Sean McLoughlin's ALTRVERSE launched afresh in 2019 with creative director Sophie Jackson. Since then, it's grown to encompass short films, an interactive livestream, an upcoming video game, and, since last year, two comics series which first kicked off in a joint ALTRVERSE issue #0. Originally starting as alter-egos for sketches on Sean's channel jacksepticeye, the characters of Jackieboy-Man and Marvin the Magnificent were picked up by his enthusiastic fan art and theorist community. Through Bad Egg Publishing, creative teams now bring the characters to life in their own books, The Somewhat Incredible Jackieboy-Man and Void Silver respectively.
Alejandro Arbona, writer behind Void Silver, took the time to answer ten questions via email about his journey into the ALTRVERSE. He offers insight into the whole creative process behind the ALTRVERSE comics initiative, what it was like working with Sean and Sophie as well as the other comics creatives, his experiences with fan reaction, and the similarities between Marvin and Luke Skywalker.
Vlogger Beat: What drew you to the project?
Alejandro Arbona: A lot of things drew me to the ALTRVERSE project. The biggest one was just that I could tell the work would be a lot of fun, and it meant collaborating with great people. There were the two friends I already knew and who I’d worked with a lot in the past, our editor Robert Meyers and my fellow writer James Asmus, and then there was the exciting prospect of getting to work with Sean and meeting new collaborators like Sophie Jackson and my awesome artist partner, Suzi Blake. Aside from that, a lot of other factors really lined up in a perfect way. Not to get too insider-baseball about it, but it represented a kind of project I’d been looking for in my career, with a lot of new experiences and opportunities I wanted. When this project came along, it was really irresistible in every way, and I jumped right in.
VB: Were you familiar with Sean’s characters before?
AA: I have to confess, I wasn’t familiar with the characters before, but I did know Sean’s gaming videos. I hoped that wouldn’t be a liability, and I don’t think it has been, mainly since I took it as my first duty to learn the characters and the larger story as thoroughly as I could, and to honor the vision and the world-building. The material was really rich and vivid, so it’s been a constant sense of wonder to step into this immersive narrative and start to discover all its intricacies. It really felt like the world was alive, and all I had to do was move in and start to experience it.
VB: What’s it like working with Sean and Sophie? Is there a lot of back-and-forth of ideas, or did they give you a bible of sorts and free reign?
AA: There’s tons of back-and-forth working with Sean and Sophie, in the best way possible. We began with a total download of the lore and the world-building material and the key characters, as well as overall ideas of what they wanted their story to be. Not just Void Silver, but The Somewhat Incredible Jackieboy-Man, as well. We started with a few group conversations to get the ball rolling, then James and I split up to develop our corresponding titles.
After absorbing all that, I came back with my contributions, populating the world with some side characters, and pitching the general narrative that would flesh out those themes we’d discussed. That led to another couple of rounds of feedback and refinement, and once we’d zeroed in on it, then I started the actual scriptwriting. But even after that, we still have continuous contact, which is a great boon to me as a writer. The first draft of a script I turn in for each chapter is basically a form of conversation with Sean and Sophie, where I include notes and questions for them. Am I describing this particular form of magic correctly? What part of London would Marvin live in as a boy in the late ’90s? Is there a specific Magic Circle location where we should set this scene? Is there a better idea here? And they in turn get back to me with additive notes on the script, suggestions, corrections, magic ideas, side gags.
The notes are great and I’ve consistently incorporated every single one. It’s a tremendous relief, as a creative and as a person with anxiety, to know that I don’t have to get the script perfect on the first draft because Sean and Sophie will catch me anywhere I trip up.
VB: How closely do you work with James Asmus, with your stories part of the same multiverse?
AA: James and I worked together closely in the development stage, when all of us were putting our heads together and figuring out this whole narrative. After that, we’ve mostly gone our separate ways so that we’re each writing our comic book in the silo of our respective world. But since there are touchstones between the stories, we come back to check in with each other on a somewhat regular basis. We’re writing separate stories set in separate worlds, but they move in tandem, with Sean and Sophie, and Robert and Michele, overseeing and keeping us on parallel tracks.
VB: How did you decide where to start the story in ALTRVERSE issue #0?
AA: This is an interesting question if you like to hear about behind-the-scenes storytelling decisions. If you find that boring then skip this answer! It was the first riddle that the whole group had to tackle after we brainstormed the overall narrative for both titles. And it’s a tightrope walk, because you need that #0 story to do a lot of different things at the same time, things that pull you in different directions. You need that #0 story to be a satisfying stand-alone issue of comics, in case that’s the only one a reader checks out, but at the same time, you want to compel them to come back and read the rest of the series.
You want to kick off a bigger story, but at the same time, you don’t want to start at the very beginning of that story, because then you’d be reading a comic about Marvin and Jackie as young people with no special abilities yet. You want an origin story, but not a story where that big, life-changing thing only happens in the last few pages. Weighing all of those factors, the team decided on this approach where we’d showcase Marvin and Jackie in their prime, with their special skills on full display, and then gradually hint at the origins and the mysteries that would drive the rest of the series
VB: What’s the process like planning a five-issue arc of Marvin’s maturity?
AA: Telling the story of Marvin’s life has really been a dream. One thing that makes this writing experience so special for me is that the page count is higher than you usually get in a regular comic book. It’s actually double-sized every issue, if you compare it to the Big Two publishers of superhero comics, or nearly double compared to most other publishers. That means we had the space to conceptualize Marvin’s story as a life-long learning process.
The original idea from day one was to tell the story of how Marvin becomes not just a hero in his own right, but a mentor figure, a wise man. To me, that means lots of messing up, lots of learning from your mistakes, learning humility. You can’t just skip straight to the wise but crabby old Master Skywalker at the end of The Force Awakens and have it mean something with emotional weight, unless you’ve already spent time with the entitled, whiny Luke in Star Wars and the troubled, overburdened student that Luke was in The Empire Strikes Back and the centered, quiet, confident Jedi Knight that Luke became by Return of the Jedi. It takes time to share in that journey and witness that growth.
With Marvin, we figured out early on what some of his shortcomings would be, what some of the personal obstacles would be that he'd have to overcome, and we knew where we wanted him to end up. Then I got to enjoy writing a story that wasn’t just the mechanics of getting from point A to point B, but the weighty emotional arc of how a young person stumbles and learns and grows.
VB: There’s a lot of detailed worldbuilding in the issues you’ve penned so far. What was it like developing the magical side of Void Silver?
AA: I’m not exaggerating when I say Sophie and Sean gave me a handbook of magic. We have a document literally titled “How magic works,” as well as several other articles of world-building. Earlier I said that one of the reasons this project appealed to me was that it offered certain experiences I’d already been looking for in my career. One of those was the collaborative experience of fleshing out a story where a scaffolding already existed. That’s a different kind of collaborative world-building I’d never gotten to do before.
As far as developing the magical side of Void Silver, that’s world-building that Sophie and Sean have got well in hand, and I take all my story cues from the ample work they’ve already laid down there. It’s really fun to think of an idea, say if I want Marvin to teleport or turn one thing into another or whatever, I can consult the handbook and find the exact school of magic and the exact system by which he’d do that. As far as this world goes, that’s a hard science that exists, and I strive to get it right.
VB: What’s the feedback been like from the jse fandom? How much do you follow what people are saying online?
AA: As a person with anxiety, my old instinct with fan response and feedback was not to seek it out. When we started releasing Void Silver issues, I just kept my head down, kept the blinders on, and kept working. But as it turns out, that wasn’t necessary, which I discovered for myself when the whole team went to New York Comic Con, because the fan response was so warm and so enthusiastic. After that, it was really nice to talk with fans and to scroll through social media and hear from the community. The old me felt like, as long as I was confident and felt good about what I’d written, I didn’t need to read good reviews to feel validated, and if you put stock in good reviews, then you have to consider the bad ones, too. But the JSE community has been extremely effusive and welcoming, so that’s a real joy.
VB: What was your experience meeting fans of the series at NYCC this year?
AA: After NYCC, I was telling everyone, my friends, my wife, other writers, I was telling everyone how wonderful it was to meet some of the fans. The Q&A at the ALTRVERSE panel was the warmest, realest, nicest time I’ve ever had at a con. We even had cosplayers! I had been an editor in comics for a long time, but this was the first time I met people dressed as a character I actually wrote, which was incredibly moving.
VB: Would you like to continue telling stories in this universe?
In a heartbeat.
Keep up with Vlogger Beat for more interviews and insight into jacksepticeye's ALTRVERSE, available in print from Bad Egg and digital through GlobalComix.