Riot Games’ Greg Street on Working With Marvel to Create League of Legends Comics

Riot Games and Marvel have partnered to create League of Legends comics, and we’ve already seen some of that collaboration’s results. Ashe: Warmother was the first series released, and it focused on the champion Ashe, one of the most recognizable League characters and a perfect starting point for anyone new to the universe. With a physical edition of that book now out, Riot’s already started on its second co-created series, Lux.

Ashe: Warmother and Lux aren’t the first time that Riot has pursued comics though. Within the expansive Universe page, which encompasses everything you’d need to know about League, multiple one-shots exist. But to take its comics pursuits to the next level, Riot needed a partner — which it found in Marvel Comics. ComicBook.com spoke to Riot’s head of creative development, Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street, to learn more about this partnership and why Marvel was the right choice for Riot out of so many publisher options.

“It’s been awesome for us. I sensed from kind of the beginning that we love comics as a medium, but didn’t really want to be in the kind of publishing and distribution business,” Street told us when asked about Riot’s relationship with Marvel. “We really were looking for a partner that knew that space cold, and I mean, they’re a machine. They make so many issues, and they have a system for how they work. Basically, whenever there’s a part of the process that we don’t know how to do or don’t have bandwidth for, they’re like, ‘Oh, we can take that on,’ and they would be fine taking on even more.”

Both companies are massive in their own ways. Marvel needs no introduction to anyone who’s seen one of its movies or read a series about their favorite heroes, and Riot’s League of Legends is one of the biggest games in the world. To make sure everything between the two ran smoothly, Street said it was important to figure out who was responsible for what. Riot took on the management of the IP since it knows League‘s stories better than anyone, and some of Marvel’s responsibilities including finding artists that fit the projects and assisting with questions that come with publishing comics.

“They have helped us with everything from sourcing artists to like, ‘Oh, this is a good artist. He’ll really know the art style here,’ and they give us feedback on, ‘You’re trying to cram too much story into a single thing,’” Street said. “They’ve helped us figure out stuff like, do we put bonus content in the bound version? Do we do special covers? Things like that. They give us feedback, but they know that we really want to kind of manage the IP and we know it well, so that’s the part where they give us free rein.”

Even with how large both companies are, Street said Riot has worked well with Marvel so far because it feels like working with actual people.

“They’re a huge publisher, but it feels like we’re working with human beings, not with this giant conglomerate or anything,” he said.

There’s a reason League‘s collection of lore is called a “Universe.” It’s a lot to take in and understanding the backstories and relationships of more than 140 characters can be a daunting task, especially if your first introduction to the game is the comics. When we spoke to John O’Bryan, a senior narrative writer at Riot who’s also the writer of the new Lux series, he said one goal is for these comics to be accessible without requiring any prior knowledge of the IP. Street said those at Marvel had varying degrees of knowledge when it came to League, so they helped Riot reign in the story if it became confusing for newcomers.

“They also give us a lot of feedback on story ideas where we’re talking about what should the next champion be that we work with?” Street said. “We’ll bounce it off them. Some of them know the IP really well. Others are coming to it fresh, and it’s just really great to get their perspective of, ‘Hey, as a non-League player, I don’t really understand what’s going on here, so maybe this story’s going to need a little bit more development,’ things like that.”

Riot’s already put out the first issue of Lux, with the second issue coming soon, and if you’re wondering why and how Lux was chosen out of so many champions, we discussed that with Riot as well. Street said Riot’s already working on the next set of comics and has a list of characters who have stories that need to be told, but it’s too early to talk about what’s next. Part of Riot’s plans is to start putting these comics out quicker, perhaps at a pace of one or two a month, according to Street.

“I would love for us to eventually get to the point where we have one or two a month,” Street said. “Even if we have multiple series going in parallel, so you might not get issue three, issue four in the same arc right away, but at least people who want more comics can get them faster. But again, we’re a little bit away from that yet. We’re still figuring out our whole pipeline, but we’re getting closer.”

All of Riot’s comics can be read through League’s Universe page, and if you’re interested in the physical editions, you can grab Ashe: Warmother’s full run now.