There were a lot of surprises. It's a completely new medium, so there were a lot of story processes and tricks of the trade and things that I just didn't know. There are a lot of rules we have to follow that I wasn't aware of so it was a really cool learning experience for me to come in and figure out exactly how this whole TV things works. It was a lot of fun. The amount of people who actually work on a television show is pretty startling. It's a 1,000 or so people who are working on The Walking Dead show, so it's a huge operation.
有很多令我感到惊讶的地方。这是全新的媒介,有很多故事处理手法和电视剧制作诀窍是我不知道的。有很多规则我们必须遵守,但我并不知道。因此,弄清楚电视节目这种东西到底是怎么运作的,这对我来说是非常有益的学习经历。其中有很多乐趣。为一档电视节目效力的人多得令人吃惊。《行尸走肉》电视剧的演职人员有1,000人左右,是个大制作。
What are some of the keys to maintaining a successful cross-platform franchise?
保持跨平台作品的成功有什么秘诀吗?
Making sure that everything is good. That's the main key and I'm really proud of the fact that the television show is so good and the Telltale video game is top-notch and I think our novel series is very well received. If you start getting lazy, if you start just throwing things out there because, “Hey, The Walking Dead's popular.” Someone will buy this. So who cares. I think that's when things start imploding. People all too often fall into that trap. As long as we strive to make every Walking Dead thing as good as it can be, things will hopefully keep going the way they're going.
确保所有产品的水准。这是最重要的秘诀。《行尸走肉》电视剧非常出色,Telltale的《行尸走肉》视频游戏也是拔尖之作,对此我非常自豪。我觉得,我们的《行尸走肉》小说也很受欢迎。如果你心想:“《行尸走肉》火了,不愁没人买。马虎点没事”。于是开始偷懒,随便扔出些粗制滥造的东西。我认为这就是开始走下坡路的时候。人们经常掉进这种陷阱。只要我们尽可能做好每个《行尸走肉》系列作品,事情就有希望沿着正确的道路发展下去。
What are you goals with Skybound moving forward?
Skybound的目标是什么?
Just to keep doing cool stuff. Skybound is a place where people can come into comics and find new genres and different kinds of books. Skybound is a company that works really hard to bring people comics that you wouldn't normally get from other places. We give creators an opportunity to do what they really want, or what they're passionate about, despite what may be deemed popular in the comic book industry. It's a lot of fun to be able to have my own corner of Image Comics to do with what I want and shine a spotlight on some good creators that I think deserve it.
不断推出好东西。Skybound是一个地方,在那里人们可以徜徉漫画世界,找到新体裁和不同类型的漫画。Skybound是一家公司,致力于为人们带来那种通常在其他地方难以得到的漫画。我们让创作者们去做他们自己真正想做的事情,或者做他们真正热爱的事情,不管这些事情在漫画行业里是不是有人追捧。在Image Comics公司,我能够在我自己的角落里做我想做的事情,挖掘我认为优秀的漫画作者,这一点非常有意思。
What's the secret to wearing multiple hats in the creative business?
在创意行业跨界发展的秘诀是什么?
Being able to shift your focus very quickly, or being able to work fast. The main thing would be to love what you do. I really enjoy what I do, so it doesn't matter that I have to do it a lot. I wake up and spring out of bed every morning excited about what's going to happen because there are various types of things I'm going to work on any given day. It's a lot of fun. You have to really be passionate about it or it's going to be overwhelming.
能够迅速转移焦点,或者能够迅速行动。最重要的是要热爱自己所从事的工作。我非常喜欢我所做的事情,因此工作量大也没关系。每天早晨,我醒来跳下床时,都会对即将发生的事情感到激动不已,因为每天我都会做各种各样的事情。非常有意思。必须真正热爱自己所做的事情,否则就会觉得不堪重负。