John Jackson Miller has written for both comic books and video games, so he was the perfect choice to help Mac Walters bring Mass Effect to pages and panels!Mass Effect: Redemption is now available at local comic shops everywhere, and Dark Horse got a moment to ask JJM some questions over the New Year weekend about the launch of this epic new series.
What attracted you to this series?
Playing the game, I really got to appreciate the effort that Bioware and Mac Walter’s group have put into shaping a completely new setting. There are space travel and futuristic elements, but there are also Tom Clancy elements -- which puts it at the nexus of a lot of my own interests. But in addition to hitting the hardcore military science fiction notes, it’s also populated with a lot of interesting characters and new species. Just talking to aliens like the elcor and volus (always lowercase, like humans, the species are!) is a big part of the fun of the game for me. Writing them is more fun still.
Are you a gamer? If so, what is your favorite game?
A big gamer both electronic and non-electronic -- I was the editor of Scrye magazine for a while, and wrote several books about games. On the computer game side I go way back to my beloved Ultima II by Richard “Lord British” Garriott -- probably the only game designer ever to really go into space! (He was one of the space station “tourists” a while back.) And I’ve kept at it ever since.
Favorite? Hard to say. I really enjoy the Knights of the Old Republic games and Mass Effect, of course. And as a lifelong historical wargamer I gravitate to a lot of the turn-based strategy games. I’m a sucker for the Civilization series, and lately I’ve been spending a lot of time playing Paradox’s East Indian Company.
Are you familiar with the Mass Effect game?
Oh, yeah -- and obviously I had known Bioware’s work back from Knights of the Old Republic. It was great getting the call from editor Dave Marshall to script the series; it meant I got to get a sneak peek at the new game and see a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff. You can’t beat that!
How has working with the Star Wars universe helped prepare you for the Mass Effect universe?
In both you have the storytelling challenge that the character who’s talking or acting might not be human, so you have to go through and really think about how they would approach things. And a range of what we would consider earthly “human” sayings might not be said -- by the aliens in Mass Effect, or by anyone at all in Star Wars.
Also, in my last series we were working in proximity to one of the KOTOR games, which, like Mass Effect, included a main character that you needed to be very careful depicting, so as not to invalidate anyone’s game. That was challenging, but by the time I got around to Mass Effect, I think we really had it down.
Do you have a favorite character?
I really like a new one Mac and Bioware came up with -- the drell Feron, who’s introduced in our series. He’s at the center of this big conspiracy, and while he’s a guy used to working all the angles, he’s clearly gotten into something that’s way beyond anything he’s dealt with before. He’s not a guy who likes to admit he’s wrong -- much less ask for help. Clearly, we’re going to put him through the wringer during this storyline!
How did Omar become involved in the project?
Omar Francia had drawn Star Wars: Legacy, so he was already on the radar screen in the Dark Horse offices. I was pleased to see Dave got him for the series; I think he’s brought a lot to the look of it.
What ways will the comic add to the experience of the game?
We give some background on what’s been going on in the galaxy since the last game, overlapping with a bit of the preview content that’s been released for Mass Effect 2 having to do with the fate of the Normandy and Shepard. We also have a lot of clues about some of the big things that are about to happen in the game universe. Beyond that, of course, we get to see the characters interacting in a number of different new settings -- and we learn a lot more about what Liara T’Soni is like. While the comics tell a story that can be enjoyed on its own, it also is a real sweetener for people who are players of the game or who want to begin playing.
The series is co-written with Mac Walters, lead writer of the second game, how did the two of you work together towards a final product?
Mac provided an outline for the events of the story that integrated with what he and Bioware had planned for the game. With that heavy-lifting work done, I worked the story into comics form, adjusting or adding sequences as needed to suit the flow of the format. We communicated about everything -- Mac making sure anything I did fit the Bioware vision for the series, me getting everything to fit comics storytelling conventions.
There was also, as mentioned, a flow of character, alien, and ship designs from the beginning, so I had a good idea about what I was writing about. Those were extremely helpful.
What other projects are you currently working on?
My work on Knights of the Old Republic has wrapped; the climactic 50th issue comes out in February. So does (last I checked) my third installment of the Lost Tribe of the Sith e-book series for Del Rey; I’m working well ahead on those. In my so-called spare time, Chuck Fiala and I have a webcomic, Sword & Sarcasm, that’s in its third year -- and I continue to write about comics history on my Comics Chronicles website. You can keep track of my work on my blog, http://www.farawaypress.com.
And then there’s my major project for 2010... which I can’t talk about. But it’s worth the wait!
Favorite Sci-Fi moment of all time?
While I obviously enjoy the space fantasy of Star Wars, I also love to see real, hard science at work in fiction -- which is why I’m such an Arthur C. Clarke fan. There’s a moment in the (suddenly timely) movie version of 2010 where astronauts on EVA have to reach the airlock of a spaceship that is tumbling end over end -- and they gradually go from weightless to multiple gees, because of the angular momentum at the spinning ends of the ship. It’s not heavily explained, but taken as a given -- this bizarre kind of mountain-climbing that you couldn’t have on Earth. It’s with moments like that you realize science fiction gives you the chance for some really new and imaginative action sequences.
I see some of that in Mass Effect -- while there are speculative elements like biotics and mass relays, it has that gritty mechanical feel of a world with rules. It’s a great concept for a game series -- and we think it works really well for comics, too.
Click here to read a special preview of issue #1!