much given free reign. It was kind of, “Well, here’s the background, a little discussion about it, now go away and write us a comic.” [Laughs] But I would say basically about 80 to 90 percent of the comic is completely independent of the game. It all fits in to the world. It’s all official and ties in.
But in terms of directly linking into the game, there’s only about 10 percent of it that actually does. You don’t need to play the game to get the most out of the comic. You don’t need to read the comic to enjoy the game. All I’ve had to do was sort of incorporate the elements of the backstory that are important to the game and will link directly into it and explain the events that unfold. But there’s a lot more in the comic than that because that wouldn’t take up that much time or space. So I built this big plot of all the characters on the colony, who were affected by the events, around it.
What can you tell us about the plot of the comic?
The comic I can talk about a fair amount actually. The comic covers the five weeks that take place immediately before the game. The comic ends pretty much at the same time the game starts—not necessarily in the same situation, but in the terms of the timeline. We cover the five weeks from the discovery of this strange mysterious artifact on the planet [they’re mining], up until the start of the game. Our main character is a security officer on the colony. He’s a retired cop who has become a security officer on the colony, which is common. It’s generally seen as a bit of a cushy, slow, low-risk job because the worst thing they have to deal with is the occasional drunken brawl in a bar on a Friday night or an argument in the lunchroom.
Then one of the mining teams discovers this strange artifact on the planet and it throws the entire colony in disarray, and the whole thing quickly descends into chaos and madness. What I’ve actually done is set it up so you see the story through a number of different character’s eyes. Our main character is Sgt. Bram Neumann, but there’s also his partner, who is much more seriously affected by the discovery of the artifact than he is; we have the colony’s head doctor, who is completely lost to explain why things are going south so quickly on the colony; there’s an engineer, who becomes closely involved in the artifact and that doesn’t end well for her. Doesn’t end well for anyone, really. [Laughs]
So, we see the story through everyone’s different points of view. They’re all connected, but each of them has a different point of view and a different experience on the colony. Because this is such a huge environment, such a sprawling operation, we decided to tell the story [this way] to get across how it affects everyone in different ways.
When I talked to Ben, he said they played the game for you guys so you could see what it looked like?
Yeah, they did that literally just after WonderCon. But we had seen a lot of material before then. Ben and I had been supplied things like concept art and video walkthroughs of early builds of the game. And I’ve had a lot of contact and communication with [Electronic Arts]. One of the things that I think makes this quite unusual with comic licenses and video games is that EA has been really hands on about this, in terms of if I’ve had on questions or inquiries. I’ve spent a lot of time talking to them and we’ve had a lot of discussions about the story and how things fit in.
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So, through all that, the tone and atmosphere of the comic matches that of the game pretty well?
I think it does, actually. It’s kind of chicken and egg. It matches because we have Ben because that was the sort of style they wanted and his style matches the atmosphere and mood of the game. It’s a bit of a Catch-22.
As a writer, do you write to cater to Ben’s style at times?
To an extent. I always write with my artist’s strengths and specialties in mind when I go into a book. And with Ben those specialties are pretty clear. On the other hand, I don’t micromanage an artist the way some like, say, Alan Moore does. I don’t write page-long panel descriptions. I like to think I give artists enough to work from, but I leave the visuals up to them because they’re the artist.
What I tend to do is try to write situations that I think will fit an artist rather than sort of compose the panels for them—because obviously, I’m not an artist. It’s more about finding situations that I think will suit their style or that they will enjoy drawing. With this book, with Ben, I don’t actually have to do that much because it’s his kind of style anyway. So, I don’t have to go out of my way to find situations and scenes that I think will work for him.
What scares you? Is there anything that freaks you out or are you fearless?
[Laughs] In fiction, I’ve always been a huge fan of H.P. Lovecraft. I’m a sort of cosmic-unknown-terror kind of guy. That’s what scares me really—the sort of enormity of it all compared to the human races insignificance on a cosmic scale. I’ve touched on that a few times in my own stories because that’s something that I think is the ultimate horror for most people. From a personal point of view: spiders.
Really?
Absolutely terrified of spiders. [Laughs] Which isn’t good because I live in the middle of the English countryside and we’re surrounded by the little blighters.
So, you’re trapped there basically?
Yeah, pretty much. I can’t get out now because there are spiders everywhere. [Laughs]
Do you incorporate any spider creatures into the comic because you know it creeps you out?
[Laughs] Unfortunately, the creature design isn’t something that I have any control over, but I can say the creature design is very, very creepy and cool. In the same way that a lot the monster designs in “Silent Hill” aren’t scary so much as disturbing. And that’s kind of what this is like.
I mentioned this to Ben, but you guys knew each other long before Wasteland and such. You guys did an online webcomic together. Do you remember that time fondly? Do you still have any copies of the comic?
I remember it very fondly. Did you try looking on my Web site? It didn’t exactly set the Internet on fire, so it’s probably not linked a lot of other places than my own Web site. If you’re on the Titles Page, somewhere near the bottom is After Days of Passion. When the idea of doing comic on the web first started taking off, this is long before either Ben or I were professionals, I was approached by opi8.com, which was created by a guy like me who used to hand out on the old Warren Ellis forums. He now directs music videos for Marilyn Manson and the like, but he’s also a gothic, digital artist. He wanted to create this site for gothic, digital content, so I was approached to write something for it. So, I came up with the idea to do this experimental web comic and the guy who was editing that section put me in touch with Ben. I’m not too sure I knew who Ben was at that point. Even now, I look back and I’m proud of it. I think we did quite a unique thing. Ben did a fantastic job on the art, obviously. And so, we’ve just kind of kept in touch over the years since. But this is the first chance we’ve had since then to work on something properly together. In terms of actually doing a story together, this is the first chance we’ve had in eight years.
What’s it been like?
It’s been really, really great actually. I’ve known and liked Ben for a long time, so to finally get the chance to actually work on something properly with him… He’s brilliant. He’s one of the foremost horror artists in comics today—if not the foremost. He brings a sizeable audience with him, he’s a great guy, and he’s a barrel of fun at cons, which helps. The whole experience has been great from start to finish really.
Check out Wizard Universe’s Q&A with Dead Space artist Ben Templesmith!
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