142: Diamanda Galas said that mortality is insulting
Hullo.
I’m about to go and meet up with a bunch of Old Games Journalists for a meal, so it’s appropriate that I’m hurriedly assembling a bunch of links and stringing them together with aggressive bonhomie for an audience. I’m Kieron! Today, I will be typing quickly and typoing wildly.
Once&NeverAgainOkayActuallyAgain
Art Credit To the Nation
WIP
Links Deluxe
Byyyyeeee!!!
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Once & Future 6 brings an end to the first arc of our Arthurian monster comic. There’s various places saying it’s 6/6, but as the To Be Continued underlines at the end of the issue, we will be continuing. Issue 7 is out in March, along with the trade, and Dan is just finishing off that at the moment.
It’s a climax, and as such (er) climactic things happen. Heart strings tugged and hearts torn from the body. You know how we operate.
This has been fun.
You can see a preview here and buy it from shops, both terrestrial and online.
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The deadline for the Project Artcred was on Monday. We put them online yesterday. Things move quickly.
The idea was that I’d write a one page script, and then artists would draw it, to show how my interpretation alters the finished piece. I believe we had over 200 people ask for the script and 40 actual works came back, which is actually pretty incredible.
The full thread is here but here’s my script, and the first couple.
Really, go and look at the other thirty eight.
Honestly, this was a fascinating thing to be involved with, and honoured to ask. I hope it’s something Project Art Cred do again, because fun things with a point are a rare thing in comics.
I’m in Philadelphia this weekend at the American Library Association’s “Thing”. There’s panels and (er) signings for Librarians. Or something? You may sense I am somewhat unprepared.
When I’m in Philadelphia I’ll be signing at Brave New Worlds on Friday night (Jan 22nd). I will be getting off the plane and going straight there, so expect me to be wild-eyed and dishevelled. Or more wild-eyed and disheveled than usual.
The AV Club on Pretty Deadly the Rat. This is astounding work and demands your attention. Any one of these pages will take your head off.
GLAAD nominations are out, and WicDiv was in it, which is an absolute surprise. Awards by their nature are all about the new hotness, so to turn up at the close of a five year run is a hell of a thing.
Steve Horry introduced me to Bis’ cover of Love Will Tear Me Apart, which is fantastic and sent me down a Bis hole. They’re on that list of bands who I was obsessed with in a certain period, in terms of actively changing my behaviour, and who rarely turn up in my personal mythology. First band I arranged to interview, gave birth to a huge UK-zine boom, a little incendiary necessary irritant. Bless ‘em.
Explaining Narrative Captions in Comics. This is great, but, oh god, Hassan with his clickbait titles. Why won’t he do something a little more austere and respectable like “Who is stronger: hulk or thor?” or “Top 10 worst X-men”.
Diamond lobbed up their top 100 selling GN of the year and DIE is number 6, which is the highest new series in there. Cripes. WicDiv in 3 other places, which is also nice. Thanks for your support, chums, etc.
This is at least partially a note for myself, but the 10 minutes of John Robb interviewing Stuart Lee I watched was great and I really want to watch the rest. As well as his journalism, you may know Robb as the singer of the Membranes and GoldBlade. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a great person to interview as well – his is one of the few which I think back to regularly in terms of things he said which were absolutely influential to me.
If we’re talking music, I’ve been playing Of Montreal’s new one on repeat today, which is very much them in angular banger mode. Edges everywhere. Sharp lines, sharp beats. It’s called UR Fun which says a lot. I’ll say this – the one which has caught me on the repeat is the least characteristic one. You’ve Had Me Everywhere is openly sentimental and has 100% got beneath my skin in the best way. Well… I say least characteristic. For all the softness of the sound and intimacy and fearful satisfaction throughout it still has a “Diamanda Galas said that mortality is insulting/and I tend to agree” as a lyric.
Oddly, considering the name, this little under the radar – Hitgirl by Peter Milligan, Alison Sampson and Triona Farrell is an absolute riot for the eye and mind. Monkeys Fighting Robot has a look at Triona’s impact on the work, and showcases a lot in here. Go nose. It’s a book that looks and feels like nothing else.
I’ve played the doomed-adventurers submit to a predatory forest TROPHY a few times now, and am fascinated by it. I suspect if I ever did an Aquirre, the Wrath of God as an RPG, this would be it. Anyway - Kickstarter here.
In terms of random bits of DIE-related research that emerged: Peter Cushing: Wargamer.
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Just before I started doing this, Stephanie lobbed a DIE WIP online.
Coo.
I was talking to a friend recently and talked about work method, and we circled back to this bit of the newsletter – in how it very much is demystifying writing in an aggressive way. This is showing the working, while making it clear it is work. Things are arranged. Things are written. Things are sent off to other people. Things!
So, in the last two weeks things were arranged, things were written and things were sent off to other people.
I’m aware that time is pinching a little. I had a significant meeting with PROJECT BRIGHTER SHADE OF BLUE, where I presented my Big Idea Nonsense, and went worryingly well. Thankfully that’s the last bit of big plotting required for a while, leaving just the work. That’s where time is pinching. I just lobbed an early version of the first script of PROJECT COWBOY over, as I wanted to show it to editors while it was formed but still a little molten around the edges. Once & Future 8 will be polished before I get on the plane to Philadelphia. Then DIE 12 will be finished off before Stephanie finishes 11 at the end of the month… while I’m also working on a big week for PROJECT BUKOWSKI.
It’s doable, but it’s Must Have A Clear Head And Eyes On the Target period. Which is fine, as long as you know there’s a target and you have a single bullet.
“Don’t Fuck Up” to quote the tattoos Jamie and I often talked about getting.
(I also started running an actual DIE campaign, which is basically me knowing the best way to do something like that is to start doing it and then try and build the tracks ahead of the players. I’ve already learned a lot from the process. The problem conceptually with the DIE campaign is that while the short-form game is translating the first arc of DIE the campaign can’t just do that to the whole game – the splitting the party is a possibility rather than a necessity. As such I’m actually mining other material instead, which seems to be working. Or rather, we’ll see next week. It has at least one good idea, and one passable one.)
Right – that’ll do. One more listen to You’ve Had Me Everywhere and time to headout.
Speak soon.
Kieron Gillen
London
22.1.2020