063: a graphic (and graphic) memoir
Hullo.
Warren linked to me last time, which has led to a bunch of new followers. I can only presume it is an act of homage to my might. The Omelette Wars are over, and we have peace in our time, and pieces of pancetta in our omelettes.
Contents!
Everything dies :(
Wordread
Linkdo
Byeeeee!
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The solicits for July has just dropped. Main things?
Star Wars 50 is the start of HOPE DIES which is basically a Star Wars epic on paper. As per usual, I've spent my entire run building to here, where I push all the dials to the right and everything explodes. As a title, HOPE DIES was actually a suggestion from the Story Group based upon something in my outline. I clearly wouldn't have done it without encouragement, as it really is peak-Gillen None-More-Goth-y.
WicDiv 38, which is the penultimate episode of MOTHERING INVENTION. Cliff Chiang alternate cover you can see over here. Meanwhile, stay here and stare at what Jamie and Matt did with that veil, which I do love.
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This is what I've been reading this week.
Another one off the back of Eastercon was Jeff Noon's latest, the Body Library. It was the first time I'd met Noon, who's someone whose work I've loved since Vurt. Noon is someone who means a lot to a bunch of British creatives of my generation. Literally all of us love Noon. WicDiv editor Chrissy loves him. Jamie loves him. I believe Al Ewing is a big fan. Hell, Ellis and myself blurbed his previous novel, A Man Of Shadows.
Mancunian, coming from punk but drenched in acid house, Noon's Vurt-books were a logical, illogical response to the cultural shift created by cyberpunk. Part of it is simple: “Why not write a book which understands cultural and the urban space, but set it in our urban space.” Part of it isn't: “Let's make it really fucking weird.” It's work that lives in the liminal space between Gibson and Borges. And lots of lots of Lewis Carroll.
In other words, it was a Britain we recognised (as we were in it) but also a Britain that was transformed (as in, you were given permission to remake it in your own image – and Noon's recreation of such spaces is akin to what Annihilation does to innocent wildlife) As such, it was liberating – do it to stuff you love and do what you want to it. If you want to see the influence on yours truly, grab Needle In The Groove (“What if music was literally drugs”) and you can easily spot the residues in my own creative track marks.
His current books for Angry Robot step away from the chronicler of all that, as is only natural. The Nyquist Mysteries are best described as noir detective stories, but each set in one of Calvino's Invisible Cities. It uses the trick of a genre structure to maintain comprehension and a note of the familiar, but using it to hang off grand arrays of imagination. While not parody, familiar tropes are transformed through the kaleidoscope of an environment, the haunted detective-archetype used to explore the strangeness of the situation. The first book was a town with districts of perpetual day and night, and excellent. The Body Library is set in a city of stories seducing and devouring its inhabitants alive, a mystery starring fictions about the mystery that is fiction. It's even better.
I bought Carrie's Fisher's sharp-with-a-molecular-edge memoir Wishful Drinking for Chrissy's birthday. She read it, and then I grabbed it and read it. It's a short, sharp (that word again) read and both horrific and horrifically funny. I'd quote the one liners, but I'd rather you buy it and have them yourself.
I was also at Margate con which was a little quiet (a new con in a new town is always going to b a throw of a dice, and I wanted to go to the seaside) but it did give me time to acquaint myself with Robert Wells' Back, Sack & Crack (& Brain) and I was about ten pages in when I went over to Robert and was about to tell him a story about a weird thing my cock did once before I realised that wasn't something grown ups should do. Wells candour seemed to demand a personal response. It's a graphic (and graphic) memoir about his various chronic, often undiagnosable problems, with a strong theme of scrotal misadventure and utterly unhelpful medical staff. It's funny, and as awful as Wells experience is, that societally speaking men are particularly bad at talking of any of this stuff makes me glad to see it out there. And, I stress, this is funny. This is filed under “you will enjoy it” rather than “You will feel better about yourself having read it.” Think of it as broccoli – good for you, yet also delicious, and I will fight you if you don't like broccoli. I believe it's getting a release in the US this year, but it's already out in the UK.
If next week is an essay about Weird Things That My Penis Has Done, you know who to blame.
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An Englishman In San Diego recorded my spotlight panel at Margate, which can be watched here. Mainly Uber, Star Wars and WicDiv stuff.
I haven't actually listened to this yet, but Aditya Bidikar and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou have started a lettering podcast called Letters and Lines. Two of the most exciting new letterers, talking craft to each other. I love that more stuff like this is getting out there.
Meanwhile, if you want a horrorshow story about dealing with Printers, go and read the last few updates on Fiction & Feeling's Becoming Dangerous kickstarter. Suffice to say, if you haven't pre-ordered it, now would be a good time. As the blurb says: “Twenty personal essays from witchy femmes, queer conjurers, and magical rebels on summoning the power to resist.” I actually also finished reading it this week, so probably should write a review, but I have to finish this off and move onto other things. In short: as any personal essay book, you'll have your own take on much of it, which is the point – the ones I didn't like, sharpened my own thoughts on each topic. The ones I loved, I thought were magisterial. Go check it out.
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This week... okay, I told you last time I'd give a little more news about what was making this issue of WicDiv hard, but I want to wait a little more until I'm able to give a firm release date. We'll definitely be a week later for the next issue, but I want to make sure that's all it is. It's been a series of intersecting terrible.
Away from WicDiv, I've been using my time to get ahead on Star Wars. I handed in 51 today, and finished a draft of 52, which puts me an issue ahead for the first time in ages. I suspect I'll try and do anotherr one before moving over to the next WicDiv special. The artist is lined up, and I've said I'd try to get them a script by the end of the month. I need to finish the research for it, which is thankfully considerably less than the usual WicDiv special. This one is primarily a character piece. Who's the artist? An old friend who I haven't worked with for a while. I've said that WicDiv recapitulates my career so far, so it's good to get them in on this. Artist wrangling has been very much the theme of the work – as soon as I finish writing this, I'm going to rework the production schedule on Spangly New Thing, for example.
Better get to it, before I get distracted by any one of the new ideas I've had this week. It's been one of those, where I've created a bunch of new files in my writing folder. Some have definitely mugged me. I don't want to write a pulp fantasy novel! But clearly my subconscious disagrees. We'll see.
Byeeeeee!
Kieron Gillen
London
18.4.2018