: Rereading Lorraine McLees's intro to the Graphic Novel, it sounds more
: vindictive in hindsight. She refers to the comic by Trautmann's team as
: "a lump of coal" and claims all she was asking for was basic
: comic legibility. Neither of she nor Trautmann seemed like they saw eye to
: eye; Eric saw a talented new pitch, Lorraine saw a terrible fanfic. Unless
: we were to see the original pitch, there's no way to know for certain. I
: like the Graphic Novel a lot, but it's terrible to see if come out of such
: mean-spiritedness.

I'm willing to give Bungie the benefit of the doubt here, keeping in mind the fact we haven't seen what was it that Trautmann's team had to offer. For all we know it could've ended up being much worse than what we got with the HGN. Bungie's idea of bringing in Alan Moore is pretty ludicrous, though, and comes off more like a joke than something they'd seriously entertain.

I can sort of understand Bungie's position in this whole ordeal too. They were making Halo, it was their baby, and then their corporate overlords step in and start interfering with their story in ways that conflict with their own vision. Don't get me wrong, without Trautmann and his team I wouldn't be here writing this, but I can see why there might've been some bad blood. Still doesn't mean either side should be an asshole about it, though. The podcast really gave some context to Bungie's past comments about the EU, like Staten's casual disregard of the "800 colonies" number or the stuff about the time-bending crystal or Johnson's Flood immunity.

Seeing as it was Nylund who brought this to light and the fact he was an MS employee at the time, I wonder if his relationship with Bungie was more amicable. Bungie obviously didn't like some of his ideas, but then Staten also thanks him in the acknowledgments for Contact Harvest for giving him writing tips so it at least seems he was on better terms with them than Trautmann was. I certainly hope so; if his experience was as horrible as Trautmann's, it would certainly explain why he's seemingly done with Halo.