016: awesome angry Scots
Hullo.
It's Valentines Day. I send you my love. My love looks exactly the same as a newsletter. I know, it's disappointing, but imagine how awful my wedding was.
Contents!
Scream If You Want A Blaster
You Do Not Make Jokes About Uber
Writer Notes Notes
We Like It When Our Friends Become Successful
Book Club
Byeeeee!
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Big announcement came out this week was STAR WARS: THE SCREAMING CITADEL.
Did you notice how I've been talking about writing Star Wars, but avoiding saying “writing Doctor Aphra?” That's because I was writing this. It would be easier to not say anything, but where's the art in that?
This is the second Star Wars crossover I've co-written with Jason, who I've obviously worked with for years with the X-men stuff. The previous cross-over was VADER DOWN, which was a lot of fun to do. Vader Down basically put the cast of each book at each others' throat. THE SCREAMING CITADEL is kind of the opposite, with a chance for them to be friendly. Well, mostly.
It's also a horror comic, which works incredibly well with Star Wars. Here's Marco Checchetto's first concept art for the eponymous Citadel...
Lots more information in the interview, but here's a random dumb aside for those who read the newsletter. When I was writing up the original take on the synopsis, I threw THE SCREAMING CITADEL as a working title at the top, and in the end, we decided we liked it enough for it to stick.
I often describe writing mainstream action comics like playing the blues. It's rarely more so than times like that.
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I've only one comic out this week. That's Uber Invasion #3, which is probably the issue that's most like a traditional issue of Uber. It's the first battle we show in detail, and also reintroduces the Nazis who are present in North America. As I've said, as this is a relaunch, I rebuild all the elements of the book while pushing the story on. This is very much a retstament how we do tactical engagements.
Also, a re-introduction of some old characters, setting it up for next issue. Which is... one of my favourites? I mean, issue 2 is something I'm proud of in a technical fashion, but issue 4 is human.
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Lots of very kind words about last week's WicDiv. I wrote just over 4000 words for the writer notes, so if you're worried this newsletter is a little short, this will keep you busy.
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Oh – after Kelly-Sue last week, this seems to be the season for friends doing well for themselves. Ed Brubaker's doing a show for Amazon with Nicolas Winding Refn called Too Old To Die Young, which obviously sounds perfect, though does remind me I still need to watch Neon Demon. Warren Ellis is writing a Castlevania series for Netflix, which makes me want to do a joke pretending to think Castlevania was Consolevania, but that would make me sad, as Warren would write pretty awesome angry Scots shouting about videogames' merits.
In passing, Consolevania are filming again, having started a patreon. I'm a big fan of the show, even when (especially when) they mocked me. Do go nose.
Anyway – Castlevania on Netflix. Leigh Alexander will be pleased.
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Talking about Leigh, I read her MONITOR this week. It's a novella set in the Netrunner, and her first take on writing long form published fiction. I enjoyed it enormously, partially as I love Leigh's voice, but mainly because it was thematically richer than I was expecting. That it was a surprise should be the surprise, really. It's Leigh. She was never going to write about nothing, but I've read enough game-universe fiction to just expect Rollicking Adventure(Tm). This isn't that. This is a precise and smart look at how the public devours you, and I suspect enjoyable for anyone who likes Cyberpunk at all. The highest compliment: I forgot it was a game tie in.
It's actually been a week for reading friends' book. I also devoured NECESSARY TROUBLE by the Sarah Jaffe, which is very much the sort of book that only someone who has been ground level on politics and protest across the last decade could have written. It's a series of studies of means of protest towards justice across that period, touching on all of it, and looking at how the lessons can be built on in the future. The unusual thing was the time gap. This is a book that was published last year, and now speaks of events in a world that can seem alien. That's an illusion, of course. This is the road that lead to here, and it's use is ways to think of ways to lead on from here.
I'm onto Carrie Brownstein's HUNGER MAKES ME A MODERN GIRL now, which I'm enjoying exactly as much as you'd expect. I instagramed this excerpt earlier...
...which is very much the sort of feelings I was channeling when writing the opening of WicDIv.
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And I'm out. Byeee.
Kieron Gillen
London
14.2.2017