The artwork in the book was amazing and nostalgic and funny and beautiful all at once. I work here and have never seen almost anything that you got in the book. How did you pull that off?>
We spent a lot of time going through the LucasArts Archive. There is this one room in the new building in the Presidio. Actually, quite a bit of the concept art could have been lost in the move from across the bridge, so I can only imagine what might have not made it. There was still a great deal of it, and we actually contacted some of the artists directly and they had some of the artwork from the early games. Gary Winnick, who did the art for Maniac Mansion, let us use some of the originals that he still had. The editor at Chronicle Books chased down some from Steve Purcell, who had more. Sort of finding what we could, where we could. Certain bits and pieces we've used in magazines, so we had access to PC Gamer's extensive history with LucasArts. I was able to tap into their vast collection there.
My favorite thing about the book is that it is obviously written through the eyes of a starry eyed fan: you. Did you have a 'fanboy' moment where you could hardly contain yourself?
Which one? (Laughs) I think it was just... I really did, just finding any of the Monkey Island background stories. My favorite art pieces for one of the games was this little 4 x 6 note cards that they sketched the game on, and seeing the story pieced together on the cards... just seeing that was fascinating. Also, the game ideas that have not yet or did not see the light of day. We have an entire appendix of logos for the Star Wars-based games that aren't out there. There are all these logos with interesting names and stories that nobody has come across in years. Going back to Barwood planning a game with C-3PO as the main character. It was unfortunately killed, but seeing the idea and how they got onto it, seeing these ideas that never got made -- seeing them for the first time.
