Interviews – Christy Marx

Hi, this is Christy Marks, the writer of Gem

and the Holograms and Beast Wars, and you're

listening to Geekcast Radio Network. I am TFG1

Mike, and I'm joined with Michael Wilson. Hello,

sir. Hey, how's it going? Pretty good, pretty

good. We are about to interview Christy Marks,

head animation writer for Gem. She wrote one

episode of Beast Wars. She's done a bunch of

video game writing as well. She actually wrote

a book about animation, comics, and video games.

Most people will remember her from being the

head writer of Gem. I really got into that show

when I was a kid for some strange reason. It

was just going to be really awesome to talk to

her, and we're going to see what she has to say

next. Would you like to say anything else before

we go into the interview, sir? Yeah, basically...

I had not actually heard of Christy until I saw

her credits on Beast Wars. But then again, I

didn't watch a whole lot of Gem when I was younger

either. No, you just watch Anna Montana now.

Well, you know, it's the same thing basically.

It's a girl with a wig becomes a rock star at

night. No, it's not the same thing. But anyways.

Anyway, no, it was very nice to hear from her.

Once we researched her, I saw what a diverse

background she had, and she was actually involved

with many things that were near and dear to my

heart at the time, as well as video games currently,

which, again, near and dear to my heart. So,

no, it was very cool that we're going to be able

to have this opportunity to chat with her. Yes,

and you're going to hear that after the Gem theme

song. Oh, yeah. Hello and welcome to this special

interview here on GeekCast Radio, ToonCast, and

the Beast Unleashed podcast. I'm your host, Mike

TFG and Blanchard, and I'm joined by Michael

Peek on Court Wilson. Hello, sir. Hey, how's

it going? It's going. How are you? Hanging in

there. Yes, and today we are going to be talking

with animation and television writer Christy

Marks. Hello, Christy. How are you? Hello there.

And don't forget game writer. Oh, yes. Yeah,

video game writer. See, I knew I was going to

screw the intro up. Nobody can keep track of

everything that I do. Yeah, I know. So what have

you been up to lately as far as upcoming projects?

What I'm working on currently is I'm writing

game dialogue for Warner Brothers Interactive.

I don't know if I'm allowed to say what the game

is or not. It has officially been announced,

but... When they put you under non -disclosure

agreements, sometimes you have to be careful

about what you say. Okay, that's cool. Are you

working on anything in cartoons or anything recently

or anything like that? Not at the moment. I've

actually been working full -time on this game

writing project. Now, is this separate from the

Slipgate Ironworks, or is that a different project?

It's something entirely different. Tragically,

Slipgate Ironworks met the demise of many game

companies and MMOs in particular. And the project,

after I was there for two and a half years and

other people were there even longer, and the

project was cancelled. Happens a lot in the games

business, I'm afraid to say. In fact, just yesterday,

I think the news broke of an MMO in... that sank

to the tune of $100 million. We didn't do anything

quite that badly, but unfortunately it's the

reality of the games business that many games

fail or just don't get made for one reason or

another. Ours was one of those that, even though

I think it was a brilliant game and I had the

opportunity to create an original IP for it,

but we ran into obstacles. They decided not to

keep funding it. Wow. That kind of stinks. It's

painful. It's painful to sink that many years

of your life into something and wholly and completely

put yourself into it, and then it just goes away.

And it's not the first time it's happened to

me. I spent a couple of years working on a Babylon

5 video game. Oh, really? That's where I met

my husband, Randy Littlejohn. He was one of the

narrative designers on the game. And I was brought

in because I have written for Babylon 5, the

TV series, and I knew Joe Straczynski. And so

I was actually originally brought in as the person

to bridge the gap between Joe and the TV world

and the game world because I can speak both languages

fluently. Then I ended up actually working as

a narrative designer on the game, and Randy and

I ended up working very closely together in the

same office, and we've been together for 13 years

since then. But we put two years of love and

hard labor into that game, and the same sort

of thing happened. Sierra Online was acquired

by Habas, which was acquired by... Universal,

Vivendi, blah, blah, blah. And the game, in the

midst of all that, somewhere the game was killed.

There was a bunch of games lost in the trials

and travails of Sierra Online, if I remember

right. Yes, there were. It was a tragic thing.

Long, involved, complex, and utterly tragic.

Getting into some background questions here,

where did you grow up? I grew up in Danville,

Illinois. I'm sorry. That makes me giggle because

Michael and I are both big Phineas and Ferb fans,

so when you say Danville, it kicks in. Danville,

Illinois? Yeah. Okay. I don't know about that

one. What got you interested in writing? I was

born telling stories. I don't know any other

way to put it. I was simply born with a desire

and an interest in telling stories and also very

much visual storytelling. From the earliest ages

that I can think of, I was fascinated by colorful

stories, fantasy stories. I would sit down and...

Even before I could write, I think, I was trying

to draw out little sequential stories. So for

whatever reason, I think I was simply born as

a storyteller. And then from there, I discovered

newspaper comic strips, became a fanatic about

newspaper comic strips, and then comic books,

and then reading. I was a voracious reader. I

just read just every kind of... fictional thing,

fantasy, science fiction, mythology, the stories

of operas. I mean, whatever it was, you know,

I would read it. I'd go through the library and

just, you know, wipe pretty, pretty quickly wiped

through everything they had. Wow. That's very

interesting. Is there a, I'm sorry to tangent

there for a bit. Did you have any formal training?

No. Other than being, A voracious reader and

absorbing everything that way and just the usual

education that you get. I went to the University

of Illinois and in liberal arts, but I ended

up moving to L .A. and working my way into being

a script writer through L .A. We kind of already

covered the Slipgate and the Slipgate Ironworks.

I know you mentioned that you have a gaming project

that you're currently working on. Is that just

the only current project you're working on? Yeah,

I'm working on this 40 hours a week, so it doesn't

really leave a lot of time to do much else. Okay.

Although we can always visit your website for

the list, please tell our listeners some of the

television credits you've been in besides Gem

and Beast Wars. Action, adventure. Are we talking

live action? Are we talking animation? Just television

in general. Animation, live action, whichever.

You know something? I've been writing for so

long and I've done so many things that... Sometimes

I actually even have trouble remembering everything.

It sounds bizarre. But in the live action arena,

I worked on Captain Power and the Soldiers of

the Future, which was the first time I worked

with Joe Straczynski, was on that. And did a

couple of episodes, Gemini Accounting and Freedom

One, for that series. And then we were going

to do a second season. I wrote a... a miniseries

five -parter for the second season, and then

it ended up never being produced, unfortunately.

And then on Twilight Zone, I worked with Joe

again, and I did an episode of The Twilight Zone

that was at the end of the 1980s, like 89, somewhere

around there. And then I worked with Joe again

on Babylon 5 and did an episode called Grail

for the first season. And then I worked on a

half hour Saturday morning live action show for

ABC called Hypernauts. And Hypernauts was sold

to ABC by Ron Thornton, who originally did the

CG effects for Babylon 5. So there's that connection.

As a matter of fact, he even reused the Nacolene

feeder from my Grail episode as a creature in

the Hypernauts series. That is pretty cool. It

really all came around in a way that was very

interesting and funny. So I was hired to develop

the series, and I was the executive story editor

and writer on that series. So that's live action.

And I've also done some feature -length stuff

in animation. I did 20 ,000 Leagues Under the

Sea adaptation for Nickelodeon movies, and Randy

and I wrote a... movie called Widowmaker for

Stan Lee for his pal, Entertainment. And in animation,

obviously we've covered Gem and the Holograms.

I started out writing for a couple of different

Spider -Man shows. Then I wrote stuff for G .I.

Joe. Gem took up a couple of years of my life.

I wrote for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Then

I developed and was story editor and writer on

Bucky O 'Hare. based on Neil Adams' comic book.

Then Conan the Adventurer, which was 65 half

hours. I've written for Darkstalkers, Reboot,

Beast Wars, Pocket Dragons, War Planets, which

is known as Shadow Raiders in Canada. X -Men

Evolution. Well, then Randy and I got together

and started writing as a team. So as a team,

we wrote for X -Men Evolution, Stargate Infinity,

He -Man. Legend of the Dragon, Zorro Generation

Z, a few other things besides. So I think I'll

stop there. That's a lot. Yeah. Plus he and I

have worked on game projects together. Right.

As far as, let's say, animated features, what

was your favorite show to work on? Oh, Gem. I

mean, I loved working on Spider -Man. I loved

working on G .I. Joe. But Gem, I had a great

deal of creative control. And that's really what

it's about. In fact, I had that pretty much also

with Conan, and to a large degree with Bucky

O 'Hare, although it was a more direct adaptation.

But what I enjoyed the most were shows where

I had some freedom and the ability to have some

creative direction on the show. That's great.

We had a whole slew of gem questions next. Yes.

We did gem already. No, no. These are like in

-depth questions. In season five, you know that

thing. No, no. Now, don't turn into a fanboy,

Michael. Besides, there was no season five. Yeah,

I know. Exactly. See? He doesn't know anything

about it. I read the Wikipedia page. Yeah, that's

all you do. All right, so although the actual

idea of Jem came from Hasbro and their doll line,

how did you get involved in creating the backstory

for these characters? What was your process?

In terms of how I became involved, it actually

happened because of the writing that I did on

G .I. Joe, believe it or not. They knew me at

Sunbow Productions from working on G .I. Joe

and they liked my work on G .I. Joe so much that

when this project came along and they wanted

it rather naturally to have a woman do the development

work, they thought of me because I was one of

the few women that was writing for animation

at the time. So they came to me to do it and

I... I remember walking out of the meeting and

really elated and thinking, you know, wow, this

is terrific. My first real development job, you

know, it was a big deal for me. But at the same

time, I was thinking, this stuff is so soft compared

to what I've been writing compared to Joe, Spider

-Man. And I'm thinking, this is so soft. Can

I write something that's this soft? And then

once I really got into it, though, I discovered

that, yeah, it's a lot of fun writing this stuff.

And I really, really enjoyed it a lot. The process

really involved taking the couple of very sketchy,

fundamental ideas that Hasbro had, and they knew

the product names of the dolls. Well, actually,

they didn't even know the product names of the

dolls because they kept changing them on me almost

constantly during the development process. Gem

was originally just called Em, and instead of

being Jerika, her name originally was Morgan.

And they kept changing all these names around.

But after begging and begging and begging them

quite a bit, I finally got some Polaroids of

what the dolls look like so that I could have

some visual inspiration. I'm a very visually

oriented storyteller, writer type of person.

And so just having the dolls to look at, it just

simply helps. It kind of gets the creative juices

going. Pretty much everything was up to me. I

had almost a completely blank slate and was able

to just do whatever I wanted to do. And so I

just went crazy and had a fantastic time. But

my process really was just thinking about the

fact that we needed to do 65 episodes because

at the time that was a pretty standard syndication

run. Right. Which meant there had to be a lot

of room. And this was not really an action show.

It was very much a character -driven show. It

was more of an action soap opera in a way. So

I really had to have the depth and the layers

and the interactions and lots of characters to

play with. I think I went a bit overboard on

the Starlight Girls. I don't think I really needed

to create quite that many, but nonetheless I

did. Just in thinking about the characters, I

had to think about the emotional hooks, the relationships,

all of the things that writers would want to

draw upon to come up with all of these stories.

And then I hit upon the notion of the romantic

triangle, this feeling that this... You know,

confusion that Rhea is in, the boyfriend who's

caught between Jerrica, who he's known for so

long and has been his girlfriend. And all of

a sudden, here's this mysterious and alluring

gem who really is Jerrica. And he finds himself

just attracted and completely torn. And that

triangle just suddenly really brought it all

together and really made it work and just provided

so many avenues to have fun with it. Yeah, it's

kind of like multiple personality problems. Yeah,

we played with that a little bit too. Bob Budiansky,

who was an editor over at Marvel Comics, wrote

most of the backstory for the early Transformers

line over a Thanksgiving weekend in 1983. And

he's still amazed at the popularity of the stuff

that he wrote way back then. How do you feel

about the ongoing wave of nostalgia for Jim?

Well, I think it's delightful. I have actually

been in close touch with a very dedicated group

of Gem fans for over a decade now through an

email list that a couple of friends of mine set

up. So I've been in ongoing contact with people

and I've heard these stories and now there's

even a GemCon. And so I've been the guest of

honor at a couple of those. And they're small

and intimate, which is wonderful. But, you know,

you have people, there are people there from

all over the world, from the Netherlands, from

Scotland. I mean, just all over the place. And

it's just wonderful. It makes me completely happy.

I love hearing from these people and hearing

their stories. And I love hearing, you know,

how Jim. inspired people or affected people.

One person wrote to tell me that he was inspired

and grew up to become a lawyer because of my

writing and talking about music and protecting

the rights of creators and things of that sort.

So there have been a lot of really, really nice

stories that have come out of that. Wow. Yes.

As we've said, you wrote the original Girl with

Ordinary Life transforming into Rockstar by putting

on a wig story. Are you ready to take credit

for Hannah Montana? And I cannot believe Michael

included that question. I thought, you know what?

Well, we watch way too much Disney Channel in

our house. And that includes the occasional Hannah

Montana episode. And it occurs to me that, you

know, Jem is kind of... You know, she has a little

magic involved, but, you know, puts the wig on

and she's somebody else. Well, she doesn't put

a wig on, though. There is no wig involved because

we're talking about holographic projections.

It's a holographic wig. It's a holographic projection.

Everything that Jim is, you know, her identity

is created by this holographic projection around

herself. So there's no wigs here. But I do have

a funny story for you, and you could be. You

might be the first people to hear this story.

I'm not sure. About probably close to a year

ago, I get a call from a lawyer at Disney. And

this lawyer says that they're dealing with a

lawsuit on Hannah Montana from someone who claimed

that he came up with the idea for Hannah Montana,

the idea of a rock star with a secret identity.

And so he's suing Disney. And so Disney says,

well, we understand that this idea has been done

before. And they were contacting me to prove

that Hannah Montana was not an original concept,

that the idea of a rock star with a secret identity

had been done before so they could invalidate

the basis of this guy's lawsuit, which I just

thought was not only ironic but completely hysterical.

Yeah. It's like, please sue us. Because we realized

that we stole your idea. And, yeah, that's funny.

Well, they were using me to protect Hannah Montana

from the lawsuit, which, I mean. See, if we could

retcon it so that Billy Ray Cyrus was actually

Jem's father, then we'd tie this all together.

No retconning. No, no, no retconning. Bad Wilson.

That's funny. So as of 2008, Hasbro owns the

distribution rights for the Gem series. As far

as I know, I think that's probably the case.

Well, again, somewhere in the wiki. They recently

put out a really nice box set. of the Transformers

series through Shout Factory. So we're thinking,

would it be outside of the realm of possibility

to get a call from Shout Factory about a DVD

bonus feature interview? I wish they would. I

think that would be fantastic. I mean, the fans

are going crazy wishing that they would put out

the rest of the series. As you know, Rhino did

the first couple of seasons on DVD. They had

the rights to do the DVDs. And so I did interviews

for them and we recorded things for them. but

they never got to finish the third season, the

stingers and the, and the last batch of shows

that had stingers. And so the fans have just

been going crazy, wanting to have full DVD sets.

And of course you can find them pirated all over

the place on eBay. So if they had any brains

at all, yes, they should be doing it. And if

they do it without me, they're nuts. I don't

think. I was going to say, Rhino managed to mess

up the Transformers series pretty well with their

overdubbing of sound effects that didn't belong

and things like that. Part of me, when I actually

thought of this question, was thinking, maybe

they already did. And she's going to say, oh

yeah, heck yeah, let me tell you about it. I

have not heard anything from Hasbro at all. That's

too bad. It would be nice to get... a big box

set for Jim just to have it all in one place.

Cause I mean, yeah, there are the Rhino DVDs,

but I don't, I've kind of, I don't actually have

the Rhino versions. So I'm kind of holding out

and waiting to see. You can't even get them now.

I mean, they're like so rare now that trying

to get them, I've heard of people spending a

hundred, $200, whatever, trying to get the damn

things. Yup. That's, that's not cool. Um, What

is the current state of Jem? How do you feel

about recent calls to bring back Jem as a live

-action movie? Do you think that you would be

involved if that were to happen? I would rather

see Gem brought back as another animation series

because I've already completely mapped out exactly

what I would want to do with it, exactly how

to bring back the series, how to update it, make

it interesting, but make it new. I know exactly

what I want to do. I've got it all worked out.

So are you going to share that secret with us?

No. But as I said, I have not heard anything

from Hasbro. I have not been able to confirm.

what appears to be just one person's story on

the net about the possibility of a live action

movie. I have absolutely no idea if there's any

truth to that. I have not been contacted by anyone.

And unfortunately, Hollywood doesn't necessarily

have a lot of respect for the original writer

or original creator of something. So there's

really no guarantee at all that they would come

to me. Yeah, that kind of stinks. Let me throw

this out real quick. You know, you may or may

not know, Hasbro has recently teamed up with

Discovery Channel to create a new channel called

The Hub. Yeah, Margaret Lesher's running it.

Okay. And I didn't know that. Yeah. They're bringing

back a lot of their older properties and putting

them on at different times during the day. And

I know that a lot of the shows from the 80s,

including like the G1 Transformers and I believe

the original G .I. Joe, they're going to show

on those channels. Boy, do I wish I would get

residuals for that. But animation writers do

not get residuals, or not for the old shows,

anyway. Right, not for back then. And not now

most of the time. There are exceptions, but mostly

not. Well, would you be considered not so much

a writer, but like a... I don't know what they

would call that, since you actually came up with

the backstory and everything. Like the... I don't

know, the Bible author, if you will. It doesn't

matter because it wasn't done under a Writers

Guild agreement. Oh. Okay. But if they were going

to bring Jem to their hub, would they even notify

you, or do you think they would? Probably not.

Why would they? I don't know. I'm not entirely

sure how the process works. Yeah. I mean, they

have no obligation to tell me anything. Hmm.

Maybe they'll rewrite a new one. Because I know

they're making a new Strawberry Shortcake and

a new G .I. Joe and a new Transformers that I

may or may not enjoy. I don't know. We'll see.

I mean, it could happen. It absolutely could

happen. And there's no guarantee that they would

have me involved at all. Speaking of Transformers,

we're going to move into some Beast Wars questions.

How did you get involved with Beast Wars? Had

you worked with Larry Dottilio in the past? Oh

yeah, Larry and I had worked on Captain Power,

and I think we probably worked on other shows

together, but we had become very good friends.

So consequently, I heard from him when Transformers

came along. Beast Wars, excuse me. Now, the episode

Transmutate is widely considered to be controversial

among fans. How did the story come about? And

were you requested to write this particular story?

Or was it something that you pitched to Larry?

Larry wanted pitches. So I had to come up with

some pitch ideas. And there were some very specific

parameters that had to be observed in writing

this show. When it comes to a CG show, one of

the most expensive things is having to create

any kind of a brand new character. Because that

involves a lot of work putting everything together.

The new character models. The rigging and the

mesh and the design. There's a lot of work involved

to that. So the basic guidelines were... You

can't create any new characters. You can only

use the existing characters. That's it. Just

the pool of Beast Wars characters we have. That's

all you've got to work with. And there were some

other limitations like that. So I was writing

my pitches and coming up with various ideas.

And having worked around CG and knowing a bit

about how CG works, I thought, well... okay,

here's a really cool idea that I think I could

fudge my way around this requirement because

they could just take pieces of the existing models

and just glom them together to create this sort

of mismatched thing. And then they wouldn't have

to create anything new, really. They just kind

of take these pieces and put them together. And

so with that in mind, I went ahead and added

it to the pitches. Well, Larry really liked the

idea. But he said, I don't know if we can do

this one. I explained to him how I thought we

could do a workaround. He said, I don't know.

I don't know. But I'm going to go ahead and pitch

it anyway. And fortunately, he did. And they

really liked it. And they liked it so much that

they actually did create the new character. They

didn't just go and kludge things together. They

actually did go to the effort of creating the

new character for Transmutate. That's very cool.

When I first saw that episode, I had been watching

the previous couple of seasons, like one marathon

watch. So when I got to it, I was like, oh, okay.

But I went back and I watched it, and to me,

and I said this in our Beast Wars review podcast

episode when we talked about it, to me, how I

saw it was it's pretty much a peer pressure episode.

Would you agree or disagree with that? Yeah,

I guess that's one way of looking at it. Because,

I mean, peer pressure to me is a little bit too

high school. You know, it's really, I think,

a deeper, more powerful conflict than that. It's

kind of like the use of an innocent for good

or evil, you know, being drawn between two forces,

the light and the dark. Yeah. So it falls into

that category. Since this was your first Transformers

script, were you familiar with the franchise

before writing the story? I think I was at least

somewhat familiar with Transformers in general,

but of course Beast Wars was its own thing. It

was quite different than the previous Transformers,

so I don't think I had any familiarity with this

particular new approach. I think I had to sit

down. I'm trying to recall. It's been a while,

but I think I had to sit down and learn it. pretty

much from the beginning. I know that the G1 Transformers

and G .I. Joe tended to trade writers back and

forth very often, writers and voice actors, so

I was surprised not to see any Transformers credits.

For me? Yeah. Yes. Oh, I think, well, at the

time, I think I was working on Gem. Yeah, you

were. And, I mean, I was working flat out on

Jim, don't forget. I mean, I was doing all the

development work. I wrote 22 out of 65 episodes.

I, at the end, did some story editing. And let

me tell you, I was putting a lot of work into

that series. I didn't have a lot of time for

anything else. Yeah, that makes sense. Oh, I'm

sorry, back to Transmutate. Did you mean for

the character to be female? Or was it too far

damaged to be considered gender specific? I think

I'm trying to remember whether that actually

was my original intention or if that's just how

it came out. I don't actually remember. I think

it must have been my intention from the beginning.

I think. But it's actually been long enough that

I don't precisely remember that. You would think

that I would, but I know. Actually, because of

the way they created the character, it seems

to me that I must have given some indication

in that direction. Yeah, and I think the other

indication in the direction is obviously that

Sue Blue voiced the character. There is that,

too, yeah. Well, to me, it kind of came across

a little androgynous. Like, you really couldn't

tell. You know, I do like to play with things

like that. There was a character I created for

Jem called Tech Rat. I don't know if you remember

Tech Rat or not. And when I first created Tech

Rat, I very specifically referred to him as a

completely androgynous character. where you couldn't

be quite sure whether this was a male or a female.

And I really wanted it to be played that way,

but that was just too daring. That was just not

something they could cope with. So Tech Rat became

very definitely male. But I was going for that

kind of boy George, but even more so kind of

an androgynous character. And I just opened up

my original script to Transmutate, and I definitely

wrote her as a female. Very cool. Yes. There

you go. Yes, she knowingly sacrificed herself.

You know, I'm tempted to just really leave it

up to an individual's idea of what they would

like it to be. However, I wrote here that in

this split second of the simultaneous exchange

of fire, the transmutate leaps from her safe

position to shield both of them, taking their

combined blast from two sides. So based on what

I wrote in the script, I would say that sounds

pretty deliberate. Okay, win then. I had actually

thought that the capacity for that type of will

wasn't there with this particular character.

So it's like, well, you can't actually sacrifice

yourself if you don't have that force of will.

At that moment, the idea was that it had been

developing in her and developing in her, and

right at that moment, The crisis just all brought

it to a head. I think her intention was not to

destroy herself. Her intention was to stop what

was happening and save two beings that she cared

about. Wow. That's great. Yeah, I hadn't thought

of it quite that way. Yeah, that's a nice explanation.

Did you get a transmutate figure from the Beast

Wars 10th Anniversary line? I did not, and I

am so disappointed. I would love to have one.

I never, ever got it. It required you to purchase

each figure in the set. Yeah, I know. And each

figure that had a chunk of it that you put together.

Yes. I've seen them on eBay. I just kind of imagine

there being a transmutate on your desk somewhere.

I wish. I had a fan who had promised me that

he was going to put one together and give it

to me, but he never did. Nice. You wrote a script

for Beast Wars Season 3 episode called Dark Glass,

which was rejected by the series distributor.

It is rumored that the episode involved Rattrap

returning to Dinobots. returning Dinobot's consciousness

to a clone of his body. What can you tell us

about that script? Did you base it on anything

like Star Trek 3? No. The search for Spock? Come

on. No, I don't quite remember the origin of

that one. I'm not sure whether that was an idea

that I pitched or whether that was an idea that

might possibly have come from Larry. I'm not

sure. Let me think. That was... What number was

that script? Number 47. Do you have it? Oh, yes,

of course I have it. Of course I have it. Okay,

this has just turned to a live script reading.

Yeah, really, because... Because the next question

is, is there a copy of the script of Darkglass

out there? We noticed that you can buy an autographed

script of Transmutate off your website, but no

Darkglass. We're interested in picking up a copy

of Darkglass and Transmutate. Well, it's weird.

There's kind of an odd history to this script.

One of the problems is that I actually don't

have a copy of my original first draft of the

script. Somehow that has been lost. I don't know

how, but it has. And I have a copy of the one

that Larry Dottilio did a rewrite on as the story

editor. And so I feel there's a bit of an ethical

conflict there because Larry was at the time,

which was a long time ago, but at the time he

was very much opposed to... having the script

out there. And in fact, there may have been legal

reasons why he had to be opposed to it being

out there. It's been a long time since then,

but it's not something I'd want to do without

probably without checking with him and making

sure he was still okay with it. Okay, cool. I

think one of the reasons why we're interested

in it is because our other, um, co -host on beast

unleashed the co -creator with me, uh, Steven

Phillips. He, um, Asked me about Dark Glass because

he does voices. He does voiceover. He doesn't

do it professionally yet, but we're trying to

get him to there. But he voices Beast Wars Megatron

almost just like David Kaye does. And he wanted

to look at that script to see if he could actually

voice out the episode. So that's why we're interested

in Dark Glass. I see. So maybe you could... Ask

Larry and get back with us maybe at a later date.

Yeah, maybe so. We'll see how that goes. That

would be very interesting to see that surface

after so long. Yeah, I mean, I thought it was

a worthwhile script. From what I recall at the

time, Hasbro felt it was too dark, whatever that

means. Something about it that they just didn't

like getting into, I don't quite know. And consequently,

it didn't get made. Well, they sure love their

Dinobot episodes because there was plenty of

them. I don't know why they wouldn't want to

do this one, quite frankly. From what little

I had read about it, it seemed like it was straightforward

enough. It would have pushed the storyline. It

looked like elements of that script actually

showed up later on in the continuity. Oh, probably.

I mean, because if they ever got around to bringing

Dinobot back. then they had to use some elements

of it. Well, they brought him back as a clone,

but they didn't actually bring him back specifically.

Yeah, that's true. The clone existed, but it

was a Predacon, and this episode had to do with

Rattrap attempting to restore his original spark

to the clone, which created an internal conflict.

so that within the battleground of the mind,

within Dinobot's mind, there was a conflict between

the two Dinobots. And at the end of the script,

the idea is that you're not supposed to be quite

sure. It looks like the Predacon won out and

that he remains a Predacon. There's just a little

element of doubt in there. And I think what Michael's

actually referring to is in the season three

finale, Nemesis, the two -parter, Death Charge

kills Rampage, thus the half of the spark of

Rampage that was in the Dinobot clone was cleansed

of Rampage, and he started feeling the original

Dinobot, so actually they did take stuff from

Dark Glass. That doesn't surprise me. Yeah. Very

interesting. It just would have made a lot more

sense if they had used that. Yeah. That would

have figured into the canon. Yep. Would have

been nice. I would have liked it. Behind the

scenes stuff? Yep. Okay. The animated series

that you wrote for usually had lots of other

writers, each doing their own episodes. Taking,

like, G .I. Joe, for example. Were there any

communications between writers in order to help

continuity or focus the characters? And what

can you tell us about that? Yeah, no, not between

writers, because that's the story editor's job.

And the story editor on G .I. Joe... when I was

working on it was, well, there were a couple

of different ones, obviously, because it was

65 half hours. But I was working closely with

Steve Gerber. So it's the story editor's job

to make sure that the continuity is correct and

to catch all of that stuff. So I worked closely

with Steve in that case. Do they just change

the script or do they consult with you first?

Or how does that, I mean, do they say, this is

what we're looking for, this is the relationship

between the characters? Well, we're talking specifically

about G .I. Joe. Well, as an example, yes. Well,

GI Joe is kind of its own thing. And the reason

it's kind of its own thing is because in order

to work on GI Joe, I had a Bible that was like

10 inches thick. I had this monstrous giant binder

because there are so many characters and there

are so many vehicles, you know, so many elements

that went into it. And the way they did GI Joe

was really kind of unique. quite different than

other series because the story editors, producers,

would sit down and figure out, okay, in this

episode we want to have these three characters

and these two vehicles. And to make sure that

it all balanced out and that all the characters

got used and so forth, they spread that out over

the episodes. And so basically the brief I got

was, okay, now pitch aside some ideas using these

characters and these vehicles. And so I had to

look at those things and then find a story for

them. So it was different, really a different

way of doing it. And in that case, you had to

have a lot of coordination, of course, between

the story editor, writers and producers and everybody

like that. But that's quite different. And it

was complex. Just the sheer volume of stuff they're

dealing with was fairly complex. That's not really

a way I've worked on any other series before.

Generally, overall, however. And as someone who

has worked as a story editor, it's very common

for a story editor to do rewrites if needed.

If it's possible, I would rather give notes to

the writer and have the writer do a second draft.

But if you're really crunched for time, if it's

a very tight schedule, you may not have a choice.

You may just need to go ahead and do it yourself.

Because you don't have the time to go back to

the writer. So it depends on the luxury of time.

It depends on scheduling. It depends on the story

editor and so on and so forth. I mean, personally,

as a story editor, I would always rather let

the writer have that option of doing it. Much

prefer to let the writer do that. Some other

story editors, they just want to put their own

gloss on it or fix it or whatever. Or their schedule

doesn't let them send it back. It just varies.

It's going to be different for every show. We

noticed that... What were you saying, Michael?

I was just saying that's very interesting because

I'm not really privy to that whole process. That's

pretty cool. I know just from watching other

DVD features like on Justice League, I know that

a lot of that crew, there was a lot of collaboration

between writers. It's not totally uncommon for

that to happen. Every show is going to be its

own unique creature because it really just depends

on who's in charge, how they like to work. The

nature of the show is just affected by a lot

of different things, a lot of different elements.

And so every show can have really its own kind

of feel to it. Right. We noticed that the legendary

Wally Burr was the voice director for Gem. Did

you have any contact with the voice actors, or

were you secluded from that arm of the show?

We love to interview voice actors. Yeah, I never

had any contact whatsoever with the voice actors.

None. I mean, writers just weren't involved in

that process. And it's funny, I didn't meet Wally

Burr until quite a bit later. It was delightful.

When I first met him, I think it was at a party

or a gathering somewhere, he paid me the highest

compliment he could think of to pay me. He said,

oh, you write like a man. And I knew what he

meant because he's of a certain generation. And

I knew he was trying to really genuinely pay

me a very high compliment. And so that was his

way of doing it. And I took it in that regard,

you know. Fantastic. Just a couple of random

questions for you. What is your favorite character

type to write for? Heroes, villains, or is there

another type of character that you like better?

And who gets the best lines? I like characters

that have multiple dimensions and layers and

depth to them. And that's why when I create characters,

I try to make sure I give them as much of that

as I can. One example is Stormer from Gem and

the Holograms. She belongs to the Misfits, but

at the same time, she's a very conflicted character

who sometimes goes behind the backs of the Misfits

in order to help the Gem or the Starlight Girls.

And so she's a great character to play with because

she had this depth. She had these other things

going on with her. So any kind of a character

like that. is going to be a character that I

love to write. And of course I love to write

really strong, interesting female characters.

So anytime I get a chance to do that, that's

fantastic. Yeah. As a writer, what is the weirdest

thing that has happened to you ever been asked

to write something that you didn't want to? Um,

asked to write something I didn't want to. Kinda.

After Sunbow stopped producing the G .I. Joe

series, Deke picked it up. If you're familiar

with the studio, Deke. But Deke tended to do

things kinda on the cheap. They weren't as well

funded as Sunbow. Right. And so a... Dear friend

of mine, a wonderful person, became the story

editor on that series. And he called me up one

day and asked me if I would write for it. And

I said, no, because they're not paying what they

should be paying on this show. And he asked and

asked. And so kind of as a favor, I went ahead

and wrote a couple of these other G .I. Joe episodes,

which had tremendous restrictions on. the number

of voices you could use and this and that kind

of a thing. So that was something I wasn't quite

as wildly enthusiastic to write for. I mean,

I still do the best I can do regardless. But

I mean, in most cases, if something doesn't feel

right to me or I don't like it or it doesn't

interest me, I don't do it. I remember back when

Smurfs was on. I got a call from Hanna -Barbera,

and they sent me the Bible, and they wanted me

to pitch for the show. And I had never watched

the Smurfs. It's just not the kind of show that

interested me at all. And I read the Bible, and

I felt my brain just start melting out of my

ears. And I said, I can't do this. This is just

not the kind of thing I can do. I just can't

write this stuff. I am not a comedy writer. I'm

not a joke writer. I'm not that kind of a writer.

Oh, that's funny. There was a funny moment a

while back. A couple of very good friends of

mine, Craig Miller and Marv Wolfman, in fact,

created, managed to sell the first animation

series that was covered by a Writers Guild contract.

It was called Pocket Dragons. And it was based

on a line of sculptures of these cute little

dragons. And they were done, they were half -hour

shows, but they were done as like two 11 -minute

segments, separate segments. And so I knew they

were doing them, and it was like, oh, it's cute.

It looks really cute, a little cutie pie kind

of show. And so they asked me if I'd write for

it, and I said, oh, no, no, no. And they asked

me again, and I said, oh, no, no, no. And finally,

one time, Craig buttonholed me at a party, and

he said, you know, I'm really hurt that you didn't

want to write for our show. Why don't you want

to write for our show? And I said, oh, well,

I just don't know how to write that kind of thing.

It's really soft. It's really young. I don't

know. I'm just not any good. I don't know how

to write that. And he goes, no, no, no. We want

your kind of writing. Don't worry about that.

Just write us a good story. So I actually ended

up writing two of them and really having a good

time at it. And I thought they came out really

well. I had a lot of fun with it. So sometimes

you can be wrong. The moral of the story is sometimes

you can be wrong about what you think you can

do. You see, the Smurfs, they really needed some

strong characters. Yeah, maybe I should have

done the Smurfs. I don't know. Oh, could you

pass on the Smurfs? I was into hard action stuff.

You know, if you choke a Smurf, it turns green.

What kills me is that the Smurfs are going to

get a live action movie. Yeah, they already have

a live action movie. I've seen the trailers for

it. They're awful. Just terrible. I have no interest.

I'm actually on the lookout for further signs

of the apocalypse. Yes, there you go. That's

one of the first signs. While I love Hank Azaria

as an actor, I'm sorry. Him as Gargamel, he looks

like a stalker and a rapist. He just does. He

just looks like a pedophile. Yeah. Okay, this

isn't Beast Unleashed. You can take the last

question, Michael. Yeah, how am I going to follow

that? We found your book on Amazon .com, Writing

for Animation, Comics, and Games. And what is

the biggest difference in writing for animation

versus writing for, let's say, video games? And

any plans to write an update? Let's see if I

can take the second question first and get that

out of the way. There are no plans to do a second

edition of that particular book just yet, but

I did get hired to edit and co -author and put

together a second book that's out called Write

Your Way Into Animation and Games, and it used

chapters from my book, and plus I had about...

five other books from other Focal Press authors,

and they wanted me to draw material from all

of these books and put it all together into a

new book. So I edited that all together into

a new book that focuses, half of it focuses on

animation, half of it focuses on game writing.

So that came out just a couple of months ago.

So I have Writing for Animation, Comics, and

Games, which is entirely mine, and then also

Write Your Way into Animation and Games, which

is a number of authors. The big difference, of

course, is that any kind of TV writing, animation

writing, comic book writing, film writing, whatever,

is linear writing. It's just straightforward

linear writing where the writer sits down and

tells a story from beginning to end, regardless

of what – it may have a different chronological

sequence. That's not so important. But nonetheless,

the writer – compiles, puts together a linear

story, even if it's told in a jumping around

in different time periods or what have you. It

still ends up being a linear story. Games, however,

is a non -passive experience. You're not just

passively sitting back and having a story fed

to you. It's an active experience where the player

is a part of building that game. They're part

of building that story. They're part of building

their character. They're a significant component.

And so everything you do has to take into account

the fact that you have an active participant

in your story. And you have to deal with that.

So it's nonlinear writing. And it's also thinking

about how you give the player. agency or some

sense of control or input or however you want

to put it whether you give them a wide open world

where they have a huge amount of agency and can

and just can impact a lot of things or whether

like many console games you you they almost are

linear in a way you kind of drive them through

a main storyline with maybe other alternatives

i mean there's all kinds of different games obviously

there's not just one kind of game and so there's

not just one kind of approach but that's just

the thing you have to be so and flexible and

adaptable working in games. It requires a certain

amount of technical knowledge. It requires understanding

games and interactivity. And it requires being

able to think of all of the variables and track

them all and keep them all in your head and deal

with all of them. The linear writer sits down

and says, okay, if I did this. then this would

happen. But if I did this, then this would happen.

And I like this better than that. So, okay, I'm

going to decide that this happens and you make

that choice and then you move forward to the

next choice. As an interactive writer, more often

you go, if this happens, then this happens and

I have to cover it and write it. And then if

this happens and then that happens, I have to

cover that too. But then this other thing can

happen. I have to cover that too. And you have

to think of all those things and you have to

actually deal with them in one way or another.

You don't have the luxury of just setting it

aside and saying, okay, I'm just going to narrow

this down to one choice. You have to deal with

those variables. So it's the difference between

linear and nonlinear, and it's the difference

between a passive experience and an active experience.

Wow. Yeah, that's very, very cool. And there's

a lot more. I mean, I have a whole book written

about it, so there's more to it. Yeah, we'll

have to check that out. Now, is that book written?

more toward people who are already writers or

is that more toward a general audience? I had

three different kinds of people in mind when

I wrote the book. One would be the person who

is a brand new or a student or whatever who wants

to learn about this stuff in order to try and

break in. So that was one big intended audience.

Another big intended audience would be someone

who's already an established professional in

another field. who wants to shift out of, say,

writing for comics into writing for games. Or

maybe they've written for comics and want to

write for animation. And they need to know about

the craft and the ins and outs of that other

field. So that was another person I had in mind.

And the third category would be someone who,

say, works in the field of games, but not as

a writer, who wants to maybe move into the writing

end and wants to learn about that. So, you know,

say, maybe someone who's... A producer wants

to know more about the writing end of games,

and so they might look at my book to get clued

in on the writing end. That's probably not the

best analogy, but that was another category of

person, someone who was within that business

but maybe wanted to know more about just the

writing end of things. So those are kind of the

three main types of people that I was thinking

about. Wow, very nice. Yes. We would like to

thank Ms. Marks for taking the time to talk with

us. If people wanted to interact with you, where

can they go on the Internet? Good question. My

website is just christymarks .com, but there's

not a lot of interacting there. I blog a little

bit on LiveJournal under Christy Marks, and so

I post things there from time to time. I do have

a Facebook page. It's Christy Marks Roman numeral

two after it. I also have a Christy Marks Clubhouse,

which is a bit more of a fan page. I just post

things there every once in a while. I just joined

that too. We're all about the Facebook now. I

spend way too much time on Facebook, I think.

I actually shared a story that you linked earlier

today before we did the interview about Facebook

suing Teachbook. Oh, yes, yes. That's a very

interesting news article. And very annoying.

Yes, very, very annoying. So thank you for joining

us here on the Geekcast Radio Network. I have

been TFG1 Mike, and I've been joined with Michael

Wilson. We'd like to wish Ms. Marks good luck

with her current work and future work, and don't

forget to get in touch with us when you get permission

to release Dark Glass. Don't hold your breath

too long. We'll see. All right, guys, you take

care. Talk to you later. Yeah, hang on the line

and we will talk to you in a bit. That was very

cool of Christy Marks to talk with us for almost

an hour. Very, very interesting stuff as well.

Yeah, it was a very cool conversation. Yes. And

we actually got the skinny on dark glass. Which

is very cool. Yeah, straight from the right author.

Yes. Yes, yes. And maybe, possibly, not saying

anything because I haven't made the contact yet,

but maybe, possibly, we could get an interview

from Larry Dottilio out of this. That would be

nice. I mean, if she still keeps in contact with

him, and you kind of implied that she does, shoot

him an email and get us in touch with him. Yes.

Very, very cool. So, yes, this interview will

be featured on Geekcast Radio Podcast, TuneCast,

and the Beast Unleashed podcast. And then also

on Beast Unleashed, coming up, we have another

interview, this time with another voice actor.

Steve got David Soboloff, voice of Death Charge.

So that will be coming up on Beast Unleashed

as well. Exciting. So I guess for now, I am TFG1

Mike with... Michael Wilson. Until next time.

Yay, we actually didn't screw that up. Woo -hoo!

So, Christy, why don't you just say some stuff

so I can see the audio levels on my program here.

Well, blither, blither, blather, blather, t 'was

brillig in the slithy toes to gyre and gimble

on the waves. oh fear the noxious Jabberwock

there that works Michael why don't you say some

stuff I don't see how I could possibly follow

that exactly yeah I wish to speak to my lawyer.