032: be careful with unleashing your pithy aphorisms
Hullo.
Hmm. The sort of week that was so busy that I didn't get anything done. Sometimes you spin the plates, and sometimes the plates spin you. Let's write this, eh?
Contents!
Purrrrfect
All Roads Lead To WicDiv 455 Notes, Eventually
Glasgow
Special Update
Byeeeeeeeeeee!
***
And we're back, with the opening of Imperial Phase Part II.
I smile a little at the timing of this issue, as the (enormously talented) Sloane Leong was growling at the over-use of starting a story with “someone wakes up and starts their day” and that's exactly what we do. Sloane's right, of course – it's a terribly over-used trope, especially when married to the “Symbolically Loaded Dream” one, which thankfully I didn't do this time.
(I now realise I do that in Uber 9. Though it's not prophetic, but more what Robert McKee described as “Exposition In A Dress.” That's perhaps the single line of criticism I most wish I hadn't read, as any time I see any dream sequence, it immediately comes to mind, and I'm taken out of the work to argue with whether it's true or not. I suddenly recall a friend of mine who confessed that my teenage tips of how to locate the clitoris has stuck in his mind to the level that it pops into his head when he's going down on people. Be careful with unleashing your pithy aphorisms. Pithy aphorisms can fuck you right up.)
I digress.
The issue is a little like 24, in terms of it's a day in the life structure. It's a hangover of an issue – the reason why I had to resist The Sloane Gospel and go with a waking up. Hangovers are defined by opening your eyes, and slowly remembering everything that happened and what a horrible person you and/or some/all of your friends are. Like 24, it eases into arc and sets it all for escalation. The start of side-two of our proggy concept album. The first half was the proggier part, I suspect – 23, 26 and 27 being the key ones. This is... a little post-rock? A tighter frame, tighter desires and a slow build until we get the feedback killing people. Turn the volume up and sit back.
Image don't appear to have stuck up the preview yet, but you'll probably be best diving straight in and starting to curse us. If you look later, it'll be on Image's site here. It's in comic shops now. If you want it digitally, you can get it from Comixology or Image.
***
I also got around to writing up the Writer Notes for The Wicked + the Divine 455. My deadline for these is always “before the next issue” which gives me a long leash. I say stuff like...
I mentioned Nero, Caligulia and Julius. The other Roman Emperor who is in the mix with Lucifer was Julian the Apostate who was the last Pagan Roman emperor, and tried to revive Pagan Rome before dying early. A “What if Julian had lived?” is a counter-factual history which is always a fun one to swill around your mouth. He’s the one we don’t reference, but much of Lucifer’s thought comes from mashing Julian with someone of lower birth and more melodramatic tendencies.
...and about 4000 words more. Go read.
****
I forgot to say we were off to Glasgow Comic Con the last weekend in the newsletter, which was a hard living delight. I was coming off the back of a cold, so I was phlegmingly lubricious, but people were kind and funny, and I improvised a Drag-Race-nodding “Read your critics” gag on our panel, so I'm pleased. We hadn't done the con before – in fact, last year, I'd actually arrived on Sunday night the second the con had ended so I could go drinking with Marguerite Bennett and Kate Leth, which is some high level rudeness. But Jamie and I both love Glasgow and the con-runners, so it was long over-due anyway.
I grabbed comics, but haven't had a chance to read many of them. I'd normally have dove through them on the train back but I found myself somewhat mysteriously tired, in a way I'm sure is entirely unrelated to dancing to 3am in Sleazies.
(My immediate response to arriving in Glasgow, being served a tea and hearing the accent of the waitress was to get back into Sons & Daughters, which I played any time I walked anywhere.)
Anyway – two things I read, both worth mentioning.
Metaphrog are some of Jamie and my favourite creators, but I'm a little behind in the work. This is a suitably creepy and beautiful adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen the red shoes. It's a fine example of how adaptations are transformative. It's been changed by the creative choices (in terms of how it chooses to land its beats and how it's stripped of its Christianity) but also in terms of how different it is to see events than to merely see the word, and shown in this specific way. Lovely work.
There's also this, which David Allison (of the Mindless Ones) tossed across the bar on the long slow route to dancing to Cry Me A River.
It's classic British indie small press pamphlet, and a sharp burst of mood and ideas. It's very much comics as poem – it's the sort of work that Douglas Noble has been known to do, who I believe I've talked about previously.
Have a nose at a spread of it.
This is processed photography and use of typography as storytelling device. Spreads of the comic are silent. When I talk to would be comic creators, my advice rambles on. But the largest part is to do comics. The “I can't draw” is an excuse. Looking Glass Heights is an example of how someone who wants to do a comic can do one. Work out how you can execute one. In my own history there's over 200 pages of photo webcomic, for example. There's huge limitations, sure, but the secret is that there's always huge limitations and learning to write for your artist's abilities is a huge part of what makes a comic writer. Learning to write for an artist who literally can't draw is a skill you need. What visual flourishes always work? You need to know this, and you only know it by doing it.
(The counter-argument to this is “I only want to do a certain sort of story which requires a certain level of art.” I try to be more understanding in my old age, but when I was young and angry I was less so. If your aesthetic palette and aims are so narrow, it strikes me something is amiss – and at the least, those aims are leaving your skills underdeveloped through underpractise.)
Of course, strip away all the "doing it as steps to something else." Art for art's sake is perfect. One day I'll do something like this again.
Looking Glass Heights is created in part to raise attention for Living Rent, so I point you in that direction.
****
As implied in the opening, this has been a week when things have been busy, but there seems little to show for it. Spangly New Thing got more concept art, and I pulled out a bunch of reference stuff. While I wrote a huge Star Wars synopsis on the train up to Glasgow (including creating a villain who just came out fully formed and adorable). 3 days in Scotland and 1 day at a wedding left scant time to do anything, which I mainly spent writing e-mails to publishers about hell.
But the thing we should mention is Jamie and I had a little WicDiv chat, and realised that at the end of year 3 (as in, after imperial Phase ends) it'd be better if we had a three month gap rather than a two month one. Which means that we're going to do another special, which we'll do first, pushing the 1920s special back to February. This is a good thing – this means that this special comes out at Christmas, which means it's the perfect time to do a story I've wanted to do which is (er) somewhat different from the rest of the specials (and in fact, WicDiv tonally). It will be good to send out a seasonal present to everyone. Also on the good side, it means I have two more months to research and write the 1920s special, which is handy, because it's a fucking beast.
On the negative side, I have another script to write and another artist to find who suits the material. I better get back to it.
Byeeee, etc.
Kieron Gillen
London
5.7.2017