Interviews

Benoit Sokal Speaks to Just Adventure About the Lost
Paradise Game,
Comic Strip
and Film Project

January
26, 2005

On the occasion of the
new year, Benoît Sokal – best
known for the best-selling Syberia series
– agreed to answer some questions about his upcoming projects with
White
Birds Productions:

Benoit, what projects are planned for 2005?

• For 2005, White
  Birds Productions will concentrate on some fundamental
  projects: – for example, our first game, Lost Paradise. We
  are in full production on the title, for which a publishing
  agreement was just made. This agreement relates to the whole
  of the rights
  for Europe – we are still speaking to various publishers
  for the US rights
• A collection
  of comic strips, based on the universes created by White Birds
  has been in production for several months. The first
  series of strips focuses on the Lost Paradise universe. It is exciting
  for us to work simultaneously on the game and the comic.
• Finally, we will be working on another game – which
  we will announce soon – and a film project.

In all these fields, we will concentrate above all on quality! We
are convinced that working on related games, comic strips and film
is the only solution to continue to advance and progress in this
industry.

All are these projects within the framework of White Birds Productions?

Absolutely. Except for
Canardo, the series of comic strips that I continue on a purely
personal basis,
all my other work is conceived and completed for White Birds
Productions

Who will be the publisher for Lost
Paradise?

We’ve announced
a couple of days ago that Micro Application will be our publisher
in Europe. We were charmed meeting this editor,
with who we felt a true dynamism; there is a true synergy between
us and I think that that will make it possible to improve the diffusion
of our titles in the future. Micro Application is really building
a very interesting line-up in the adventure genre.

Concerning the USA, I
think that we will make the official announcement at the GDC (Game
Developer’s Conference in San Francisco).

Do you also have a publisher for the collection of comic strips?

Yes – we worked this past summer with one of the largest French
editors. I think that announcement will also be made soon. And you
will perhaps even see the first pages of the Lost Paradise comic
strip then! The Lost Paradise comics will be published into 3 or
4 volumes – the first one appearing at the same time as the
game, and the other ones a couple of months later.

Will there be artists other than yourself involved with White Birds?

Of course. It is one
of our main objectives. I can say that the film project – which
will also of course be a game – is the fruit of a collaboration
between me and my friend François
Schuiten – the author of the Obscure Cities.
And, in addition, we look forward to, either in the world of
the video games or for other types of creation, to work with
and collaborate
with other authors in creating their own universes via White
Birds. Michel Bams, Olivier Fontenay and myself are rather excited
to regard
White Birds as a production company that provides authors with
the means to create interesting, new worlds.

Will you be working primarily with cartoonists?

No. Of course, there is
already – as I said – François
Schuiten – but there will soon be others. We seek talent from
all venues. For instance, we would like to encourage game developers
to create comic strips and cartoonist to create games. But, we will
speak about this with you in more detail soon.

Thank you for your time, Benoit. It is always a pleasure.