079: I give you humanity
Hullo.
After last time's sprawl, this one is a little bit Just The Facts, if only because the next one is inevitably going to Go On A Bit with the likely announcement of Spangly New Thing. I mean, it's pretty sure. The only problem is if I've read the calendar wrong, and that never happens.
Looks at camera.
Contents!
Starrrrrrr Wars
Increasingly Comprehensive
Time after time
Links
Bye!!!
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Star Wars 53! Part four of HOPE BURNS dropped, which is where we turn for the conclusion and find a way to actually have some more terrestrial shooting in the deep space free-for-all. Er… I mean, “shooting between people instead of people driving space-ships” not “people shooting at the ground”, though with Storm Troopers’ accuracy, you never know.
I’ve been pleased with how well this arc appears to be going down, basically. I suspect it’ll work doubly well in trade. Also, it’s a hell of an arc for Salva to leave on. It’s been mentioned that he’s moving off the book at the end of Hope Dies. I salute him! Andrea Broccardo will be doing issue 56 (who you may have seen in Aphra’s issues of The Screaming Citadel and Angel Unzetta (Of Poe Dameron fame) handling the next issues. It’s planned so the multiple artists should work well – there’s a tonal shift between 56 and 57, basically.
Preview here.
I missed that last week dropped the paperback of FEMME MAGNIFIQUE, which is an anthology of stories hailing women heroes. Annie Wu and me did a short story about Bjork. I’ve got my comp copy, and it’s a hell of anthology, with an inspiring selection. You can get it from your local shop or online retailers.
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WicDiv 39 next week. The end of Mothering Invention, the penultimate arc. The end is near.
This one was a lot of work, but I hope we manage to pull it together.
I like to think I’m relatively prepared for time travel, in that I’ve actually given it a little thought and memorised some key details. Specifically, gunpowder, its ingredients and roughly where to get them. Frankly, it’s a big foggy, as I keep on losing useful information by using the grey matter to memorise the names of Skaven units, but I’ve got the basics. I’m not quite sure whether it’s a 10-3-1 or 9-3-1 ratio, but if I’m ever stranded I figure I have time to do a little experimentation until I get my boom powder. Last time I mentioned this to a friend, she noted that she can’t imagine me making a gun. She was correct – but it’s certainly a lot easier to imagine me over a pestle and mortar while grinning frenziedly, like a shit Merlin.
(I checked and I’m totally wrong with the Ratio, but I’m not telling you, as I figure if you’re too lazy to google the facts, you absolutely can’t be trusted with this knowledge.)
To cut to the chase: my puny efforts are to Ryan North’s as a paper plane is to the Apollo landings.
You may know Ryan from rescuing his dog from a concrete skate park with the aid of the Internet, being tall and probably other things. Among the other things may include his Time Traveller T-shirt which crams the core things you need to know if stranded from civilization on one garment. This is that, but book length.
HOW TO INVENT EVERYTHING is a manual included in a Time Machine for the use of a stranded traveller who is forced to reinvent civilization so they can have their fine pizzas and loving pets. I don’t know how Ryan got the manual, but I have no reason to doubt his words. It starts from nothing. It builds everything.
There’s stuff you’ll know, if foggy from school. There’s lots of stuff you likely won’t. And most of all, there’s Ryan’s perspective on all this, simultaneously in wonderment how people worked stuff out and utter amused horror of how people didn’t. When looking at history, I tend to be amazed that people worked anything out. I mean, look at gunpowder above. Three chemicals from all over the place, mixed and you get your magic boom dust.
And then Ryan tells about fine steel wire production. In 1650 it was found (somehow) that by soaking steel in urine you can actually make the fine wire the people desired. Excellent! Then 150 years later, someone discovered that actually watered down beer worked. And then 50 years later, someone checked, and lo and behold, water worked just as well. People were pissing about with Urine for 150 years for no fucking reason.
I give you humanity.
I stress, one throawaway example of so, so many. I’ve been stopping C every few minutes to tell her about some other insight or anecdote. Don’t start me about fucking Buttons.
It’s also very funny.
I liked it a lot, and I suspect you would do. And, on a writer note, I also suspect it could be useful for people doing worldbuilding in the more credible low-fantasy worlds, in terms of being aware of technologies which developed late in our worlds which 100% could have appeared millennia earlier if it had just occurred to someone.
It’s out in a couple of weeks, so can be pre-ordered right now to get you a copy, unless you have a time machine in which case make sure you keep it well serviced as you don’t want to end up being trapped in 2018.
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I’ve talked about Idles before, but their new album Joy As An Act Of Resistance is a hell of a thing. It’s the sort of album I wished existed when I was a teenager. Wise, sad, funny and vicious. I love this.
This section just doesn’t look right without a third bullet point, does it? Well, here it is. Oh – Dialect! Narrative RPG I bought this week. Really interesting. Go nose.
Actually, a fourth point looks pretty good too.
Yeah, it’s been a working on WicDiv week. I was doing it last week, but bailed on Thursday as it got too much, and segued into it in the last two days. By resorting to paperwork like the above, I managed to wrestle down the last parts of issue 40 and move onto the next issue. From now on, I’m actually not that worried about executing those final issues, at least until the last one. This is one of those more unusual ones, which was going to have to involve a lot of invention on the page. The majority of the arc is all the pay offs, which are all work I know well (because they’re scenes I’ve been playing in my head for the best part of five years). The only real problem there is making sure they all fit in, and I sell the material correctly. Which is a big If, but also not one which is likely to entirely breaks me. For me, editing is always easier than creation.
I’ve been doing comics long enough that I don’t generally turn to papercraft or scribbling unless I’m trying something unusual. Panels I can mostly picture mentally, and think if they could work. Actually doing a thumbnail version of a script is a tool I can’t over-stress for its use to a new writer, but it’s also possible to internalise it, especially if working in a structure you know well. But when you reach an optimum of moving parts, and are looking for something else, it’s time to start scribbling. Any time I do anything brutal with grids in a non-standard fashion, you’d end up with stuff like this.
This is most akin to issue 8 or 28. Not as full on as either, but its intent is a little different. I think it’ll work, but I won’t know for sure until i) I polish it up to final draft ii) I show it to Jamie and see if he goes WTFFFFF!
And talking about Artist Going WTFFFFF!, I just need to get on a call with the artist on a new project which I’ll codename PROJECT BOOMBASTIC for now. They seem excited, which is good, as that gives a level of enthusiasm I can grind down over time.
Byyyyyeeee!
Kieron Gillen
London
6.9.2018