Welcome to the Johnversation

Next Tuesday on the pod: a Creative Chat with graphic artist, game designer, and film & TV aficionado John Harper, creator of Blades in the Dark, Lasers & Feelings, and AGON.

John and I get into a bunch of creative whatnots, from inspiration across media, to making room for so-called B-grade cinema in your watchlist, to the place for tropes in TV, movies, and roleplaying games. Dropping April 25.

[ Transcript ]

john harper: I’m always thinking about the craft of the thing at the same time I’m, you know, crying in Star Trek 2. [laughs]

allison arth: [laughs] Yep, I’m with you! [laughs]

jh: [chuckles] You know, it’s like, parallel thought processes there.

aa: Right.

aa: Coming up on the Little Oracles podcast: a creative chat with graphic artist and game designer John Harper.

aa: So, tell me about that inspiration across media, and why that works for you.

jh: Yeah, um, it’s something that I’ve always done to some degree; whether it’s writing stuff down, or just appreciating media with a critical mind; you know, like, enjoying the thing itself, and also, kind of, running some kind of analysis at the same time. ... The notebook moments are usually those, like, very recognizable stuff that I want to make sure I’m capturing.

aa: Right, right. So it’s kind of like the high points in a way. The top of the rollercoaster, maybe. [laughs]

jh: Yeah, kind of, like, uh, within the tropes of a genre, there’s always gonna be those elements that, when you see it on the movie poster or the trailer, you go, “Oh, this is an adventure movie”: Indiana Jones is swinging on his whip over a pit. Like, that’s it. I mean, you get– you know what that is.

aa: Right. ... I think you said that they’re– they’re the things that people expect.

jh: Yeah. And you don’t need to deliver on all of those things, necessarily, and you don’t need to just reproduce them. I think omissions and additions is one way you get subgenres and new genres.

aa: Mm-hmm.

jh: And you might end up far away from where you started, potentially, but starting to– for me to build that, kind of, catalog of bits and pieces: it’s like the moodboard, in a way–

aa: Oh, yeah! Yeah, yeah, yeah.

jh: And you can look at it and kinda go, “Okay, I see what this is.” And it’s less about, sort of, reinventing the wheel, and more about thinking about, “Well, how– what am I gonna do? What’s an iconic, heroic thing to have our characters express in play? What’s a setting and a situation that lends itself to swinging over pits, and getting in fistfights and car chases?

aa: Find Little Oracles wherever you get podcasts.

I can’t wait to share this chat with y’all! Don’t miss this drop; subscribe to Little Oracles wherever you listen.

xx, aa