Champions Online
Interview With John Layman at Comic Con '08
A full-time writer of comics since 2002, John Layman has been a part of projects like DC Comics' Windstorm, Xena: Warrior Princess, Thundercats and his own graphic novel, Puffed. John recently began working on the team at Cryptic Studios as part of the Champions Online team. John was generous enough to give us an hour of his time at Comic Con 2008.
We chatted with John up on the roof of the San Diego Convention Centre, which in retrospect was a brilliant place for the interview. The San Diego sun was shining on us, while men dressed as medieval knights clashed in the background. Below is an outtake from our conversation.
Hoskin (TenTonHammer): Is the culture of a video game company that much different than the culture in a company that creates comic books?
John Layman: Yes and no, it's really cool people and really smart people, and maybe this is Cryptic because I don't have any other game companies to compare it to, so I can't really speak to the culture, but comics are a bit more degenerate than Cryptic and maybe it's because you have to go to a nine to five job and you have to wear pants and stuff like that. Comics not so much.
border="1">
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/39613/preview"
width="260" height="164" border="0">
Hoskin (R) and Layman (L)
at Comic Con '08
Hoskin(TenTonHammer): That's a lot like journalism. So, what is your role at Cryptic?
John Layman: I'm staff writer / scripter. I come up with the neighbourhoods, the zones and the fiction. I go over everything with Jack Emmert and basically say, here are the areas, here are the bad guys, here are the critters and this is what they are doing. Here are the stories and here are the missions that will lead to them. Here is what is going on and here is how it ties into the bigger picture. That's everything on a macro level. Then you get in a little more micro, once everything has been approved you get into the nitty-gritty and you start writing up the missions. Eventually, you hand it over and guys start concepting it and building it in 3D and like "WoW", I just pulled that out of my rear-end and BOOM it exists in 3D and then a few weeks later or a month later you're playing it. You get that feeling as a comic book writer when you see your first page brought to life, but this is so much bigger. It's like times 20.
Then you go in and put words into everybody's mouth. So yeah, it's a lot of freakin' work!
Hoskin (TenTonHammer): Did you find coming into this with your background that the ideas that you were coming up with were way out there compared to the guys who had been doing this for some time?
John Layman: There was a little bit of a learning curve. One of things that is different about comics than hollywood is that there is no budget to comics. If you want to explode a space shuttle into a planet and have a billion spaceships explode, the artist will hate you, but it doesn't cost any more than two people talking. Whereas if you do that in a movie it costs a billion dollars and if you do that in a game it affects performance issues and so forth. I sort of had to learn what was realistic and what you can't do.
Hoskin (TenTonHammer): Were you familiar with Jack Emmert's work before you joined the team?
border="1">
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/39615/preview"
width="260" height="164" border="0">
John Layan of Cryptic Studios
at
Comic Con '08
John Layman: Yes, but I didn't really play a lot of City of Heroes. I didn't get sucked in to MMOs. I played World of Warcraft and that was pretty much it, but I knew a lot of people and I had watched a lot of people play City of Heroes and I had known Jack because there was a lot of press from City of Heroes that had leaked into the comic book world.
Hoskin (TenTonHammer): What is it like for you to work with the Champions Online license? You have worked with some large licenses in the past?
John Layman: As a freelancer you learn to work with licenses. That has been a weird thing at Cryptic because when you work on licenses and you are a freelancer you need to pay the rent, so when they say "we want this..." you say "OK" because you want to pay the rent. Steve Long who writes the Champions stuff is in close contact. We're actually working kind of together. I'll tell him that this is what I'm doing because I don't want to violate his continuity and then he is incorporating our game stuff into his pen and paper books. We'll talk and I'll tell him "..these are the stories and I need a character that can do this. Who should I use?" We've gotten to be pretty good friends. We're both on instant messenger and talk several times a day.
There are also some Cryptic people who are enormous geeks who know Champions, who breathe Champions and have played it for years. They know everything. I've learned a lot, but these guys know what page some obscure character is on. I use them as resources.
Hoskin (TenTonHammer): Tell us a bit about your background.
John Layman: I've been in comics for about 12 years. I started as an editor with Wildstorm at DC Comics. Then I made the jump to freelance. I've written a lot of licensed stuff, Thundercats, Xena, Scarface, Tek Jensen, Left Behind and a few others. I've also done some Marvel stuff, Fantastic Four, Gambit, Marvel Zombies, Army of Darkness and I'm here getting my next comic book of the ground.
Hoskin (TenTonHammer): Which is?
John Layman: It's called Chew and it's about cannibals. I can't tell you any more about it than that.
Woleslagle (TenTonHammer): Have you ever worked with animation before? Champions Online looks so much more like a comic book brought to life should look than some other titles. What did you think when you saw it?
John Layman: Oh, it blew me away and it's only gotten better because they introduce new power sets. A new power comes out and I go, oh, that's what I want to play. Then they'll introduce another new one and I'll go, no, no, now I want to play that. I think I'm going to have about 50 characters. The art is beautiful. I'm used to comic book artists and I've come to appreciate a whole new type of art. They (Cryptic Artists) are all perfectionists and really great artists.
Woleslagle (TenTonHammer): Is continuity difficult? Is it hard to tie everything together since the license is based on scenarios?
John Layman: This is MMOs versus comic books. You get to the end and you kill the bad guy and that's the end of the movie or the end of the comic book. In a MMO you kill him and five minutes later he's back there. There's this weird temporal sort of thing going on. You killed the bad guy, but he'll be back there again. You kind of have to write that way, knowing that there is no real climax, but you still want to give that impression.
We've got this storyline, but it's weird because we work out of order. Fortunately, I write my comic books out of order, so I'm used to writing out of sequence. You take all the puzzle pieces, juggle them and then put them together.
border="1">
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/39614/preview"
width="260" height="164" border="0">
John Layman
of Cryptic Studios
at
Comic Con '08
Woleslagle (TenTonHammer): Do you have a favourite character?
John Layman: Foxbat is fun, because he is like the comic relief. His themes are all very wacky. It's a nice change of pace from the guys who are trying to blow up the world. He's just doing crazy stuff. I'm not a guy who has to write Spiderman. That's the freelancer mentality and in Champions we're deviating from the source. Some areas we just made up lock, stock and barrel because that was cool. We could override the IP when we wanted, but I've learned a lot of things as a freelancer and one of the big ones is respect your audience.
We respect John's work and we most certainly respect you our audience. Expect more Champions Online information here at TenTonhammer.com very soon.
--John Hoskin, TenTonhammer.com
Ten Ton Hammer would like to thank the John Layman for giving us some of his valuable time at the show.
To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Champions Online Game Page.
