Jody Houser and Olivia Samson Discusses Critical Role's Return to Comics

Critical Role is the popular webseries in which a group of voice actors play Dungeons & Dragons. The series has built a massive following over the last four years, which led to the show raising over $10 million via Kickstarter to fund production of an animated series. Critical Role's pop-culture takeover continues next month with the release of Critical Role: Vox Machina Origins II, a new six issue miniseries published by Dark Horse Comics. The comic series is a continuation of last summer's digital comics series that showed the early adventures of Vox Machina, the team of adventurers at the heart of Critical Role's campaign. While last summer's Vox Machina Origins series was published as a digital comic, the new miniseries is getting a print edition, which comes out next month.

For the new miniseries, Dark Horse tapped comics writer Jody Houser to join series artist Olivia Samson to work on the new series. Both creators are noted "Critters" and have done a fantastic job continuing Vox Machina's comics journey into the adventurers fans fell in love with during the campaign. Obviously, the pair have the Critical Role cast's approval too, with Liam O'Brien telling ComicBook.com that "It is blowing my damn mind seeing the very beginnings of our home game coming to life on the page. Jody's writing is on point, and Olivia's art and range of expression is back and better than ever."

ComicBook.com had the chance to speak with House and Samson via email about the new miniseries and the challenges of adapting a D&D web-series into comics form.

ComicBook.com: Jody, how did you get involved with the Critical Role: Origins comic? What sort of preparation did you do for this project?

Jody Houser: I was lucky enough to briefly play in a Doctor Who RPG with Taliesin [Jaffe] and Matt [Mercer] a while back, and had met the rest of the cast through various events at one point or another. I also happened to be at Dark Horse the same day there was a Critical Role meeting last fall. The fact that I knew them and was already doing work with Dark Horse, along with the fact that so much of my comics work has been working with franchises that started in other media, worked out well.

How closely do you work with Matt and the rest of the Critical Role cast when working on this comic? After all, these adventures took place at their table, and weren't recorded in any way.

Houser: I have a detailed outline of the events for the miniseries, but the cast has also given me a lot of freedom to fill in dialogue and detail. They give notes on each issue to make sure the voices of the characters stay true, and the magic fits the rules of D&D.

How deep do we get into Vox Machina's early storylines? Besides Pike and Percy, do any other familiar characters make their "first" appearances in this series?

Houser: Quite possibly...

Although the Vox Machina characters are incredibly well-defined, Vox Machina: Origins gets to explore the early adventures of the team before the show started. What are the challenges of trying to capture the voice and personality of these characters, but in a way that differentiates them from the more experienced versions we saw on the show?

Houser: I think one of the benefits of working with characters that were explored in detail over hundreds and hundreds of hours of gameplay was that we really got to see how they grew and changed, how those relationships developed and were tested. So it's really just reverse-engineering (ruining?) all of that growth.

One of the unique challenges of writing a Critical Role comic is that the show features cast members constantly jumping in and out of character. Obviously, Keyleth has a very different personality from Marisha, but it's sometimes hard to see where Scanlan ends, and Sam begins. And those lines get even blurrier because of the constant banter, strategizing, and general camaraderie of the show. Was it difficult separating the Vox Machina characters from the cast members who play them?

Houser: I honestly hadn't really thought about it. I think having played RPGs for years myself, the in character/out of character divide is something I'm used to. Getting to see the personalities of the players is really just added insight into the creators of the characters, in a way.

Who is your favorite Vox Machina member?

Houser: I can't play favorites! They're all so delightful to write dialogue for.

Olivia Samson: The thing I really like about them generally is the relationships between the characters. Primarily the one between the twins, as well as Grog's relationships with Pike and Scanlan. But, if I had to pick one, I'd have to go with Vex.

Jody, you've worked on other licensed comics before - including adaptations of TV series and video games. Is working on the Critical Role comic any different than working on Orphan Black or even a Spider-Man book?

Jody: It's coming from a different medium, sure, but working on licensed and work-for-hire comics is always about finding a way to bring your voice into best suit the characters and story. It's always a fun challenge.

Critical Role has probably never been hotter, thanks to the Kickstarter, the Stephen Colbert one-shot, and the show's other recent creative ventures. Olivia, do you feel any extra pressure working on the new miniseries because of Critical Role's success in the last few months?

Samson: Not any more than I did from the start really. I just sit up here drawing in the northlands, doing my best to do justice by Jody's cool scripts.

Olivia, what reference materials, if any, did you use to bring these characters to life?

Samson: Not much, really. I used Kit Buss's original designs for the show, and kind of just imagined what they would look like at newb levels, and then adjusted them with feedback from the cast.

Was it difficult to separate the Critical Role characters and stories from their D&D roots? The first comics series didn't reference any D&D lingo or mechanics, and it seems like this new issue will continue to focus on the Vox Machina story rather than any sort of gameplay.

Jody: I do try to keep the mechanics in mind for scenes where the characters would be using spells/attacks/etc., but that's less likely to come out overtly in the story. It's more about how the characters operate, what they're capable of.

Critical Role: Vox Machina Origins II #1 will be available in comic stores on July 10th.