172:
Hullo.
Sisters of No Mercy Whatsoever
Store your RPG manuals in a bush
Links
Byyyyeeee!!!
Last week of comics of the year, and the last issue of Immortal X-men. I've said before, but I quite like projects ending up in this liminal week. It's likely not great for sales, but closing off the year with the closing off a project is quite emotionally satisfying, at least for me.
While the story continues in X-Men Forever (and Rise of the Powers of X, in a different way) I still feel it feels like a conclusion. When starting X-men, I had my first year planned relative tightly, ending with the Xavier reveal in the mirror. While the route in the 2nd year was much more open, this issue is roughly the place I planned for the end of my second year. With everything that's happened (Judgment Day, Sins, etc), you'd think things have gone really awry, but if you do the math it actually is issue 24 in the story. 18 issue of Immortal X-men, the 2 Sins of Sinister specials, the 3 Immoral X-men and the Sinister Four Special. Funny how things work out.
Anyway! It's the Mother Righteous narrator issue, where we finally really get to see what's going on with her – she's weirdly become the character who is most like the original Sinister modus operandi, in the lurking in the shadows and prodding things towards a nefarious scheme. It's fun to finally get a chance to really explain how she does stuff too.
I'd say that the reveals are big enough to be worth staying off the net for, if you're deeply invested. Though this will be going out in the afternoon, so it's likely too late to be of any use. I quite like how this is structured – it's denser than I'd like, but it bounces between the two threads and builds.
Here's the preview...
...and the Quiet Council will be back in March, with X-men Forever.
Before then? Well, next week, Lucas and Gerry kick of Fall of the House of X.
Rowan Rook & Decard have been working on their new website for ages, and have launched it. It's really nifty, but also has some excellent creepy product photography for DIE, which I just have to share.
Ooh!
Coo!
Ahh!
If a kindly relative has gifted you some seasonal coins, now's an ideal time to spend. Go Browse their DIE stuff. We'll hopefully be doing pre-orders for the various DIE scenarios soon here too.
- Wyrd Science is a great British Quarterly TTRPG magazine, and they've got their new issue out – which has a fairly fun interview with me AND they made DIE the game of the month, which is pretty amazing. Between this and Tabletop Gaming, we've got a couple of shiny things to stick on the non-existent game of the year edition. I wanted to plug their newsletter, as it's nifty and it's got a chance to win a copy of DIE.
- Ritesh on a lot of things in this piece on the grift cycle, but the frustration at consuming corporate entertainment being framed as a revolutionary act is one I chew over a bunch.
- ComicBook.com named Immortal their ongoing of the year, which was a genuinely surprise and lovely, and I'm not just doing the false modesty thing. With the proliferation of miniseries and short runs, and critic lists (understandably!) gravitating towards the new, I wasn't expecting any mentions, so this is just lovely. Oh – Sktchd did as well, where us and X-Men Red shared one, in an exciting award menage-a-trois.
- That I didn't have anything out in December, means that I've got a huge backlog of links and don't want to overwhelm this one. But I better get this one in, as it's Tom Ewing looking at streaming data to examine what he classifies as the four generations of Christmas records. I'm a little sad to see the slow extinction of the red squirrel here, metaphorically speaking, but that's pop culture, innit?
- It's probably lucky I didn't have a newsletter out earlier this month, as I probably would have written something I'd have inevitably regretting. There's a line of social media advice I give (and try to follow, as much as I can): if you have to say something, don't say anything. The important word there is have – as the heat there is the tell that you're going to go in hot, and it's likely going to be ill-advised. I was so annoyed I was even considering quote tweeting. Me, quote tweeting like a fuck. Anyway – there was a lot of comics discourse, and I'm glad that Heidi took time to do write this overview of it all so I can link to it. Suffice to say, to anyone who's been following retailers fears and thoughts about this period at all closely the flattening of the debate was infuriating.
- Oh - remember when I raved about Trophy Gold in an honest to god review? The current Bundle of Holding is a Trophy collection, which is basically all the core Trophy stuff and a bunch more. If you were intrigued, a great time to go and spend your gold.
I'm writing this in the back of the car, sitting alongside Iris while she naps, returning from Christmas with C's parents. What I end up writing will depend pretty closely on how long she stays asleep and how long I can write in this position without my RSI kicking off.
Anyway, that's enough for now, see you next year for, etc, etc.
That's going to read as a joke now (because it is a joke) but I actually wrote it as a place-holder in case Iris woke before I could come back here, so I could just sign off quickly and send. I can always write more next time (or in January). I'm planning to do my tracks of the year next week, so I'll be back in your inbox soon enough.
It's been a time for chewing over my year in work. I handed my last pages in on the Saturday – the opening of Rise of the Powers of X 4, to ensure RB had something to work on in case I don't get the rest over in time (I likely will, but want to make sure). With no work to do, I was immediately exhausted. I joked on Blue Sky “well, this seems a healthy way to exist” and it does nag at me. Happened last year too. I'm someone who leans driven, which I don't think is a particularly great thing. There's plenty of places that driven things can't go, like up stairs.
But I don't think my driven has served me particularly well this year. I've driven all over the place. Here's what I managed to do work wise, as I posted on Blue Skies...
13-14 issues of new X-comics.
Issue 1 of Project TPF.
6 DIE Scenarios
250-or-so pages of stuff for a non-comics thing.
A Coda to an OGN
2 RPG Kickstarter goals for other folk.
...plus the post-script work on everything prior. Oh - and I recorded 6 (bad) song demos for my amusement
Jamie jokes “a light year for you” and he's not wrong. I mean, in reality... I look at that, and if you assume the adventures are all equivalent to a script (which seems about right) and you count the 250 pages as comics pages, that's basically a little over 30 comics. That's not a bad year, work wise... but it's certainly not a hugely productive one, especially as I feel I haven't got ahead on future project's prep as much as I'd have liked.
I can beat myself up for some of that, but a large part is that this year had a lot of other things too. The health situation in the house hasn't been great, requiring some time off to support. There's also just (y'know) being a parent, something which I'm trying to give as much time to as possible, as I know all these seconds are precious. And I love it. You should see how miffed I get when I can't cook something now.
But that's things which are unnegotiable. I'm thinking of how I can better use the time I do have, which means just burning less of it. Towards the back end of last year, I tweaked my work structure in a few simple ways, which has actually bought me significantly more time... but that's mainly gone into achieving the goals I'd slipped on.
Thankfully, as we head into 2024, projects just disappear. I'm 111 pages from finishing my X-men. With any luck, the majority of that will be done by the end of January. They'll be rewrites on the non-comics thing, but hopefully not something which devours weeks. Which basically means by the end of February, in terms of projects I'm already doing... well, it's just TPF and whatever DIE scenarios I have to do. This will hopefully mean a lot more reading (as I have stuff to research) but it will also hopefully just mean a lot more stuff, full stop.
In other words, I've got an increasingly white sheet of paper. You can write anything on a white sheet of paper, etc.
Speak soon.
Kieron Gillen
Somewhere on the A360
27.12.2023