Meet Corey Marshall: Cyberlete’s comic book writer builds a story with unique creative goals.
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Cyberlete founders Geoffrey Maunus and James Stolte have been friends and gaming partners for 18 years. They also shared an ambition to write comic books. “Comic books were always part of a dream,” Geoffrey confirmed. It made sense. Video games and comic books converged in the 1980s, so audience crossover is familiar.
Today, Geoffrey and James are building a company instead of living on the professional eSports circuit. That doesn’t leave much time for creative storytelling. “But we knew we still wanted to do it. The comic book was going to happen.”
Enter Corey Marshall, a writer, comic, and creative consultant who worked with Marvel Television and publishes his own independent comics.
Like Geoffery and James, Corey grew up with comic books, too. Spider-Man, Batman, and X-Men were favorites, along with “a lot of DC and Marvel.” Eventually, indie comics opened new worlds for him.
Cyberlete’s vision of a comic book with a strong message and a goal to educate people caught Corey’s attention.
“Comics are teachable,” agrees Corey. “They were for me growing up. A lot of things that I learned in school, I can honestly say I learned them in comic books first. In science, biology, geography, everything.”
Cyberlete’s comic book is doing a lot all at once:
- Sharing a lesson about gaming
- Educating about Web3
- Wrapping both into an imaginative story starring the Cyberlete character.
Corey loves a challenge and was on board to help bring the Cyberlete comic book to life.
The lesson: Play fair
Fair gaming is core to Cyberlete’s company goals, and the narrative of the Cyberlete comic book follows that theme. It’s what drew Corey into the project. “I was always interested and impressed that they had this message they were sure about, that cheating isn’t necessarily the best way to go about things.”
Corey had never thought about the impact of cheating in a video game and how it can resonate. “It’s creating dishonest behavior,” he realized, which allows some to say, hey, it’s ok to be dishonest everywhere.
As former professional eSports gamers, that’s Geoffrey and James’ point. Pro sports like the NFL or NBA don’t tolerate cheating, and their little league equivalents don’t either. Even if you go out to play sports with friends to have fun, you don’t cheat.
Honesty as a value in and of itself is essential to sportsmanship and to just being a good human.
The education: Personal data and ownership
The fair gaming message in the comic book is wrapped in a story about technology and characters trying to understand the right thing to do with important information. What’s at stake: personal information and who controls it.
“The importance of knowing what’s happening with your personal data is a story we want to tell the next generation,” says Geoffrey. Corey sees that as an important message to creatives.
Web3 tools support creative control and ownership in new ways. “A lot of creatives and artists are so used to being either paid last or not paid at all. And our concerns are with our intellectual property, like ownership and control. So I think once more people catch on to it and understand it fully it’ll spread faster.” The more people understand it, the more creatives can benefit.
“The importance of knowing what’s happening with your personal data is a story we want to tell the next generation” -Cyberlete Co-Founder Geoffrey Maunus
Challenges: Tackling Web3’s biggest problem — clarity.
Like Cyberlete’s founders, Corey agrees the comic book has terrific potential to educate everybody about the critical principles of Web3, not just kids. But for all its promise, Web3 is an industry in need of a reset when it comes to language.
Like everywhere else in the technology industry, jargon dominates Web3. “Regular people don’t really understand it,” agrees Corey. Feeling overwhelmed, they decide, “Oh, I don’t want to learn about that,” but he’d like that aversion to Web3 to change. “It is for everybody to learn, and it’s not complicated.”
That’s why Corey, James and Geoffrey want you to know that the comic book isn’t just for kids. Adults can benefit, too. Technology succeeds when it’s easy for people to understand. Merging entertainment and storytelling with Web3 concepts demystifies the industry and makes it more accessible.
Corey’s next most significant challenge: make aspects of the comic as authentic as possible, even within the context of an imaginative adventure. It may be a comic, but “I wanted to make sure that it makes sense to technical people. The worst thing is to watch a movie or show and get turned off because the technology isn’t correct.”
Look for the Cyberlete comic book soon.
So much happens when you’re building a company and in the Web3 industry. But the Cyberlete founders never lost sight of their comic book dream, and Corey is excited to be a part of this unique next crossover, where comics, video games, and Web3 work together to show how to be a better human.
Read more about the comic book here.
Learn more in our whitepaper or at Cyberlete.io
Join Cyberlete on Discord for Game Night every Wednesday, 8 pm EST (5 pm PST).
