020: the aim is always to do Hyperballad on paper
Hullo.
This one is going to be very quick, as I'm about to run off to the London Book Fair, and if I do it when I get home, the kickstarter I want to talk about will actually be over. Except now I've written it, and it's not really that quick at all. I am very bad at this thing called curt.
Contents!
New Bjork, New Bjork
Ada
Celebrate good times, come on (robot).
Teaching An Old Dog New Editrix
Chicago
Scream your desire up at the sky and the power will come
Byeeeeeeeeeee!
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I mentioned Femme Magnifique before, but we've finally decided who I was going to do a story about. This was actually a little trickier than you'd imagine, as I immediately go two versions of the same hole called “who do I feel qualified to write about.” One is because basic imposter syndrome – yes, you love this person, but why on Earth do you think you've got the right to hail them. The other is natural twitchiness about being a man on this project – at the very least, that if I choose someone, someone else doesn't get to write about it.
Dawdling helped the last bit, so I got to see what everyone else was doing and see what was missing. I got down to a couple of people, and then let Annie Wu choose between them.
And Annie chose Bjork.
Say hello to Annie Wu's Bjork.
Annie's one of my favourite artists who I've yet to work with, so I'm looking forward to doing this for another reason. I'm just starting a refresher in Bjork – just because it's a collection of three-page stories doesn't mean that I'm going to read at least a couple of books to help align my head – and then plan to get it on the page as quickly as possible. The aim is to do Hyperballad on paper. That said, the aim is always to do Hyperballad on paper.
At the time of writing there's a couple of hours left on the kickstarter, and it's less than $500 short of the final stretch goal. In other words, a good time to pledge if you had the urge.
Sexy link! Sexy link you can click if you have the clickypledgy urge.
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One person that is in the anthology which I'm always tempted to write about is Ada Lovelace, who has been oddly iconic for me since the late nineties when I discovered her. My user name in various places was missadalovelace around then. To see her actually become a much more well known figure makes me extremely happy.
I've got a somewhat idiosyncratic take on her, however. I mention in passing, just to prompt myself to get around to writing about her in another newsletter.
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Heh. Look at this pair...
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As mentioned last time, it's a busy week for public engagements. I'm off to a general children's comic panel now, and plan to be publicly drunk on Warren Ellis' booze on Friday night. Last night was an event at Waterstones, where Chrissy interviewed Jamie and me.
I think it went well. People are lovely, I was in somewhat hyper mood, and got to give TMI in public. But the thing I'll remember is that it's the first time Chrissy got on stage and was Performing WicDiv's editor in the same way as Jamie and I perform WicDiv's Artist and WicDiv's Writer whenever we have to. Suffice to say, she was very funny and very cruel and it made me excited for the year.
She's actually been invited as a guest to CONBUST at Smith College, so anyone in that Boston kind of area, do have a nose. March 24th to 26th. It sounds like a lovely time.
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Talking of cons, now we're in social season, we're starting to pull together plans for C2E2 in Chicago, which is our first big US con of the year. In fact, it may end up being our only big US con of the year. With WicDiv launching in so many territories, we have a lot of other commitments there too, so time is very limited.
(WicDiv's got deals for eight or nine languages now, which is pretty startling.)
Anyway, point being, we're very much in a WHERE CAN WE HOLD A PARTY!!!?! mode. We haven't danced in a while, and are getting itchy feet.
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Katie West recommended Lavanya Sankaran's short story collection THE RED CARPET to Chrissy. Chrissy recommended it to me. I recommend it to you. Just humane, exquisitely written, probably my favourite piece of prose fiction I've read this year.
Also, scrawling this line in my notepad...
“Scream your desire up at the sky and the power will come”
Which feels like a useful magnetic north right now. My artist for the next ongoing I want to do has told me when they're free, which has now given me a deadline for getting scripts ready. Which is June, so a lot of time, but also not a lot of time, especially as I'd like to have the first five issues written before the artist starts.
So yeah. Let's look up and open our lungs, and see what power lies herein.
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That's enough. Speak soon. Byeeeeeee!
Kieron Gillen
London
16.3.2017