'God of War' Comic Team Opens Up About the Challenges of Adapting Kratos

Santa Monica Studio, Dark Horse, and Sony Interactive have teamed up to further the journey of [...]

By Liana 'LiLi' Ruppert

Santa Monica Studio, Dark Horse, and Sony Interactive have teamed up to further the journey of Kratos and his son through a brand-new comic series that brings the legend to life once more. With the revamped mythology behind the recently released PlayStation 4 exclusive having been met with such incredible success, it's no wonder that fans clamored for more. Thanks to lead writer Chris Robertson and artist Tony Parker, we've gotten to see an all-new side of Kratos, and we spoke with them about the comic's creation.

One thing we wanted to know right off the bat was how the process all came together when creating this story? What was it like to work with such an incredible team?

"I'm incredibly lucky to be a part of such a team," Parker says. "Chris's scripts are tight enough to keep everything together but still allow for nuances from me. Chris also nailed the feel for the characters, so it was easy for me to draw the characters, right down to having the voices in my head. The notes from Dark Horse and [Santa Monica Studio] were all wonderful learning experiences, and they were all concise and well thought out responses."

"There were only two challenging parts to it, outside of the standard 'starting on a new project' and 'how do I not mess this up' and even they were small things," he added. "They wanted me to go with a looser art style, so that wasn't even a challenge, but an opportunity to flex new art muscles. I did have to restrain myself from going detail crazy in some parts, but I totally get and support the reasoning behind it, and grew to love it. I also had a mental block around getting Atreus's face down, but everyone was great about helping me get it, and that was incredibly appreciated."

The entire process was definitely a collaborative effort, one in which a certain level of trust is required. "Collaboration is one of my favorite things about working in comics," Robertson says. "When I've written prose, everything you see on the page is by my hand, and whether it succeeds or fails is totally on me. But when I work in comics, I get to partner with artists who are far more talented than me, who take what I've written and do the heavy lifting of bringing it to life. And Tony does a phenomenal job here. There's just so much life and motion on the page!"

But as with all projects, there are challenges. "[T]he only stumbling block I had was in capturing Kratos' voice," he notes. "I had his personality and his motivations locked down fairly early on, but I kept stumbling from time to time on phrasing things just right. Sometimes it was just a matter of putting too many words in Kratos's mouth. But a conference call with Cory and the team at SMS finally helped me get a handle on it, and it was smooth sailing from there. (And they told me that they sometimes had trouble writing his voice just right, too, which was encouraging!)"

Interested in seeing how the team captured Kratos' voice? The first of four issues goes on sale November 14th, perfect for the holiday season, with the second going live on January 9th. The promising new adventure will be available to pre-order at major retailers such as Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and others. You can also scoop it up at your local comic shop as well!

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