241: when all hope is lost, I must shill
Hullo.
Sins of a Solar Empire
Players of Games
Comps
The GillenMcKelvie Paradigm (Slight Return)
Links
Byyyyeeee!!!
Sins of Sinister approaches, and Marvel dropped a trailer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loXtfM4qiHY
There’s some spoilers in there for the inciting incident, but we tried our hardest to not give anything which fundamentally breaks the story or spoils any of the meaningful reveals. It gives one thing about the present day, but then presents the set up: in 10 years from now, Sinister has won. How?
It’s a story told across a thousand years of history. It’s huge, and playful, and petrifying, and I’m really happy with how it’s coming together.
I also did an interview with Comicbook.com about it, including some teaser art.
One of the things which I’ve been chewing over since getting back into RPGs is that there’s so much advice for GMs and so little advice for players. I keep thinking over why - though the whys aren’t what I’m about to write about. However, some other folk think any worthwhile advice is system/genre specific.
This got me chewing over whether I agree with that. As the list below shows, I don’t.
The first four are ones where I think I succeeded, and as principles generally guide you towards better play no matter what game you’re playing. The last three are mainly applicable to games with a significant story component (the last especially). There’s a few more I played with, but they were more about being a good at the table generally – about being a better player in any game rather than specifically about role-playing games. I also avoided ones which were more GM-and-player advice rather than just player advice (if there’s a problem in game, communicate out of game, use appropriate safety tools, etc).
I also didn’t include “Buy The GM Stuff”.
Anyway – here they are. See what you think.
GENERAL PLAYER PRINCIPLES FOR BETTER PLAY
1) Make choices that support the table’s creative goals
If you’re playing a storygame, don’t treat it like a tactical wargame. If you’re playing a tactical wargame, don’t treat it like a storygame. If it’s bleak horror, don’t make jokes. If you’re in a camp cosy romp, don’t bring in horror. It also varies from moment to moment – if someone’s scene is sincere, don’t undercut it.
2) Be A Fan of The Other Characters
This is GM advice in almost all Powered By the Apocalypse games – for the GM to be a fan of the characters. It’s a good trait for a player to cultivate. Be actively excited and interested in the other characters’ triumphs and disasters. Cheer them on. Feel for them. Players being excited for other players always makes the game better. Players turning off until it’s their turn always makes it worse.
3) Be aware of the amount of spotlight time you’re taking
This is a hard one for fellow ADHD-ers, but have an awareness of who is speaking more and who is speaking less. A standard GM skill is moving spotlight time around to players who have had less time. Really good players do this too. Pass the ball.
4) Learn what rules apply to you, to smooth the game, not derail it.
To stress, this isn’t “come to the table knowing everything” but learning the rules that are relevant to your character along the way, especially if they are marginal (looking at you, Grappling and Alchemy rules). Doing otherwise adds to the facilitator’s cognitive load and hurts the game’s flow. The flip is being aware that knowing stuff isn’t an excuse to break the game’s flow with a rules debate either – that’s an extension of the third principle.
5) Make choices which support other characters’ reality
If someone’s playing a scary bastard, treat them like a scary bastard. If they’re meant to be the leader, have your character treat them like the leader , for better or worse. A fictional reality is shared, and you construct it together.
6) Ensure The Group Understands Who Your Character Is
This is the flip of the above – having a character conception that is clear enough that everyone gets who you are, what you want to do and how you want to do it. If you don’t, the table will be incapable of supporting your choices. This links to…
7) If asked a preference in a story game, a strong choice is almost always better than a middling choice.
Don’t equivocate. If asked “You’ve met this person before. How do you feel about him?” either “I love him” or “I hate him” is better than anything middling. The exception is if it’s something you’re really not interested in pursuing.
Comps!
Once & Future’s final volume turned up. Hits comic shops on December 28th which is really great timing in terms of aligning with the events of the comic. IMAGE! #9 also drops that week, meaning I’ll be wrapping off the year with the conclusion of an indie series and the conclusion of my one new creator owned thing this year. That’s a fun way to exit the season.
I also got comps for the new printing of DIE: Split The Party. We decided to take this opportunity to change the cover to bring it more in line with the later volumes. We’re really pleased with where it ended up.
Conversation in comics circle turned once again to a classic – the problems of credit in comics, and how certain creators (usually the writer) are given a primacy in conversation in reviews. There’s a lot packed into that one, and that my first three attempts at writing this paragraph have led to me deleting them says a lot. It’s not one I want to hot take on. It’s one I’d write a chapter of a book on, were I to say anything. It’s hard to be a critic or reviewer in, especially in comics. Even when I’m unlike most creators, having spent some time on that coalface, and neighbouring coalfaces, it’s not always helpful.
However, it did remind of something I wrote back in the day, which is occasionally mentioned in discussion and is no longer actually available since the blog deleted. So here it is. I don’t agree with it all now – hell, I didn’t agree with it all then – but I think it’s a fun thing to chew over.
THE GILLEN McKELVIE PARADIGM
The idea first arose when the reviews of the first Phonogram series started turning up. Specifically, it was a review over at an Unknown Armies fansite (UA being an urban fantasy role-playing game which shares a few themes with Phonogram). The reviewer thought it was created by a single person called Gillen McKelvie. Presumably because our names were so large on the cover, and by one another. Which of course, is pretty funny. But it also struck me that, of all the Phonogram reviews, it had a certain truth. And in the time since then, looking at reviews of my books and books by friends and peers, it started nagging at me.
What I’m talking about is the problem of properly crediting innovation. Specifically, comic reviewers – especially mainstream comic reviewers – tend to dissect art and writing separately, and credit all praise or hatred at the artist or writer respectively. Which of course, is fair. Their names are on the book, after all. But on another level, it’s totally delusional. From the outside you have no idea of the machinations of the book. Writers and artists push and pull against each other constantly. The book warps. If a writer asks for a specific effect and the artist simply executes it, while the specific rendering is to the artist’s credit, the actual choice of the moment lies with the writer. Conversely, if an artist adds a panel, creating a specific heart-breaking glance, it’s more likely the writer will get the credit for choosing to capture this heart-on-sleeve. Especially if then, after the fact it’s been added, they’ve added a half-line there in response with the artist’s innovations. I can easily pick up bits of Phonogram where I’ve got credit Jamie should have got, and vice versa.
Because from the outside, no-one would know.
So why do we pretend we do?
We’re the hags gathered around with a single shared tooth and eye between them, trying to get by. The Writer/Artist team is basically a faux-cartoonist, two people trying to work in harmony to do the job which abstractly could be done by one. We push and pull one another, and the work which comes out the other end is some strange alloy of our skills, desires and ability to give a toss on any given day.
Point being: since they’re attempting to become a faux-cartoonist for the space of the work, ,maybe it could be interesting to treat them as a faux-cartoonist and consider all their work together as a single entity. The closest parallel is bands, the other small groups of impassioned individuals gathered together for a larger purpose whose work – even the work which can be clearly originated by one member of the collective – is best analysed as part of the whole. Tracing Gillen McKelvie’s work is a different thing than just tracing Jamie McKelvie or Kieron Gillen’s work. Run a finger down – to choose a couple of examples – the Ennis Dillon, the Diggle Jock or Morrison Quitely spines and you’re seeing something which is unique between the creators, of how they work off each other and all that. Of – fundamentally – how they make each other look good.
(I’m of the opinion that all great collaborative comics are based around making the other party look good as possible. They save each other’s arses.)
Of course, it’s true of most forms. For example, directors get far more than their fair credit for the worth of a film… but in comics, where there’s so relatively few people involved, bifurcating the two elements and giving them all to one individual or the other strikes me as worse. And, equally obviously, there’s often more individuals who shape a collaborative comic than just the writer an artist. Even the artist can be multiple individuals, with the inkers and colourists (And, in Phonogram’s case, the colourist is of obvious paramount importance). But, much in the same way the Director getting so much credit was a result of little more than deciding someone should get the credit from the film instead of the studio, it’s acceptable just in trying to get people thinking about comics in a different way (i.e. It’s a utilitarian argument). As in, thinking of the comic created by an novel gestalt that should be considered as such.
What’s the advantages about this from a critic’s perspective?
1) You won’t be lying. If you have no idea who to credit or blame for a feature, you’re lying. Blaming the hive-mind faux-entity who created it means that you’re appropriating it all appropriately. 2) Thinking about it holistically means that you start looking at its holistic effect (i.e. What it actually does) rather than some once-removed division from the actual effect (i.e. Something that doesn’t matter). Which is a different thing from saying that comics should be considered only holistically – breaking apart how a panel transition creates an emotional effect is something I’d love to see more of in comics criticism. But that’s a whole different rant. 3) It’s enormously pretentious. 4) It’ll annoy creators who are a little too hung up on their own contribution to the book, rather than the actual merits or faults of the book itself. 5) You won’t be lying. I’ll say that twice, because truth matters.
Of course, I’m writing this all smirking more than a little (If I was serious, I wouldn’t have called it The Gillen McKelvie Paradigm, obv) and don’t expect anyone to actually try and do this. But I think, as a push, towards thinking about creative teams rather than the individual creatives in those teams it serves a worthwhile purpose. And could even lead to some interesting places.
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It’s the end of year list season, and Immortal X-men won the series/graphic novel of the year from IGN, while both Judgment Day and Once & Future were on Entertainment Week’s comics of the year list. This was a really surprise, and a lovely one. It’s not a year when I was even thinking about end-of-year lists – I’m really happy with the work, but it’s also not the sort of work which tends to end up on a list (End of a Creator-Owned series and big, main-universe WFH). As such, a real delight.
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And DIE RPG ended up on io9’s list of the best tabletop games of 2022, which is amazing.
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There’s two days left on Greg Pak’s 35mm Love Letter crowdfunder, a collection of his 35mm shots. I do love seeing creators pursue creative things of real personal import to them, and this is great.
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These maps of the Lower Mississippi by Harold Fisk set my head afire. The sort of mapping of a non-static system isn’t something one often thinks about.
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Bundle of holding are killing at the moment. Blades in the Dark bundle. Heart bundle. Spire bundle. All this is the good stuff.
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I was wrapping up the newsletter when I saw Louise Stewart retweets this article noting the number of working class people working in the arts has dropped by 50% since the 1970s. This is something I’m always extremely aware of, but it’s good (i.e. bad) to have an actual number behind it.
You’ve probably noticed that I’ve taken to skipping weeks when I don’t have a comic out. With this year, I hope that’s understandable. A couple of extra hours in the week is time I can always use. That said, I hate how it makes me feel mercenary – as in, everything else in a newsletter is a justification for sending a plug, because if it wasn’t, I’d be sending it when I didn’t have something to plug.
Especially when that’s only half the actual reason I had for moving to a mailing list – yes, twitter was increasingly useless at actually getting (ugh) engagement on telling folks about what’s coming out, so I was looking for other ways to reach my core readers… but a newsletter was also a reason to write regularly, in front of an audience. Also, as I’ll be down to a comic or two a max a month in the new year, I need to step it up a bit. At the least, if I leave it too long, my links bit becomes stupidly enormous.
Hence, this one.
Though there is a Sins trailer at the top, which I suppose keeps the Mercenary part ticking away, like the devil it is.
Work stuff? Sins of Sinister is wrapped on my scriptside. I wrote the first act of the OGN, and have it over to the artist – thankfully, she likes it, and is now at work. I’ve moved back to X-men, plotted by three issues post-Sins of Sinister before Fall of X kicks off, and started scripting issue 11. With any luck, I’ll have that wrapped by Friday (or Monday at the latest). Then I’ll be choosing how I want to end the year – there’s usually me doing something in those days between Christmas and the New Year. I have no idea if I’ll do that this year. Maybe not.
At least I’ll try to do a newsletter, as I do have comics coming out, and even in the end times when all hope is lost, I must shill.
Speak soon.
Kieron Gillen
London.
14.12.2022