Hanging Out With James Sutter At Absalom Station : A Comic Interview

As many of you know, I have been running games and writing homebrew content in the TTRPG space since I was in my single digits. While my players have explored thousands of dungeons and found hundreds of paths, we have not always exclusively played in a high fantasy sword and sorcery setting.

Quite a few times over the years we would shake free of the gravitational bindings and head into the stars to explore the vast unknown reaches of space. Mostly we used our Pathfinder rules with homebrew items, equipment, and spells crafted from IPs like Alien, Star Wars, and Cowboy Beebop to adventure in the spaces between.

My players love big epic adventures that fit in the traditional “fantasy” setting but for them, space is this infinite sandbox to explore with opportunities for horror and mystery, ship-to-ship combat, and high adventure. It’s also fun that whenever the game feels like it’s starting to lag or the players start to get burnt out on a setting we can just jump to another planet and change up the vibe. Six months on a jungle planet exploring ruins and fighting giant beasts can easily transition into a handful of weeks of the players running around a high-technology world racing through back alleyways and attending grand parties put on by the crime families who had a stranglehold over the economy of the world.

Space always has this episodic appeal that could sometimes get lost in the weight of a larger story in a terrestrial-based game. It’s just more flashy and “modern” than damp dungeons and itchy bed rolls can offer. So when Starfinder hit the shelves in 2017 we were overjoyed that the company that had given us so many hours of enjoyment over the years was bringing us new well balanced space-based content to explore.

Now, years later, the excitement is reignited like a small star bursting to life as Dynamite Comics has announced the very first Starfinder Comic titled Starfinder: Angels of the Drift written by none other than the mind behind so much of the hobby,James Sutter himself.

I had the opportunity to sit down and talk to James a bit about the upcoming book and am happy to share the conversation with you all here.

Anton: It’s an absolute pleasure to be talking to you in this capacity, James. Before we get started, please tell our readers a little bit about yourself. 

James Sutter: Oh man, where to even start? I’m probably best known for tabletop gaming, where I’ve worn a lot of different hats—writer, designer, developer, editor. But I’ve also written comics, video games, short fiction, novels… For a long time I was focused exclusively on the various speculative fiction genres—I’m particularly proud of my two fantasy novels tied into the Pathfinder world, Death’s Heretic and The Redemption Engine—but recently I took a hard left into young adult romance novels, and I think it’s the best stuff I’ve ever written!

My first one, Darkhearts, hits this June and is a queer YA love story about falling in love with the boy who stole your chance at rock stardom, and draws a lot on my own experience as a teenage punk musician.

Anton: To say you are a big part of the Paizo team feels like I’m underselling it. You were the co-creator of Pathfinder, the Creative Director of Starfinder, you edited for my favorite publication Dragon Magazine, your name is on most of the 150+ Pathfinder books that line the shelves in my office, and now you are writing yet another entry into the legacy that is the Pathfinder/Starfinder/Paizo… for someone who has helped define the TTRPG space and beyond for almost 20 years how did you get started on this path?

[[Note from James: while I wrote for Dragon, I was *technically* never on its staff—only Dungeon.]]

Sutter: Through sheer hubris! I’ve always loved writing, so when I graduated college at 20, I’d already been working as a journalist for a couple of years—mostly gonzo stories about sex and music for my college newspaper. Once I graduated, I discovered that most newspapers don’t actually want to pay you to have adventures, and that I needed a new career plan.

So I was teaching SAT prep classes while looking for editing jobs that wouldn’t crush my soul, and learned that Paizo, which published the classic science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, was local to me here in Seattle and looking for an Editor-in-Chief. So I emailed the company and said, “Hey, I’m totally not qualified for that job, but here’s who I am and what I’ve done—do you maybe have a role for me?” The CEO, Lisa Stevens, brought me in for an interview and must have liked my hustle, because she hired me on the spot… to source product images for their webstore, at a nickle a jpg.

Not exactly the most glamorous position, but at the time I had six roommates and a little money I’d won on Wheel of Fortune (one of those college newspaper adventures), so I could afford to get that foot in the door. And while Amazing Stories ended shortly after I arrived, Paizo also published the official Dungeons & Dragons magazines, and I’d loved tabletop roleplaying games since childhood. So I worked my way up into an editorial internship, then customer service, and maybe a year later onto the magazine staff, as Assistant Editor on Dungeon. 

That led to being on the initial team creating Pathfinder, years of working on those books and that world, and eventually becoming both the Executive Editor of the Pathfinder Tales novel line and the first Creative Director for Starfinder, in charge of leading the team through that game’s creation and launch. Shortly after Starfinder debuted, I left the company in order to write full-time, but I still freelance for both Paizo’s games and official Dungeons & Dragons from time to time. I just can’t stay away!

Anton: So, aside from being a talented creator, how does one shift gears from the grand world-building for millions of players to the more character-driven narratives needed for comics?

Sutter: I think character is everything in comics—they’re the thing that hooks people in, that brings them back to a series again and again—so I’m meticulous about that part of the process. For each hero (and sometimes the villains!), I make sure I know exactly what their character arc is for the series—how they’re gonna change and grow, what fears or issues they’ll wrestle with. And then I break each of those emotional arcs down into waypoints: what they start out feeling and believing, where they’ll end up, how they get from one perspective to the other.

From there, I divide those beats up between the issues, trying to combine ones from different characters in interesting ways, using them to both drive the plot and add additional depth and dimension to the big setpiece action scenes. So even in the midst of all the battles and hijinks, you’re also getting a steady drumbeat of the characters’ interior lives, which I think makes the action much more satisfying! As humans, we’re ultimately interested in people—we love Wolverine not for his claws, but because he’s our Grumpy Mutant Dad.

Anton: Speaking of comics, and the reason we are talking today, you have a new Starfinder comic coming out from Dynamite. This is, as far as I am aware, the first Starfinder comic offering we have seen since the setting launched in 2017. What inspired taking the IP into sequential storytelling?

Sutter: We’ve always wanted to! There was actually some Starfinder backup content in the Pathfinder comics, but this is its first big story. I think everyone involved loves working on the Pathfinder comics, and the fans have been really supportive, so it was just a matter of finding the right time to make it happen. (And of course three years of pandemic haven’t exactly sped the process up!)

Kromoff: Now I have seen what looks to be Navasi, one of the better known Starfinder icons, on the cover art for the upcoming Starfinder comic. Can you tell us a little bit about where the story picks up with her?

Sutter: Navasi, Starfinder’s iconic envoy, is our heroes’ de facto captain: a fast-talking ex-pirate with a big heart and a rebellious egalitarian streak, both of which tend to get her into trouble. When we start the story, she and her crew are down and out due to a recent disaster called the Drift Crash, in which the hyperspace dimension suddenly became super erratic and dangerous, putting a serious dent in their work as smugglers and transporters.

Then a magical robot shows up with a lucrative first contact mission to an advanced civilization. It’s the perfect job, but unfortunately, Navasi’s team aren’t the only ones the robot’s told, and suddenly the race is on to get there before bad actors can blockade the planet…

Kromoff: Will this story focus on Navasi as a single character or will there be a forming of a party akin to what we have seen in the Pathfinder comics with multiple well known icons coming together to go on an adventure?

Sutter: Just as with Pathfinder, we always knew this series would focus on what we call Starfinder’s “iconic characters”: a single character to represent each class a player can choose. Originally, the iconics were just to help artists, so that instead of teaching each new illustrator the difference between, say, a fighter and a ranger, we could just show them our ranger character and say “draw this guy.” But as these characters showed up in the art again and again, fans inevitably wanted to know more about them, so we began writing and publishing their backstories, making them the ambassadors of their games.

When we started doing Pathfinder comics, it was only natural that the Pathfinder iconics would be the heroes, and the same is true now for Starfinder. That means characters like Keskodai, our team’s bug-faced medic and priest of the death goddess, who’s also just a single dad trying to raise his larva in a dangerous universe. Or Quig, a giant rat obsessed with electronics. Add in Ciravel, an elven precog who sees the future from her hoverchair, and Obozaya, a mercenary lizard obsessed with honor, and there’s a little something for everyone on the team.

Having been elbows-deep in the creation of these characters back in 2017, it was really like hanging out with a bunch of old friends!

Kromoff: This may be a rough question as you have breathed so much life into this setting, but do you have a favorite location between Near Space and The Vast that you were able to explore in this story?

Sutter: Interestingly, when Paizo first offered me the assignment, one of their requirements was that I take the characters somewhere new—a brand new planet that readers (and players) could adventure on. Given that worldbuilding is one of my favorite things, they didn’t have to ask me twice! At the same time, I’m so deeply in love with the setting we already have that I knew we needed to start off on Absalom Station, the heart of the Starfinder setting, and let players feel what it’s like to walk (and fight!) in those corridors. Folks familiar with both Pathfinder and Starfinder will find a lot of little Easter Eggs in Issue #1!

Kromoff: Will we be getting supplemental game material with these offerings as well? New items, locations, or ships to fill our ever-expanding TTRPG toyboxes?

Sutter: Absolutely! In addition to pregenerated characters so that readers can play the heroes from the comic, Paizo’s developers have been putting together all sorts of new toys for the backmatter of each book. It’s been fun to work with them in both directions—both them statting up new aliens and things I’ve designed, and me incorporating new character options they’ve created into the story. It’s a real team effort!

Kromoff: How many issues is this story expected to run?

Sutter: Angels of the Drift is a 5-issue arc—I’ve already written the whole thing, and Edu’s most of the way through drawing it!

Kromoff: Are there plans for other comic stories in the Starfinder setting after this one?

Sutter: I hope so! But of course, as much as this is a passion project, it’s also a business—how well these initial issues sell will determine whether Paizo and Dynamite can afford to make more. So as with any comic series, if you’re into it and want to see it continue, don’t wait for the trade—go get those monthly floppies!

Kromoff: Are you working on anything else cool at this time? I know there was recently a novel that you dropped, can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Sutter: Yeah! My first young adult novel, Darkhearts, is up for preorder now and comes out June 6th! Back in middle school, the main character, David, formed a band with his best friends, but got frustrated with them and quit—and then the band got huge. So now he’s stuck in an ordinary high school life while his former best friends (emphasis on former) are mega-stars. But when tragedy throws him and the lead singer back into contact, they surprise themselves by falling for each other, even as David continues to despise the singer’s egotistical rock-star posturing. As their covert romance develops, David starts to think this might also be his chance to rejoin the band and get the fame he deserves… but of course it’s dangerous to mix business and pleasure…

Kromoff: I know I tell you as often as I can, but again, I just want to thank you for everything you have done for the hobby, the community, and the impact you have had on me personally as a gamer, a game designer, and an author. Before we wrap up can you please tell our audience where they can follow you to keep up with all you are doing in and out of the gaming and comic space?

Sutter: Thank you—the best part of this job is finding out that something you said or wrote had an impact on someone! If folks want to find me, there’s always my website at jameslsutter.com, where you can sign up for my free newsletter, or I’m on Twitter at @JamesLSutter and Instagram at @James_L_Sutter. I’m always happy to chat with folks!

There you have it friends! Be sure to ask your LCS about Starfinder: Angels of the Drift or pick it up digitally through platforms like Comixology/Kindle and others

Until next time, you can find me on Absalom Station waiting for the next adventure!