Assassin's Creed Returns to Comics

I think we can all agree it’s difficult to find good comics based on video game properties. It’s like picking a needle out of a haystack. That’s why 2010’s Assassin’s Creed: The Fall stuck out like the best kind of sore thumb. Written and drawn by Cameron Stewart and Karl Kerschl, Assassin’s Creed: The Fall was a fantastic offshoot from the main Assassin’s Creed mythology, catering to both longtime AC fans and newcomers alike.

Now the duo is back to continue the stories of Daniel Cross and Nikolai Orelov in Assassin’s Creed: The Chain. We caught up with Stewart and Kerschl to chat about their goals with the new book and find out what’s so enticing about working in the AC universe.

IGN Comics: Let me start by saying that I was floored when a sequel to Assassin’s Creed: The Fall was announced; I was a huge fan of that first book. So how soon after its release was it decided that there would be a sequel?

Karl Kerschl: When The Fall was finalized, we didn't have any intention of going back to this story and these characters. We felt like we had told the story we wanted to tell with them and were ready to move on and explore another period in the Assassin's Creed mythos. Ubisoft really wanted to do a follow-up to The Fall though, and after a short meeting with the writers and producers of AC, they basically told us to think about it; if we come up with a story worth telling then we'll go ahead, otherwise we'd explore something new. On our way back from the meeting (about a 5 minute walk from their offices to our studio in Montreal) we came up with an idea that got us excited and gave them a call back right away letting them know we were in.

IGN: Okay, that kind of answers my next question, then. So it was Ubi pushing for a follow-up to this specific story, not the other way around?

Cameron Stewart: We had always discussed the potential of several volumes right from the planning stages of The Fall, but it was shortly after The Fall was completed that we were asked by Ubisoft to come up with an idea for a follow-up. With the introduction of Daniel Cross and Nikolai Orelov into the AC universe, Ubisoft was keen for us to expand and deepen those characters.

IGN: Assassin’s Creed: The Fall was published under DC’s Wildstorm banner, which unfortunately is no longer around. So who will be publishing The Chain?

Stewart: Although initially published by DC Comics in monthly issues, Ubisoft publishes both The Chain and the deluxe collected edition of The Fall in-house, through their Ubi Workshop department. 

IGN: What I love about both The Chain and The Fall before it is that they don’t require prior knowledge of the Assassin’s Creed franchise to be enjoyed. If you have it, you’ll have more context going into these stories, but it’s not essential. Is that something that was important to maintain with The Chain, keeping it new-reader friendly?

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I hate seeing comics that are impenetrable to audiences not already exhaustively familiar with past continuity...

Stewart: I hate seeing comics that are impenetrable to audiences not already exhaustively familiar with past continuity, so it was important to us to make the books accessible to readers new to the Assassin's Creed universe. Much of Karl's and my existing readership comes from outside the gaming world so we wanted to be able to have a book that would appeal to them as well as long-time Assassin's Creed fans, and also act as an entry point to the game series. Obviously the experience is richer if you are a fan of the games, but new readers should have no problem picking it up and understanding the story. We tried to include everything you need to know.

IGN: Both Daniel Cross and Nikolai Orelov return for The Chain and have interesting character arcs in the story. They might share the same ancestry, but they represent two very different sides of the same coin – the idea of being alone versus being surrounded by family seems to be the main theme at play here. Was this something you really wanted to explore with this sequel? Do you feel this is the distinguishing factor between the Templar and Assassin orders in the Assassin’s Creed universe?

Stewart: We invert the positions of Cross and Orelov -- in The Fall, Daniel is very much the outsider, and Orelov is with his "family" of the Brotherhood, but by the time the events of The Chain occur, Orelov has both lost his family and estranged himself from the Order of Assassins, and Daniel is no longer alone, allowing himself to be drawn closer to his kindred. We also had fun subverting the audience's perceptions of both the Assassins and the Templars, and readers might find their sympathies shifting.

IGN: Much like with The Fall, The Chain is a gorgeous looking book from top to bottom. Both of you guys are credited with the book’s art, so could you maybe detail the process of how you divvied up art duties?

Stewart: As with The Fall, we didn't split the art duties in the traditional method of penciller and inker - Karl and I worked on the pages collaboratively.  Both of us would choose scenes we were interested in drawing or suited to our individual strengths, and then in many cases handed them off to the other for polishing. For example, Karl might lay out a page, which I would then draw finished art over, and then he might go back in and refine parts of  it.

IGN: Without going into spoilers, I thought the book’s somber ending was an interesting choice. Instead of ending with a knock-down-drag-out brawl, you wrap things up with a quiet moment in a church. What was the thought process to ending the book in this fashion?

Kerschl: Daniel's connection to Nikolai Orelov is concluded in this story, for better or worse, and since they never physically meet we wanted to do the next best thing by giving Daniel a quiet moment with his closest actual living relative.

IGN: Should readers expect any connections to the much-anticipated Assassin’s Creed III with The Chain?

Stewart: I'm not sure what we can reveal, but there is definitely a link, which was planned in close collaboration with the AC3 team, and we expect that fans who play the game will be very interested in going back and reading The Fall and The Chain.

IGN: If you guys have the time and motivation to do more stories set in the Assassin’s Creed universe, would you jump at the chance?

Stewart: It's very fun to contribute to this universe and with such a huge archive of history to draw from, new stories will continue to feel fresh and exciting for us to explore, so I'm sure we'll be on board for a while.

Assassin's Creed: The Chain is currently available for pre-order from Ubi Workshop and is scheduled to ship late Summer 2012.

Erik is a writer for IGN's Comics channel and co-host of the IGN Assemble! podcast. You can follow Erik on Twitter, or find him here at IGN. Fair warning: prepare for suspect shenanigans.

Source : ign[dot]com