254:A Bunch Of Billy Bragg Records
Hullo.
Immoral, no more (Still pretty immoral)
Dress
Sinister 4 - 1
I met a devil woman
Links
Byyyyeeee!!!
Immortal X-men returns with issue 11, which is all about the fall out of Sins of Sinister and trying to work out how to defuse the timebomb Sinister left behind. It’s the Storm point of view issue, which is fun – she’s Al’s character, and my plots with her have been primarily about that absence. This is about her really digging into everything that’s been going on when her attention was elsewhere, and her being generally peeved about it. As you would be.
Here’s the first two pages…
It’s not just about Storm and the possibly-Sinister 4 – we’ve also got Destiny’s own machinations being dug into, Mother Righteous stepping out the shadows, Shaw being a shithead and a bunch of other stuff. This is a period we call internally in the X-office as “The Cascade” as the roads lead towards Fall of X. As such, I think it’s really got this sense of people scrambling, clutching at rocks, hoping they don’t break off in their hands.
After doing something as huge as Sins of Sinister, it’s fun to just come back to these 12 people in a room, trying to save the Krakoa.
Oh – there’s the other books falling directly out of Sins of Sinister too. Sons of X is Si picking up the Nightcrawler status quo (and answers some questions folks have wondered about how everything aligns there.) I forget if it happens before or after Immortal 11, but there’s obviously some key things which are in conversation with it, and led to me having to write certain scenes in 11 carefully..
X-men Red drops next week. For continuity watchers, the whole of X-men: Red happens in the “Days Later” caption-gap before the last two pages of Immortal.
Here’s Jamie doing Rasputin IV’s look for the Hellfire Gala. He’s very good at what he does, that Jamie guy.
Yet more Sins of Sinister aftermath – Marvel did a long after-play interview with Jordan and myself about it. We cover all manner of stuff. Here’s a quote with some actual information about the forthcoming special which I feel is worth lobbing here…
We leave SINS OF SINISTER with three Sinisters on the board. Mother Righteous has a lot of heat right now, but Stasis has all the present power of Orchis—which is only going to grow more prominent in the coming months. Which leaves Orbis Stellaris as the wild card.
We’ll be catching up with them in the Sinister 4 special shortly, where we get Stasis and Mother Righteous butting heads and coming to an understanding. As well as showing the expected machinations, that’s where we really show beneath the mask and what makes them tick.
Mother Righteous has her own vibe—it’s one reason why she makes such a great foil and victor in SINS OF SINISTER—but we get a chance to see how Stasis differs from Sinister here, as we delve into what the pair of them have been up to for the last 100+ years… and why they’re even doing it in the first place.
I probably should apologize for the Sinister 4 title. It’s about them as a larger entity, but it’s not as if there’s 4 of them in it. Sinister’s busy being a loser, in the Pit. I did kind of want to have the final Sinister 4 cover to have the number 4 marked out and replaced with a “3” to underline the point.
…and you can read the rest here.
I haven’t linked to the Immortal X-men soundtrack for a while. Here it is again.
A few new additions for those of such a mind to puzzle over. They’re mostly there as they’re sad 1980s dinner party bangers, obv, except You You Aint Seen Nothing Yet, which is absolutely Mother Righteous walking into the room.
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I’ve been thinking about the NHS a lot recently. As a friend of mine said to me recently, he can’t believe there’s not riots. I can’t either. It’s worth remembering 10 years ago, it really wasn’t like this.. What the Tories have done is unforgivable.
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And after 70 issues, Panel x Panel is coming to a half for a while. It’s an incredible achievement – like all the best culture magazines, it’s a portrait of the medium they love on a month by month basis. If you were to take a single document to get a taste of where the anglophone space was, you’d choose this. Last part looks great, and seems to have a big ol’ piece about Jamie and my work, and its themes. Of course, the main underlying theme of all our work is Jamie wondering how longer he has to put up with me for.
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I mentioned thinking about republishing some old work that was on my old blog last time, and with weird timing. PC Gamer republish one of my best from my time as a games critic. This is a 10 page exploration of a single level – namely The Cradle, from Thief: Deadly Shadows. I’m still impressed PCG paid me to do all this – it’s a critical break down, maps-as-story-structure, an exegesis of the implicit plot and an interview with the co-designer Jordan Thomas. Read here.
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I link to the Red Hand Files a lot, but Nick Cave writing about the lie of personal destruction leading to great art is obviously worth reading. If anyone knows, Cave knows.
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Explorers Wanted start their DIE RPG actual play here. For Brazlian-Portugese speakers, Fogo Na Dungeon are doing theirs too. I can’t say how great it is to see folks taking the game and running with it. Cannibal Halfing finished theirs this week (which includes a critical chat over the game at the end – which they loved, which is a relief, as I really do dig Cannibal Halfling as a blog). And My First Dungeon are continuing their epic series, which is really worth your attention (the sound design!)
For those following my billing saga, I popped over the threshold again, so costing me another $5 a month. I presume this is because Connor Cerebro linked to it, so I’ve picked up a few more X-fans. Will this X-centric one keep them, or will I drop again and save myself $5?
Handed in the big first document of the new project on Monday, which leaves the rest of the week open. I’m writing this on Tuesday, so I’m still deciding how to approach things. I could break ground on Immortal 15, but I suspect I would be better to do some tight planning about the rest of the year of X-stuff. There’s some incredibly complicated things I want to do (for me – hopefully not for the readers) which needs significant researching and planning, and the sooner I do that, the better. I also did say in the last X-meeting that I’ll explain it all in the next meeting, so actually having something to explain is probably a good idea, right?
I woke up on Tuesday and found myself on strike. I don’t do much work in television, but have written enough screenplays to join the WGA. The real impact on my life is that I will no longer be selling any rights on my books to Hollywood – which when the books which I presently have the rights are things like Ludocrats and Phonogram, isn’t exactly a major threat. I don’t think Netflix and chums will cave over their desire to get Otto and Hades to the screen, right? However, I’m also aware this is the actual first time in my working life I’ve been on strike, and while my own part is small, it’s good to stand in solidarity with my fellow workers. Especially in the UK, we live in a time of increased and necessary worker action against the abuse of the systems we find ourselves, and that says everything about where we are. I urge you to go and look into this, and why it’s happening and if not, at least play a bunch of Billy Bragg records.
My own culture stuff? I painted some stuff for the first time since Iris arrived – myself and comrade Sheret sitting and talking parent stuff while daubing things. He basecoated two beautiful minis. I aggressively drybrushed a whole set of Warcry scenery. We have very different approaches to the hobby. I’ve been reading pop-comics, catching up with some things I haven’t read – Rainbow on She-Hulk and basically everything Jed has written for Marvel, all of which I loved. My RPG at the moment is the 2D20 conan, which has done chargen, but still to have its first session – but I’ve taken the time to read some Conan, something which I’m not too versed with. We have also planned a What Is Best In Life watch party of Conan for Friday with friends, where all of us will bring a snack food we thing is Best and then we’ll decide which snack is Best In Life. Conan would approve, I’m sure.
TV stuff at the moment is unreliable. I only watch TV with C, so any night either of us are busy and/or Iris requires us means none of our shows are watched. We eventually completed Andor, over a period of months (In short: strong). However, due to Iris being in a relatively good sleep period, we’re now actually on top of two shows, and watching them as they come out – Taskmaster and Ted Lasso.
Taskmaster is an especially good season, and has me thinking about humanity a lot. 5 people, all brilliant comedians, with such different individual energies. People are amazing, and that’s what a show like Taskmaster is really about. Ted Lasso is a charming piece of what I think of as major key storytelling – I don’t doubt that any vaguely sympathetic character is going to get exactly what they clearly need by the end of the story. After stumbling last season over the actual football side of the story, this time seems to nail it. As a show, it’s always been patchy, and you have to forgive whole aspects (which does kind of mirror the shonky nature of Richmond itself)… but it’s also brave and determined, and goes into the shadows hard, even when its aesthetic is so clearly about belief and positivity. That it’s the only show to really go for this governments immigration programme says a lot about why I love it.
Still: the writing of all the women characters this season. It’s never exactly been great, tending to be generally good characters, played well in bare sketches of plots, but it’s even worse this time. You can imagine how bad the writing must be to make me not happy to see a bisexual love story, but it’s just awful. To state the obvious: if you introduce a new love interest, you expect a personality, especially in a show which runs off big personalities. Love interests should be interesting. It’s right there in the name. And over with Rebecca… well, any real-world non-fantasy plot which involves taking psychics seriously is going to have me actively digging my nails into my hands, no matter how it ends.
Still – once an episode, I’m guaranteed to well up or shiver in delight, as the major chords hit, and we get that crescendo of emotion. I hope they nail the ending. Weirdly, despite my whining above, I have absolute faith they will.
Oh, and Frankie Boyle on the monarchy was merciless, as you would hope.
I will not be swearing an oath of allegiance. I will just be swearing.
Speak soon.
Kieron Gillen
London.
3.5.2023