The Art of Ratchet & Clank is a Ratchet & Clank-themed art book published by Dark Horse Comics. It contains concept art from the series, and captions from Insomniac Games developers. It also contains a foreword by Insomniac Games CEO Ted Price and an afterward by Insomniac Games COO Chad Dezern.
Format[]
The book begins with a foreword by Ted Price, followed by five different chapters containing series concept art alongside captions written by Insomniac developers Greg Baldwin, Chad Dezern, John Fiorito, Dave Guertin, Ryan Schneider and James Stevenson, and concludes with an afterward by Chad Dezern.
After the foreword, Chapter 1: The Beginning, showcases concept art of Insomniac's ideas for the first game prior to settling on Ratchet & Clank: Girl With a Stick, and Monster Knight. After this, Chapter 2: Ratchet and Clank showcases concept art for the titular characters. Chapter 3: Gear showcases concept art of some of the weapons, armor and gadgets in each of Insomniac's Ratchet & Clank games, devoting at least two pages to each. Chapter 4: Worlds contains sketches of various planets throughout the series.
Finally, Chapter 5: Fifteen Years of Ratchet & Clank, makes up the largest portion of the book, with a section of several pages dedicated to each game. This chapter is separated into sub-sections for the PS2 era, Future saga, PS3 era, and PS4 era, where the sub-section contains a two-page introduction with background information. Each game then begins with a two-page introduction containing background information for it, followed by several pages of concept art.
Originality and research[]
As the product is officially licensed by Sony, and features commentary from Insomniac Games employees, it provides a canonical source of information.