Comicon Pride: Anton Talks ‘The Last Session’ With Jasmine Walls And Dozerdraws

Welcome to the table,

Back in 2022 I said “The Last Session, published by Mad Cave Studios, is heartfelt, honest, fun, and unapologetically representative of all non-gatekeepers who come to the table.”

To date it is still the most honest, authentic, and heartfelt representation of playing at an actual in person TTRPG table that I have ever seen committed to media. It shows the transformative power of the hobby and the acceptance that you can find with others when you engage in a space that is not full of gate keepers. I find that so often the laugh track laced sitcom or the highly stylized horror action kids show focuses on a single element of the hobby space but what Jasmine Walls and Dozerdraws capture in The Last Session is, as someone who has rolled dice at the table for as long as I have had conscious thought, what the game is really about.

I have had a chance to sit down with the talented team who crafted this masterpiece now under Mad Cave’s Maverick  imprint with a second volume (ready for pre-order now ) on the horizon titled The Last Session Vol#2: Rerolled.

You can find my conversation with these wildly talented creators below!

Anton: Hey gang! It is always a delight when I get a chance to talk to you. Before we dig in too deep, can you tell our readers a little bit about yourself? 

Jasmine Walls: It’s good to chat with you again, Anton! As for myself, I’m a writer, occasional artist, and full time hot chocolate enthusiast based in California. A few of the books I’ve worked on, such as BROOMS, and The Last Session, Vol. 1 have been nominated for and won awards. But what it all comes down to is that I’m just really excited about telling stories through comics.

Dozerdraws: Hi Anton, so excited for us all to meet again! I’m a full time comic artist and illustrator  form Germany who shares an office with four cockatiels, so my work never gets boring! Before  teaming up with Jasmine on The Last Session Vol. 1 I’ve been drawing Lumberjanes comics for  Boom!Studios and recently teamed up with Jennie Woods on the award winning comic of age story Paper Planes. 

 

A: The Last Session is such an epic blend of heartfelt real world situations and table top fantasy adventures that really showcases why this hobby is so important and serves as such a cool connecting point for so many of us. What inspired the idea of using a campaign session as a mirror for personal relationships? 

J: It’s partly that this was the very core concept I was handed when hired to write this series, but everything that grew from the bones of that concept are built on my love of tabletop games and how they can bring people together. I feel like players put so much of ourselves into a character that it would be more difficult not to have our games reflect what we go through in our lives in some way. At least that’s how it’s been in my experience.

D: When I was asked to join the team as an artist the story and setting was already fixed and I loved the  theme of using the game as a mirror for our characters’ personal relationships. Coming up with designs  that fit into the fantasy world but still visually connected to their players in the real world was a lot of  fun! 

 

A: Roleplaying games are really about teamwork and group storytelling. How did you go about capturing both the harmony and friction of a long standing friend group as they evolved through this story?

J: I love collaborative storytelling (hello, comics!) and what is a TTRPG group if not a collaborative story time? And it’s always going to have its ups and downs. We wouldn’t keep playing if it wasn’t so much fun, but no crew is perfect, and friction (whether it’s minor or friendship-ending) is bound to happen at some point. My job was wrangling that experience into a format that’s easy to read. Creating these characters and their unique ties to each other is always a fun challenge, especially in a series like The Last Session where everyone’s experiences overlap and intertwine. It helps a lot that Dozer has this incredible ability to take one look at my scripts and absolutely nail exactly the right emotional tone we were aiming for, and with such style!

D: Jasmine manages to write characters that are so believable, in real life and in game! And I’m  amazed by how well she captures the dynamic in such a large group of characters and the way she hits  all the emotional beats just right! Getting to draw from her scripts is an absolute dream! 

A: Jasmine, As a storyteller, how do you approach balancing real life emotional stakes with the metaphorical fantasy elements of the campaign world?

J: This is always a tough one for me to answer, because I don’t have any specific scale or balance in mind when building the story. But a story has to have a certain feel to it before I’m confident in it. As I outlined The Last Session, setting up emotional or action beats, I would go over them again and again until both the fantasy action and the comparatively-mundane emotional stakes of real life felt equally important.

A: Jasmine, one of the things I love the most about this story is that it feels very authentic in its representation. As the creator of this work what has it been like to see audiences connect so deeply to these characters and their experiences and identities?

J: Thank you! It’s always been important to me not just to have a diverse set of characters, but for them to feel real. Like they’ve each had whole life before the story and it’ll continue after the book is done. This is another part that wouldn’t be possible without Dozer’s pitch perfect designs and character acting. I get so emotional when I meet someone who says they really connected with a character, in whatever way clicked for them.

Once, when I wrote the comic that would eventually get me hired for The Last Session (a short 5-page comedy about a D&D group, with amazing art by Amy Phillips) I happened to meet a woman who’d read it online. She was an older Black woman, and the moment she realized who I was, her whole demeanor changed from casually polite to delighted. She had this huge smile and told me she’d been playing D&D in the 80’s and my comic was the first time she’d seen another Black woman as a DM in any media. I think of that interaction often.

A: Dozerdraws, you bring both the fantasy and grounded moments of this story to life in such a brilliant way. How did you decide on how you would distinguish between the real world and the in game moments?

D: Right from the start we knew that we wanted to use a bit of a different style for the real world and the scenes happening inside of the game, so readers could easily tell both settings apart. I really wanted to give the in-game scenes a rougher look so I chose a textured brush and loads of grungy paper textures to give it a more hand-drawn look, while the real world has cleaner linework and coloration.

 

A: With The Last Session, Vol2: Rerolled introducing a new cast and storyline, what can readers expect from the tone and themes that are going to be explored? 

J: I’m so incredibly excited for readers to meet the new cast! Some of the major themes we’re exploring in Vol. 2 are the impact of social media and internet spaces on our lives, and the tension that comes with reuniting a group of former friends who have fractured apart. Old hurts and misunderstandings need to be unburied so they can finally work through them, all while live-streaming the one game they were never able to complete.

D: If you enjoyed The Last Session Vol.1 you’re going to love the second Volume just as much! Or  maybe more? I can say for sure that I fell in love with the new cast immediately.  

 

A: With this feeling so authentic to the hobby, it’s clear you have experience in the TTRPG space, were there any moments at the table that you have experienced that you tapped into as you brought these stories to life?

J: So many! I’ve been playing die-rolling tabletop roleplay games since high school, and they never, ever go exactly as planned. It’s part of that collaborative storytelling, each player brings in a new element which can lead to epic wins and some truly catastrophic failures, all in good fun. A lot of the mishaps and shenanigans in The Last Session series are directly influenced by things I’ve seen in my own games. A lot of the awkward fumbles Cassandra’s character goes through are very close to my own mishaps when I was new (and even now! I’m terrible at remembering all the rules, haha.)

A: Dozerdraws, is there a moment or character in Vol1 or Vol2 that you really loved to draw?
D: I looooved drawing Kezz, Cassandra’s Dragonkin character! She’s just so fun and expressive and has these really long and lanky legs and arms and a tail that adds extra expressiveness. For Vol. 2 Jasmine was so sweet to include a character of the same race I used to play as, so whenever they appeared I was reminded of my silly little guy.

A: Before we wrap up I want to thank you again for not only making one of the best pieces of TTRPG media ever, but also for taking the time to talk with me today. Can you let our readers know where they can keep up with you and any of your future work? 

J: Thank you for reading and always being so supportive of this series! I’m mainly on Bluesky now (@mythjae) but the best place to keep up with my new work will always be my website, where I keep all my current work listed: jasminewalls.com

D: Thank you so much for chatting with us and for loving The Last Session! I post art (and bird  pictures) on instagram and bluesky where my handle is @littledozerbaby. Thank you!! 

Until next time, if you have stuck around… and you totes should have, I will let you in on a little secret. I am currently working on a TTRPG with the team based on The Last Session! More news on that coming soon!