151: Words were always proof that I existed
Hullo.
I’m listening to Ultravox’s Vienna, due to it appearing in Tom Ewing’s ongoing Twitter World Cup of #2 UK songs, and now am thinking about the luscious tiered structure of Vienetta. It is a brief escape from thinking of what we’re all thinking about.
Ludoget & Come Play With Me
Wednesdays Is Friday
First
Links
Byyyyeeee!!!
****
If you’re on twitter, you likely have seen the chat around #Creators4Comics. If you’re not on twitter, I envy you, your life is blessed and beautiful, but in this one case, it’s worth going on twitter to see this.
The idea is explained here. The short version is creators tweet stuff you can have, you bid for it by tweeting at them. When the time is up (April 20th seems to be the one most folks are using) the highest bid pays BINC the money, shows a screenshot to the person in question, who sorts out your stuff.
If you go to the hashtag you’ll see lots of awesome stuff. Own Stephanie Hans art! Have Chip read porn erotica at you, starring you. Get drunk with Leah Williams and have her show you around her Animal Crossing Island.
I’m offering these two things!
Ludocrats was meant to be out on April 1st, but nothing was out on April 1st. That means I have the comps for Ludocrats, and there are none in the world. I will sell you ONE which will be the first copy of Ludocrats sold in the world. I’ll sign it however you want, including a statement of it being first in the world. I’ll even work out how to buy the sort of stamps you print to send it to you.
Yes, that is my handwriting. No, I am not four.
At the time of pressing send on this newsletter the top price was $250. You can bid here.
And just before I wrote this newsletter, I figured I should pull the trigger on the second idea.
As the beautifully designed piece of digital advertising above shows, I’ll run a one off game for up to five people online of the DIE RPG. I’m not sure what game it’ll be, but we’ll talk about that. God knows I have a few one off games to take out for a spin, and I may cook up something new. I’m going to try and get a 1.2 release of DIE done shortly, so it’ll certainly be with the latest rules.
At the time of pressing send on this newsletter, the top bid is $310. That this is for up to five people does mean you could get together with friends on this one. You can go bid here.
*
Friday is the new Panel Syndicate book from Ed Brubaker and Marcos Martin. It is available to buy now, in a pay what you want format.
No, come back. Not now now. Finish this entry before you click the link and buy it. I’m sure it’s rude to run out mid-paragraph out of your hunger for hot Brubaker/Martin goodness. There are no words for Marcos’ art – where it turns weird, where it turns absolutely lived in, where it chooses its moments. I was lucky enough to see this coming together, and from the first sketch of the eponymous Friday it just screamed instant classic. The glasses, the hair, the sheer sullen brood in the set of the shoulders. Friday is, as Ed describe it, post-YA. As in, a book about what happens after a traditional YA set up. The teen detective, a couple of years older, looking at the not-teen ahead of them, singed at the edges a little. It’s not just that – the occult haunts the book in a way which nothing of Ed’s has since Fatale. Everything is off. Nothing is right. It is, as a great writer once said, very post-YA.
Anyway, you can go and buy it now, and if you actually just went and bought it with the first hyperlink, I don’t bloody blame you.
Tom Humberstone and WicDiv’s own C have been working on poetry comics together for some time now. First of Many is the latest, and I absolutely adore this. It is, as Tom says, “it’s about grief and isolation.”
Click through to read the rest.
*
You ever wanted to run a WicDIv-y RPG? I’m reminded Codex Magazine published a hack for Monsterhearts inspired in part by WicDiv called Once More We Return which seems to do the job delightfully. You can get it here.
Ben linked to this wonderful article about The Sexy Sax Guy From Lost Boys which is genuinely heartwarming and a lot of behind the scene stories on one of the greatest cameos in late-90s b-movies. Also, a career in being oiled up, every night. I love this scene for two reasons bar the obviously. Firstly, it was watched at one of my early sort of hang-with-prospective-love-interest afternoons as a teenager, where the two girls responded it to so tongue-in-cheekly-but-not-entirely excitedly it made me realise something that Catholic school and all manner of internalised awfulness had concealed: “Oh – Girls Do Lust Too”. Secondly, the always amazing Laurenn McCubbin was an extra in it! That blows my tiny mind.
The AV Club say nice things about Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt and six other excellent books. “Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt asks an industry to reconsider the formal and moral values it has upheld since Watchmen’s debut, a plea wrapped in one super-genius’ multiverse quest to learn how to be a better man.” they say, nicely. There are also jokes, I swear.
Alex Sarrl reminded me of the existence of the Hot Puppies’ Green Eyeliner, which immediately lobbed me back to those proto-Phonogram times, and the holes Kohl spent his time leaning against the walls in. I had forgotten this was actually released on Purr Records, which was the spin off label of one of the main clubs I went to. Anyway – flirty Long Blondes-styled perfect posture.
Meanwhile, in continued lockdown at the Gilliams house…
This is the darkest timeline.
I’ve been reading positive messages from so many smart, brilliant people, that I’m left wanting to gesture vaguely in their direction and say “That”. I dunno. I write this, and it’s meant to be about connection. In some ways, just writing to each other, and talking about stuff is an anchor. Words were always proof that I existed. I always feel more concrete after I write, so being able to have this regular anchor in a format that is mine and defined by what I want to talk about while also asking of me the discipline to get it out in a regular fashion is just useful.
Writing this is useful to me, so I hope it’s useful to you. I will get more jokes in next time, almost certainly. Not funny jokes, but you can’t have everything.
Kieron Gillen
London.
15.4.2020