053: I over-use the word Katamari.
Hullo.
Probably a quick one this week. I mainly just want to show off Jamie and Matt's prettiness. But it is Extreme Prettiness.
Contents!
The Pretties.
The Fall
Links
Question
Byeeeeeeeeeee!
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I told you it was Extreme Prettiness.
It's for Image's April comics thing #WeBelieve. Clearly, my initial suspicion was Eric Stephenson's pop proclivities had led to a whole month of covers inspired by excellent Buzzcocks album tracks but I was wrong. Let's quote the first paragraph of the press release...
Image Comics is pleased to reveal the first seven of 14 exclusive virgin wraparound covers in celebration of artists and the importance and impact they have in defining the comics medium. We Believe in Artists will be the first of many initiatives throughout Image’s planned #WeBelieve 2018 campaign highlighting the important, lately overlooked components of the comics industry.
This does seem pure Image comics, in some way, and I approve of this kind of grandstanding, stage providing and conversation setting. Have a nose at the press release for some of the other covers, and there's some wonderful stuff in here. By the nature of conversation and capitalism, comics tends to get flattened. We're definitely in a period where writers tend to be more prominent in the conversation, and I'm glad to see it swinging back another way. A lot of what we do together, and generally, is about passing that mike around. It's normally macroeconomic factors can lead to one role being more dominant. If I had to choose one reason for writer dominance at the moment, it'd be accelerated shipping of books at the big two meaning the writers are the solitary consistent factor. Of course, I wouldn't choose one reason, as that over simplifies things. However, comics on an individual comic level don't work like that.
I just noticed Artist/Writer Phil Hester put this self-deprecating line on twitter: “I'm a lame comics writer with no system. I daydream about an idea until I stumble over an iconic image, line of resonant dialogue, or startling idea. That's where I poke my finger into the stream and the resulting whirlpool is the story.” As an artist/writer, I think Phil's closer to some of the truths of writing comics here. Comics often feels like crystal formation, a tiny speck which everything coheres around. I would use the word “Katamari” but I over-use the word Katamari.
Anyway! Extra cover for issue 34 of The Wicked + the Divine. It's very pretty. Speak to your retailer before February 12th if you want a copy. Slightly earlier if you're outside the USA, I believe.
We also lobbed up the solicits for issue 35.
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Two big deaths this week. I'd actually written about Ursula LeGuin last week, which is a little coincidence. My response was to wrap up the book I was reading, and move onto The Farthest Shore, the third Earthsea book, the one about death.
The other was Mark E Smith of the Fall. Tom Ewing pulls together some of the best pieces considering him, all written before his death, so if you want to get an overview of him, start here.
The Fall were a band I liked, but never exactly one of my bands. They were already a fixture, Mark E Smith contextualised as a spiky indie national treasure by the time I started buying the music papers.
To remind me of the strangeness of their existence, I found myself thinking of them in the following way. I went back to their earliest days, and how they were viewed then. They formed in 1976. They were one of the two big bands coming through in post-punk in Manchester. Their rival? Joy Division. Also formed in 1976, also had their first album in 1979. It's hard to think of two bands who started in such a similar place, in the same genre, which went such difference ways. By the awful shape of their biography, Joy Division always ended up being about death and a premature ending. Conversely, it made weird sense that their rivals went to the complete opposite place. The Fall became about life, but not in the hippy nonsense way – life as living, life as going on, of the work, an implicit rejection of all the dumb myths of live fast die young. That was a useful way to think and a dichotomy to consider.
Mark E Smith dying ends that line of thought. It reminds me that there's no easy narratives, and all ends are premature. I suspect shattering my line of bullshit would not displease Mark E Smith.
There's two songs with Mark E Smith vocals on the WicDiv playlist. I believe I Am Damo Suzuki is the first actually weird record I put on the WicDiv playlist, and I couldn't control myself. The Can-singer hailing song isn't a bad place to start with the Fall. You have to start somewhere. There's a lot of places to star. The other song – and not a good Fall intro - is I Want You by the Inspiral Carpets, where he provides additional guest vocals to the Manchester Indie baggy garage racket. By which I mean, basically wanders around the record, doing his thing. His presence is what makes the song turn up on a worrying number of my note-to-self soundtracks, in the way he drawls across the record's thrust adding impact to the asides. The “I think you should remember which side you on” is a useful anchor in a line of work which does its best to distract you from that. Plus, “Nobody Ever Said It Was Going To Be Easy” is a little whispering thought golem that refuses to let me off the hook.
I'm pretty sure Mark E Smith being my occasional Indie Jiminy Cricket would have made him utterly livid.
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Links == true
The awesome Merritt K asked me on her podcast Woodland Secrets this week, and (er) I haven't dared actually listen to it. I'm pretty sure it mainly consists of me telling her all my favourite random Warhammer bits of fiction, which I'm pretty sure she already knows, but I am uncontrollably burbling about how delightful the uncontrollable blurbling of a Beast of Nurgle is.
Oh – I mentioned I'm doing a streaming RPG at the moment with a bunch of comic creators last time. Mr Roll Out himself – Oz Mills – is putting it up on Youtube if you want some ambient entertainment of comic creators doing bad accents (I don't even try) or doing a Gender Bent Rick From The Young Ones (Yeah, this one is me.) Here's the first part.
London town is busy for comic signings at the moment. In terms of stuff I've literally seen in the last five minutes Si Spurrier and Rachael Stott are launching Motherlands at Forbidden Planet on February 1st, Declan Shavley is signing at GOSH on Saturday 27th (as in, Tomorrow, at the time of writing) and Al will be signing at Forbidden Planet on Saturday 27th (as in, Tomorrow, still at the time of writing, as I'm not that slow.)
Short Box #7 is doing its pre-orders right now. A heartbeat of the comic scene. As beautifully curated as it is, I'd pre-order just for new Emily Carroll. Go nose.
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Okay, haven't answered many asks this week, but this one is probably relevant.
Q: Will Spangly New Thing launch before or after WickDiv ends?
A: Well before.
(Unless something goes horribly wrong, but we’ve got just shy of 3 issues of pencils in the can, so we’re in good shape.)
I’d be surprised and disappointed if it’s not this year.
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After a week where I could breath, this crunches again. I handed in Star Wars 47 on Wednesday. I'll be working this weekend on Uber 15 to make sure that Daniel gets his script when he needs it on Wednesday. Jamie needs WicDiv 35 polished by Monday. Jim pops over for a Ludocrats summit to prepare the next Ludocrats script for Valentines Day, our awful gift to David. It's lucky that Spangly New Thing's artist has decided to move onto to finishing off the first three issues from the nearly-complete pencils, which means I've got a bit more space to work on Issue 4. Which, I'm pretty sure, will be the Everyone Goes To The Pub issue. Write what you know and all that.
Oh – I mentioned Daniel. He finished Uber 14 last week, and is on covers until Wedneday. Let me choose a panel. Hmm. I have to be careful with Uber, so I don't give away who lives and dies at any particular moment. Uber 11 isn't even out yet. Well, let's skip anyone in America or the Med and go for...
That'll do. I believe Uber 11 may be out next week as well.
Now back to trying to choose a reading for a friends' wedding tomorrow. They said they'd be fine with something from the Warhammer 40k manual, which I'm going to basically take as permission to go anywhere.
Byeeeeee!
Kieron Gillen
London
26.1.2018