We spoke with writer/director Mae Catt about their new comic, The Mighty Nein Origins: Beauregard Lionett, Critical Role, working within canon, and much more!
Last week, our resident Critical Role fan Becky had the pleasure of speaking with Mae Catt about her work on the recently released comic book The Mighty Nein Origins: Beauregard Lionett, which focuses on the backstory of The Mighty Nein‘s headstrong monk in the second campaign of Critical Role. On top of discussing Mae’s latest work, we chatted about working withing the confines of a licensed property, fandom, and more.
Some of Mae Catt’s other credits include (but are far from limited to): The Legend of Vox Machina, Young Justice, Transformers: Cyberverse, Monster High, and Dragon Age: Absolution.
What did you think when they asked you to write The Mighty Nein Origins: Beauregard Lionett?
I was so excited! There had been inklings from the founders, particularly Matt [Mercer] and Liam [O’Brien], where they were like, “We want to rope you into one of these comics.” And at the time, I hadn’t written any comics, and I’m still pretty new [at it]. But I was so down and the timing finally worked out and I was over the moon.
So you hadn’t written any comics before?
Well, I have written one other comic that has been published. It’s called The Destroyer published by Bad Idea comics. They’re a really cool indie group. They let me get away with writing the script for that comic as a screenplay, as though I was writing for television or animation, my wheelhouse.
It was the amazing team of Jenny [Blenk] and the amazing team at Dark Horse that were like, “we’re going to meet you where you’re at. We understand this is new for you. But we are going to help guide you and give you the necessary notes to get this to where we need it to be.” So I would really count that as my first proper lesson writing comics.
Is it like writing a little book or more like a script?
I would say it’s a merging of both book and script. As a screenwriter—and this might just be me—I’m not the most visual person. When I’m imagining a scene, I’m truly imagining the characters faces and how they’re emoting. But I’m not really visualizing the set; I will leave that to the artists and the director. And this was an exercise and being like, no, you have to really visualize it all.
Luckily, I’ve been reading comics since I was a teenager. It wasn’t like I was starting fresh from nothing. But I had to learn this new discipline of really visualizing the page in order to communicate that to the artists.
You work on The Legend of Vox Machina, too, right? How was it writing a Mighty Nein story as opposed to that, because they’re so opposite of each other.
I know, my history with Critical Role is that I would come in and out for Vox [Machina]. I started becoming more steady with Mighty Nein. And particularly, I gravitated towards a lot of those characters. Beau is an angry young woman. She’s particularly a brown woman. An angry young brown woman who just wants to punch things. And she’s getting increasingly good at punching things. This is a character I can see in myself.
You talked with Matt [Mercer] and Marisha [Ray] about Beau?
Yes.
What all did you talk about? Because her origins are laid out pretty good in the campaign. So did you get extra bits of information?
I’m a writer who thrives on parameters. So I was given the down low: here are the parameters we’re working with, here is the canon as it stands. Then I was probing for where can we extrapolate and where can we get creative?
But it was an interesting meeting because it was with the Dark Horse crew and Matt [Mercer] and Marisha [Ray]. I was just allowed to ask as many questions as I wanted. It was great.
I really hammered into this notion of Beau’s story. She’s not an immigrant and her parents aren’t immigrants, or at least that is not explicitly said. But I’m second generation, and there’s this notion of an overbearing father that has a very strict way that he wants his family to be. And his fear of losing all of that, should you veer from that course.
It’s like an immigrant story where the father is harsh, but in his mind, he’s doing it to protect Beau, and meanwhile Beau is like, “You’re just not letting me be myself. You fought so hard to get us here, why can’t I have the fruits of our labor? Why can’t I live my life.” and that tug and pull.
I floated that idea to Marisha [Ray], “Does this bump you, does this feel wrong or true to you?” And she was like, “That’s a very interesting perspective.” And it didn’t bump her and we talked a little bit more about it, and I was happy. I was very happy to contribute this little perspective into Beau.
I may have gotten this answer, but how do you strike a balance between sticking to the rules of canon and then putting your own spin on it?
Well, I started writing fan fiction as a teenager. So just idea of playing in someone else’s canon, but having a spin on it, that is the sandbox I love to play in. I am grateful for my career in animation and now comics, because it has allowed me to play in these really interesting sandboxes that I otherwise would not have been able to.
I’ve worked on a Spider-Man cartoon, Transformers, [The Legend of] Vox Machina, Dragon Age, for example. I’m not the kind of person to be intimidated by that sandbox. But I am the kind of person who’s like, “Okay, I really need to dive into the sandbox headfirst and I need to become a fan of it in order to do the best work I can.” It’s easy when it’s Spider-Man or Vox Machina or Mighty Nein. This was not a difficult thing to get into. I’m already into it.
Is the Beau in the comic different from the Beau we meet at the start of the campaign?
Yeah, I’d say so. I mean, this is Beau. She’s younger, she’s a little bit more naive, she hasn’t been beaten down by the monks yet, and hasn’t been given the tools to fight back. She’s just a young woman who wants to prove herself to her parents, to her father in particular. And I think she’s also, as the comic is going on, she’s learning to have confidence in herself.
The fact that Tori wants to know what she thinks about the business, it’s like the first time Beau’s ever been valued in a partnership at all. I think she’s this younger, less tough version of herself. And unfortunately, the world is going to toughen her up.
Beau’s backstory, like everything else in the Mighty Nein, is very emotional. Were there any parts that were difficult to write because they were so messed up and emotional?
The thing that was the most difficult, but simultaneously, what I would say the funnest or most delicious to write, was the conversation Tori has with Beau. Tori is like, “You think I’m free. But I am a criminal. And I’ve had to be a criminal out of a lack of freedom, out of a lack of choices.” And she’s really laying it out that, “Beau, I know you feel trapped, but you have power and wealth and safety. Your family sucks, but you have them currently. And you actually have so much more privilege than you realize.”
It’s so sad Beau comes on the cusp of realizing that, right as it’s all taken away. I think that was a difficult thing to get right, because I didn’t want Beau to come off spoiled, but I also wanted her to come off as as naive in this moment.
I have to ask about The Legend of Vox Machina too. You screen write for it? What all does that involve? Because this is such a legendary campaign that’s getting adapted.
It’s a labor of love. I am immensely impressed by the entirety of Critical Role, be it the individuals or the entity. Being up close and seeing how the sausage gets made, I can tell that it results in this quality because everyone is trying their damnedest and everyone loves what they’re doing. Coming into that environment is very exciting. Because some jobs, not everyone’s happy to be there. Some jobs can’t always be that. It is exciting, but it’s also intimidating. They’re like a fine tuned machine that you have to get into the rhythm with. And so that’s the feeling of what it’s like.
It is a labor of love in that it is also a lot of hard work. I like to know exactly what we’re adapting from. So I actually take time to watch the campaigns. I believe everybody has at some point in the writers room. And then it’s all about the rules of [Dungeons and Dragons] fifth edition and D&D and all this stuff. Tabletop role playing is meant to be experienced by the players, it is not necessarily meant to be experienced dramatically as a TV show.
There’s a lot of discussion about “Okay, how do we honor what happened in the stream, and what happened in this established canon, while also having enough freedom to tweak it just a bit, so it can actually fit into the dramatic lens of a television show?” Sometimes it’s very easy. Sometimes it’s very hard. The mechanics of spells, for example, very dramatic on a stream, where everyone understands like, oh, shit, that was my last eighth level spell. Very dramatic on a stream, not so much on a show. It’s all about figuring out if we cannot adapt one to one, how do we adapt the tone and the emotions of that moment?
How do they decide which moments make it intact into the show?
It’s a long discussion, for sure. And it’s a discussion that is had probably over the entire writers room. But it’s ultimately [done] with screenwriting. And [the cast] are fully aware of this, which makes them wonderful collaborators. But ultimately, you’re trying to tell the best story. So if a moment from stream can organically fit into the show, and can serve as the story that the show is trying to tell, then it will be done.
So ultimately, there is a lot of back and forth. We would love to have this, does it serve us in this moment? And that is the ultimate decider.
When you started on The Legend of Vox Machina, did you have any idea it was going to become all…this?
By the time [I was brought in] the Amazon deal had happened. So we knew we were working not on a Kickstarter show, but on a show with a bigger budget behind it. And here’s the thing: you always dreamed that a show you work on is going to reach the heights that something like [The Legend of] Vox Machina has reached, but I am just a perpetual pessimist.
To watch it flourish has been so rewarding. Honestly, it couldn’t have happened to a better group of people. And I’m just so privileged and honored to be able to contribute here and there when I can.
Anything else you’d like people to know about the Beau comic? Like maybe people who haven’t read the comics before?
Oh, sure. For those who haven’t read them before, I hope they can act as an entry point into the bigger, more beautiful world of Critical Role. If that happens at least once I feel that I have done my job very well.
Awesome. Well, thank you so so much for taking the time to speak with me about this.
The Mighty Nein Origins: Beauregard Lionett is available now wherever comics are sold.
