Moderator: Either within the games world or outside it, what informs your comic sensibility when you're putting together a script or a game?

Tim: [long pause] Where are we stealing our ideas from?

AVC: Has the reprint of your comics bred any new interest?

SP: I have no idea. I haven't checked with the sales figures for that, but I'd imagine there must be a saturation point for the same set of comics that that reprint has been. I'm not sure I can milk any more readers out of that one. I always tell people I have this story at home that's half-finished, and a quarter of it is inked and it's the story I feel I should sit down and finish and get it off my plate once and for all. It's a story where Max is shot in the ear and has to go to the hospital, and Sam recruits a new partner: a white-handed gibbon.

• Episode 2: The Tomb of Sammun-Mak
• Episode 3: They Stole Max's Brain!
• Episode 4: Beyond the Alley of the Dolls
• Episode 5: The City That Dares Not Sleep

My current main focus is a project I'm hoping to be able to announce sometime in the near future. I'm extremely excited about it and the direction it's been going in. But right now it's all top secret I'm afraid. Kind of a cryptic answer I know, but I really shouldn't say more just yet.

Alexandras ep of New Tricks on BBC1 mon 9pm. FROM PARIS WITH LOVE opens fri & new series of Monkey Island starts recording on Tuesday!!

We've heard from sources that the game is due to be announced very soon, perhaps even next week at the Game Developer's Conference, and that like the first game's special edition, will contain all-new graphics and audio.

Unlike the first game, however, this one will be reaching a few more consumers, with versions planned for not just the Xbox 360, PC ad iPhone (like Monkey Island), but the PlayStation Network as well.

Asked about potential PC plans for DeathSpank, a game drawing from genres with strong PC heritage, an EA representative declined to comment conclusively, but told Gamasutra, "EA and Hothead want as many people as possible to experience DeathSpank," and advised gamers "not to read too much into the [announced] SKUs just yet."]

For more than 10 years, Hollywood has been interested in putting Smith's entertaining epic on the big screen. At one point, Nickelodeon Movies and Paramount held an option. In 2008, Warner Bros. acquired the rights for producer Dan Lin (Sherlock Holmes). Animal Logic, the Australian visual effects company (The Matrix, Happy Feet, 300) will turn Smith’s drawings into CGI. Despite a recent kerfuffle with Warner—a potential train wreck that instead became “one of those fires that gets put out”—Bone, the movie, is on track and a director will soon be announced. Smith is the film’s executive producer. And although he is not writing the screenplay, all quality control decisions pass through him. “I’ve seen everything,” he says. “It’s their project. But they’ve been very good about keeping me in the loop and showing me everything and it’s pretty exciting so far.” He admits that he is “kind of stubborn when it comes to Bone and animation.”

What's next?

We're looking to engage more franchises, including those that are more topical and relevant in the current entertainment world.

The painting is 7" X 10" was done in gouache (an opaque watercolor) on heavy illustration board and has been covered with acetate since it was created in 1991.

So, Purcell's done lots and lots of cool things. But nothing's cooler than Hit the Road. A private school principal once told me that in the history of literature, the greatest translation of all time was the English translation of Waiting for Godot, because Samuel Beckett had personally translated it from French, in which he'd originally written it, into English, his mother tongue. Well, Steve Purcell just might be the Samuel Beckett of comic book video games.

What's the biggest challenge you see facing the industry?

Busting out of the niche it is in and building enough high quality diverse content to put it at the top of the entertainment food chain where it belongs. I think we are starting the process, and I think the diversification of distribution is creating the opportunity to reach wider demographics. As we expand into these demographics we need to rethink some of our core assumptions about how money is made. At this point the personal computers are as ubiquitous as televisions, but not everyone with a computer is using it to play games even though they could if they wanted to, why is that?

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• LucasArts Adventure Games
  
• List of LucasArts Games
  
• List of Star Wars Video Games
  
• iMUSE