The art of world building

Think big To succeed, don’t just create a world, create a universe, reveals Paul Gerrard, the artist behind an ambitious multi-channel project

- Paul Gerrard

Having taken four years to create, it’s only natural that Paul Gerrard would feel bullish about Rivals, his graphic novel that depicts a brutal martial-arts fantasy world. Not only is this the first in a series of books the artist has planned, but a board game is also due this year, followed by a PlayStation 5 game pitch, and even a planned live-action TV series.

“I decided,” says Paul, “it’s not enough just to do a script and a package, I want to do the whole thing, the whole George Lucas.”

With a background in film and TV concept art, on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Hellboy and Indiana Jones 5, Paul is no stranger to the demands of the industry or what it takes to create a new IP. He began on Rivals by defining his world: “post-apocalyptic […] medieval, with a kind of Mad Max overlay”. From there he worked on mapping the history of the planet, then its factions, then its clans, and finally he whittled his way down to his characters and only then did he begin writing the story.

TEAM WORK

Rivals is co-created with writer and film director Mike Clarke, and comic artists such as Greg Staples and Dave Kendall have joined to bring the graphic novel’s pages to life. Paul is canny about bringing on board people he’s worked with (Greg Staples was production designer on Hellboy with Paul), and he’d work through Rivals ideas with Mike Clarke because the pair were on set of the indie horror film Cali together.