247: serving OTP Old-skool Hellfire Club realness
Hullo.
Sinister Everything Except Ducks
Sinister Evil Mega Global Corporations
Playlist without If You Feeling Sinister On it
Links
Byyyyeeee!!!
Okay, this one isn’t mine, but emerging from This House is the Golden Rage Collection.
I talk about the book before here but the short of it is “Battle Royale meets the Golden Girls” and the long of it is “that bears even less relation to what the book actually is as DIE’s Goth Jumaji ”. This is personal, weird, playful work from Chrissy, Lauren, Sofie and Becca and you should go and make it part of your life immediately.
Also, on Friday night…
… a launch party at GOSH. Hurrah!
Meanwhile, over with me…
I return to Sins of Sinister with Immoral X-men #1, where Paco and I wrap up the +10 period.
As this is a re-named Immortal X-men, we continue with Immortal’s stylistic flourish. We keep a PoV focus, and this time it’s Emma Frost. That means she’s the first person to get to step into the role twice. Though when she’s a Sinister-tweaked Emma, maybe that doesn’t count? She is the same person… but also, really, not. We had to release an edited version of the cover without the diamond for solicits to try and keep the reveal of her corruption under wraps.
I mentioned I’m fond the pun title of the issue this time, but I also almost added a dedication to Chris Claremont. This is me serving OTP Old-skool Hellfire Club realness. I think this is probably the issue where the black comedy is most bearable, because it mainly happens to Mister Sinister. He really does deserve it.
Here’s the cold open…
Naughty, naughty.
Oh – and a reminder that Si, Al and myself signing at London Forbidden Planet on the Saturday at 2pm. Forbidden Planet TV had me on to talk about it and things Sins of Sinister.
Next week: no Sins of Sinister. The week after: Nightcrawlers #2 welcomes us to +100.
Due to the churning of Comixology, I’ve been informed that subscriptions for Immoral X-men and X-men: Red may (or, really, will) have been cancelled when we transitioned into Immoral and Storm & The Brotherhood.
The subscriptions for the two have been fixed, so you can re-subscribe… but you’ll have to re-subscribe if you want to. Here’s Immortal’s link and this is X-men: Red’s.
Subscriptions still only work for US readers, I believe.
As it’s Immoral X-men launch week, I pulled together a quick playlist to amuse myself, and hopefully you. My usual playlists are done to accompany the writing, so doing one afterwards is a bit of a change.
Its tonal north is a grab bag of my abrasive, nasty, immoral faves of vaguely increasing viciousness and significantly more punky metal than normal, plus a joke to start and end, as I can’t help myself. Some align to characters, others don’t.
The Immoral X-men - playlist by Kieron Gillen | Spotify
The Immoral X-men · Playlist · 14 songs · 2 likes
If you’ve never heard Alan Moore sing, you have now.
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February DIE kickstarter update, which is mainly an update on the trials and tribulations of fulfilment. Key quote: “Realistically, that means it’ll likely be April by the time folks in the UK and US begin receiving parcels, and May for everyone else.” Obviously, hugely disappointing for everyone, but the end really is in sight. There’s explanations of the choices behind it (mainly: we decided to wait for the quality of components we wanted), and there’s a contact in the post if it’s too much for anyone and they’d like a refund.
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Rookery Publications had me on their stream to talk… well, about stuff? This is mainly about writing, representation, RPGs and a whole bunch of stuff. I hope to be back on later in the year when DIE RPG reaches the shelves to talk more specifically about that too.
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Vice on London Renting is hugely upsetting. There should be riots. This system is broken.
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The Indie RPG Newsletter goes deep into the Hite/Laws Axis of RPG game design, which is fun. There’s always a danger of mistaking the map for the terrain with this kind of theory, but it’s a useful filter.
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Fever Ray are back. I love Karin, and will turn up for anything they do. I feel this: “Because I’m quite old now… when you discover things at this time in life, there has been a lot of time when you didn’t know.”
I did as I planned – I moved from the X-men stuff, back to the OGN. I’m now into polishing the third act. With any luck, by the time you read this, I should have completed it by now. Then the fourth act, where I feel I’ll have to kill a darling. The aim is to make it 80 pages, and I think this is where I can make those difficult choices and claw back the 2 pages I need. I suspect when we look at the script, we may end up going “Fuck it – push it to 90 pages and expand this sequence.” The dance between killing your darlings and killing the whole point of doing something is a huge part of the job.
I’m also pulling together my notes for the X-meeting tomorrow, where I’m presenting some of what I hope to do in the endgame of Immortal X-men. It’s still early on that, so I expect a full and frank exchange of views. I’d love to imagine everyone would just say “YOU’RE A GENIUS” but this is not what you really want to happen. Immortal is a book about the difficulties in creating community and solidarity, and to have any one person dictate it is a betrayal of that, right?
Iris has reached a stage of dexterity and mobility where she can pull down all the old CD singles from a wall, which has prompted some weird journeys into sound. Her pulling down Lauren Laverne’s only solo single when she was on the radio is an interesting 23-year gap moment, especially when it’s not a track that’s even available on streaming. (It’s not her best. You kind of hope that she’d have left a single solo classic before the label imploded – though I suppose that honor goes to her collab with Mint Royale, Don’t Falter.)
That oddly sent me to other music that obsessed circa-2000 – giving Destiny Child’s Independent Women Part 1 a listen with serious ears again. A huge banger then and a huge one now, but the weirdness that it’s a song that is saying exactly what it wants to say and then inserts Charlies Angels plugs in randomly with all the grace of a Youtube advert. I found myself imagining a timeline where Donna Summers takes a break half way through I Feel Love to remind us to go to see Star Wars in your local cinema.
I also found myself thinking that it’s the sting in the tail of independent women. How do you make sure you get your money to ensure you’re independent? Well, a film tie-in will secure some cash, right? Which shows you’re not so independent after all, I guess.
No ethical bangers under capitalism.
Speak soon.
Kieron Gillen
London.
23.2.2023