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Austin Wizard World Comic Con



Yesterday Joe Madureira was a featured guest at the Wizard World Comic Con in Austin, Texas. The local newspaper 'Austin Chronicle' had a small interview I'd like to share.
Austin Chronicle: On the game design front, it used to be that the approach was "what will the processors let us get away with?" Now it's "what will the ESRB let us get away with?" From an artistic perspective, how have you found working on video games?

Joe Madureira: ESRB hasn't really affected us one way or another. When we started on Darksiders, we made a pact that rather than choose a rating we were shooting for and try to shoe-horn the design, we would do what was best for the game and the 'franchise' and let the rating be whatever it was. We got an 'M' rating, not surprising … but I don't think that's necessarily a huge deal these days. Some of the highest selling games in the last 5 years were slapped with an "M" rating. I think development time is the biggest hurdle in game development. You can pretty much pull off anything now – the question is, how many people is it going to take to execute, and how long? Because time is money. Obviously it takes quite a bit more planning and organization than I was used to working in comics.

AC: How different is the experience of working for a large publishing house like Marvel to working with a big game published like THQ, or is having Vigil games more like having the creator-owned outlet of Cliffhanger?

JM: Vigil is fully owned by THQ, so we are definitely working for a large publisher. That could be really bad, but I will say, from the very beginning, THQ has never tried to wrestle creative away from the studio. If anything they've been really supportive about directional changes or when we've asked for more time. Publishers really only become a hassle if they hate what you are doing, so – in that respect, I think we've been incredibly lucky.

AC: Image has the Battle Chasers hardcover scheduled for Nov 10 (just in time for the Austin event): Are we likely to see the return of Garrison and Gully?

JM: I'm totally excited about the release of the Hardcover. Over the years I'd always hear from fans that had trouble locating some of the issues. This is the first time it's all been collected into one volume. We'll see what kind of reception it gets. I'd love to do something with the characters again someday, but it's a long way off. I have creative-ADD, too much stuff lined up before then!


Joe Madureira has made countless appearances this year at Comic Cons around the globe, it's great to see he's still going out of his way for fans and the comic community! I'll post more news later if anything comes up.
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