Interview with Jukka Issakainen

The crowdfunding campaign for the highly rated skirmish game "Master of the Universe: Battleground" will soon launch on Gamefound.

At Archon Studio, we love the world of He-Man and have created two games set in this universe. From the very beginning, we stayed close to the fandom, and the lore expert Jukka Issakainen was with us from the very beginning of work on the first game. We have prepared a short interview with him.

Jakub: Within the Masters of the Universe fandom, you are known as a comprehensive lore and canon expert. You have also cooperated with us on our projects in this role. Besides this, who are you, and what do you do?

Jukka: Hello and thank you very much for this interview!

My name is Jukka Issakainen, I hail from Finland and currently live with my spouse and two cats. I have been drawing ever since I was a kid and learned digital coloring when I was a teenager. That has led to some wonderful opportunities on coloring comic covers in recent years. I also love swimming and movies, and long walks on the beach... oh, where was I? 
- Next question, please.

How did you come across He-Man? Do you remember your introduction to this brand?

My introduction to He-Man and the Masters of the Universe came with the toys when I was a kid, and we could get a VHS at the store that had Filmation animated episodes such as "The Diamond Ray of Disappearance" and "Teela's Quest". I still have many of those old cassettes and they were a terrific introduction to the world of Eternia. I also read the comics that were translated into Finnish (from Germany and London publications) and those had at times some inconsistencies with character origins for example, but I always saw it as a good thing, that there were all of these different stories for the familiar characters, and I felt those enriched the stories.

Who’s your favorite MOTU character, and why?

I've always liked Prince Adam. Growing up I had blonde hair so it did play a small part in it. The "superhero with a secret identity" can feel like an old trope for some people. But in my case I really liked that Adam is a real person who struggles with his royal duties in the eyes of his father, or his feelings towards Teela, and then on the flip side being He-Man to fight the neverending battle against evil.

What MOTU-related projects are you currently working on?

Currently, I'm writing articles on the Battle Ram Blog-website, and I have video projects over at the ToonJukka YouTube-channel, where I cover He-Man and She-Ra Origins, Easter Eggs and I have recently shown some official exclusive model images and information about the “Masters of the Universe Revolution” cartoon with the gracious help of Mattel thanks to people like Rob David and Netflix's Ted Biaselli.

You had the opportunity to work on and check out "Fields of Eternia" and "Battleground." What do you think about these games, and what are your memories of working with us on them? Was there anything particularly memorable for you?

Working on the "Fields of Eternia" and "Battleground" has been really terrific. I was very fortunate that the talented Ken Coleman put in a good word for me. At the time I had written for the official "Masters of the Universe Character Guide and World Compendium" by Dark Horse, so boardgames were an exciting, new territory in that regard.

The research for needed materials took some time to write, especially since at the time for the "Classics" line we were getting the new wave of "bios" for characters, objects, and more by Eric "gbagok" Marshall and Danielle "Penny Dreadful" Gelehrter, so the project needed to be updated at certain intervals. One of my earliest memories working for Archon Studio on this, came by simply going through a very long list of names, places and more that were trademarked, and especially double-checking the ones that weren't. It may sound like a tedious thing for some fans, but next to all the other things I was writing, those were a great help in guiding where to focus with the work. One example that pops into my mind is how we wanted to include beasts for character add-ons [Fields of Eternia]. So She-Ra had Swift Wind, King Hsss had Tyrantisaurus Rex, but for Hordak the Mantisaur eluded him for quite some time. So Hordak was paired up with a Horde Wraith. Later I remember Mantisaur with Hordak was made possible for MOTU Battleground, and that was great.

MOTU: Battleground will soon expand its market to the USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand and launch a crowdfunding campaign on Gamefound. What do you expect from this campaign? Do you like the new Snake Men faction and Preternian Heroes faction (you had a unique role in the setting of this second faction)?

I think it's fantastic that MOTU: Battleground gets to expand into different parts of the
world and I hope the crowdfunding will be a success. The Snake Men faction is a fascinating one and they have some good potential for different story scenarios. I'm a big fan of  He-Ro (the original Ancestor to He-Man and She-Ra) and Preternia on the whole so I really liked working with Archon on that. Hopefully fans will like it too.

Yes, you read that right! The upcoming Gamefound campaign will enrich "MOTU: Battleground" with, among others, two new factions!

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