055: Big Beardy Alan Moore
Hullo.
I suspect this will be a curt one, and mainly about the work, as I have to write a synopsis before I go off to a Black Panther showing. Yes, this is my requisite “I am off to see Black Panther” humblebrag.
Contents!
Jazz Mags
Artistic Appreciation
Q&A
Byeeeeeeeeeee!
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Out this week?
The much hyped and long awaited The Wicked + the Divine 1923. This is with Aud Koch providing art, Clayton on letters and Sergio on design. Jamie provided all the designs, and I wrote it. There are a lot of words. It's 52 pages and $5. It's approximately 50:50 comics and prose, leaning slightly towards pictures. There's a novelette of prose in there, which roughly translates as “longer than a short story, shorter than a novella, definitely a good band name.”
At least from initial feedback, people seem worryingly pleased with it. The interplay and juxtaposition of how the sections work, and their thematic point is very much on our mind, and people have picked up on that. I’m glad people seem to like it, as it’s at least partially driven by naked prose, I have nowhere to hide. At the least, it’s good value. I did some rough math on how much story is in here, and I suspect if we did it in traditional comics, it’d be no less than four issues long, and probably five.
Jamie said “You know, this may be the first issue of WicDiv which you’ve written more words in it than you put in the writer notes.” And I laugh, but only as I haven’t written the Writer Notes and I could rise to the occasion.
The story can be paraphrased as “Twelve gods primarily inspired by modernist figures are trapped in an Agatha Christie murder mystery.” It’s about high art vs low art, and all of WicDiv’s usual themes. It can be read by itself, though includes some implied spoilers for Imperial Phase Part II. It’ll eventually be collected in the specials trade, which should be the eighth trade. No month for that yet, but I suspect it’ll be about a year away from now.
There’s a preview here. You can buy online here.
Oh, also…
The last issue of my first arc on Star Wars, where we round things off on Jedha and set the direction for the next arc too. The first arc has been various things, but not least my pitch of how I see the main characters and their directions. Luke realising he can’t just chase the force, Han starting to take on more responsibilities and Leia… well, Leia’s main one is this issue, I suspect, though builds on how we’ve shown them before. They’re delightful characters to write, and I’m looking forward to taking them through their arcs towards where they are in Empire.
Preview here.
Also the second trade of Doctor Aphra is out. We it’s the one with the “2” on the spine. As The Screaming Citadel is an essential part of the narrative, it’s actually the third, but go with me. Doctor Aphra and the Enormous Profit is a title that still makes me smile, and is basically a “What If Indiana Jones, after recovering the Ark of the Covenant, decided to sell it.”
I just noticed Adventures In Poor Taste post a review of the arc, so have a nose. This is the sort of thing I wish more sites did, rather than issue by issue reviews. I understand that only actually issue-by-issue reviews are in any way a hit driver, so commercially speaking everyone gravitates towards it, but I find myself thinking that there’s a space for a clear, consumer-facing smart review site of comic trades, filling the entryist hole that Artbomb left behind.
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I regularly reblog art from the WicDiv tag on tumblr. I hadn’t done it for a while, so there’s a load currently trickling out of my queue. If you haven’t looked for a while, flick through my tag here. There’s all manner of art, in every form there. The one above is by Vivargenti.
People ask if I ever get used to this. No, you don’t. It remains startling.
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Some quick Q&A. Ask stuff here.
Q: Really enjoying the latest aphra issues. I’ve noticed the dialogue and tone have become much more frenetic and lively. Is that your choice or Spurrier’s influence?
A: We plotted the arc in detail together, but after issue 14 (which I scripted), Si’s ended up doing the majority of the scripting. After he’s scripted, we go back toegther and have a look at it together, and do some tweaks. So I definitely think more of Si’s voice is coming across in the execution, which I love to see.
Q: Is the six-panel grid a purposeful metaphor for Claire in Immaterial Girl? Does it date back to Singles Club? You mention in your writer notes that the six-panel behind the screen looks like an old TV set, and you also use it during the scene where Claire takes over. But the Claire scene in Singles Club is also in six panel, as are Claire reading over Previous Claire’s journal, Indie’s apartment, Claire on the beach, Emily breaking through the eye. Maybe just a coincidence?
I actually went back to check the original Immaterial Girl scripts, and it is notable it switches from Single Club’s usual eight panel grid to a six panel grid when we enter the bathroom for the Claire/Emily scene.
The purpose is a little more practical - it’s so we’re tighter cropped on the figure of Claire on the page turn reveal. A single eight-panel panel would lead to not being able to get a decent look at her. Merging panels to create a larger panel would cause storytelling problems across the page turn, because the last panel of the previous page needs to be the same shape.
So yeah - then it was primarily storytelling concerns in Singles Club, but I do like that it continued into Immaterial Girl.
In Immaterial Girl it was all based on that original page being in a six-panel, with the TV-symbolism. Also by then I was less necessarily in love with the eight panel, and I knew Jamie would do interesting things if I gave him more space. If I didn’t need the extra beats, I didn’t take them - hence more six-panels.
This is some impressively attentive panel counting though, Anonymous. Gold star.
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Work has been relatively slow. That cold has continued its will-it won’t-it flirtation with my body. This is diseaseteasing, and I am disgusted. Still – stuff has got done (even though there was a head-on-table moment earlier when I realised I still hadn’t polished Uber 15 for Daniel.)
The Ludocrats summit with Jim involved carefully examining the existing early script for issue 2, trying to work out where on earth we’d put the synopsis for the whole series and playing some games of Warhammer 40k (I won one, Jim won one. The latter was a bad day to be anything other than a Grey Knight.) I also managed to infect Jim with the household disease, which is taking my Nurgle admiration so far.
Script wise, I’ve been tying off smaller projects to just remove them from my intray. I have one more script of Modded to write, which I’ll probably do tomorrow, and then the eighteen-issue run is done. I also wrote the Thanos short story I said I’d do for the forthcoming Thanos annual. Why did I do it? Jordan asked me and an idea struck me.
Writing it led me to go back and re-read The Infinity Gauntlet – my story is a tiny insert, in the section where Thanos is trying to impress Death with his omnipotence. Thinking about it, that he fails, does suggests that he’s not actually omnipotence. Er… enough philosophy.
I usually simplify my comic reading history to “Read the usual comics in newsagent as a preteen, fell out as a teenager, came back when Big Beardy Alan Moore lured me back in during my twenties” but that’s a simplification. I did have a friend who read some American comics, and I occasionally read one. One of them was The Infinity Gauntlet, so it got into my DNA earlier. Re-reading it, I was struck how my work echoes some of my particular angles on comics. Villain protagonist stories. Horror-style disturbing deaths of sympathetic figures. Forlorn Bravery Against Greater Power. Villain’s weaknesses being internal and/or intellectual rather than anything else. Mephisto being an awesomely manipulative shit. Finger-clicks.
Also, where I met Thanos, and he remains one of the characters I just like. He gets (understandably) the Darkseid comparison, but that’s only ever a surface one. They couldn’t be further apart to write. Darkseid is cold. Thanos is hot. Darkseid’s genocide is math. Thanos’ genocide is poetry. In short, Thanos is basically a purple Lord Byron. Was fun taking him out for four pages.
Next week? Ludocrats issue 2 polish. I’ve promised it for a Valentines Day present for David. Much like Thanos, I am a romantic.
Byeeeeee!
Kieron Gillen
London
7.2.2018