295: what happens when Smaug makes love to a train
Hullo.
Call Me Giants (maybe)
Cow
Actually, no, do believe the hype
Links !
Bye
We Called Them Giants is out in November (or last week of October comic shops) and the journey towards an original graphic novel is just a different beast than a comic. It's in the hands of anyone who has access to ARCs (advance reader copies) for ages – Image even printed physical Arcs for librarians and reviewers.
Marjorie Liu has also given us a lovely quote...
"A gripping tale of survival and resilience, We Called Them Giants masterfully captures the enduring power of kindness and friendship in a shattered world.” —Marjorie Liu (Monstress, The Night Eaters)
There's some preview pages online too. I'm not going to put them all here, but I want to just give a teaser of the opening. It's been ages since you've seen new pages from Stephanie, right?
We Called Them Giants is a short graphic novel by Stephanie Hans and myself, and it's about a teenage girl who wakes up one day and finds everything changed...
And then, soon enough, she meets some Giants (or at least things which she called Giants).
You can order a copy at your local comic shop, book shops, online retailers (Amazon US/UKor via a site like Bookshop.org.
It's in the new solicits, and here's the actual details...
WE CALLED THEM GIANTS HC, VOL. 1
WRITER: Kieron Gillen
ARTIST / COVER A: Stephanie Hans
OCTOBER 30 / 104 pages / FC/ -- / $19.99
WE CALLED THEM GIANTS is a story of communication across a chasm at the end of the world.
Lori wakes to find the streets empty. Everyone has gone. Or at least, nearly everyone. She’s thrown into a world where she has to scrape by in the ruins of civilization, nearly starving, hiding from gangs when…
They arrive.
The award-winning team behind dark fantasy smash DIE release their first standalone original graphic novel.
This is entirely stand alone, btw. It's a single story. I'm not quite sure why Vol 1 is there.
As well as We Called Them Giants, the solicits for October include issue 3 of The Power Fantasy.
THE POWER FANTASY #3
WRITER: Kieron Gillen
ARTIST / COVER A: Caspar Wijngaard
COVER B: Paulina Ganucheau
COVER C: Rian Hughes
OCTOBER 09 / 32 pages / FC/ -- / $3.99
On July 16, 1945 the world changed forever. Santa Valentina was born. There was also the Trinity test, but that's not as important.
As the world hangs in the balance, we explore the life and times of the girl who fell...skipped...to Earth.
Also: check out that cow!
Honestly, the cow is my everything. I suspect if there's an Eisner for “greatest tonal whiplash between cover and content” award, we'll get it. This is a brief skip through Valentina's life story, and it's a lot.
Our Alt cover is Paulina Ganucheau, and is giving us great Young Pope energy. There's also a Rian design cover, which we'll be revealing shortly.
“Talk to your retailer” is the traditional thing to say here, and you may be hardened to it by now, but definitely do if you get a chance.
Two weeks until The Power Fantasy hits the shelves on August 7th. They'll be more stuff next week, I'm sure, but Rian and I gathered together some more quotes from folks and the first set of reviews. The reviews have been pretty impressive, to say the least – of the folks who've given scores, no-one's given anything but a 10/10.
Talk to your retailer about it. Too late to pre-order issue 1 (but not issue 2 and later) but it's good to let them know you want one.
Actually, I was reminded this week something I should have explicitly mentioned earlier. Let's bold it.
This is the only comic I'm doing this year.
The Graphic Novel drops in November, but in terms of monthly comics? The Power Fantasy is it. It's everything I'm doing that you can buy. I don't want my attention anywhere else.
- Jamie lobbed me this interview with Alex Trowers about him working on Bullfrog classic Syndicate – though is really about a lot more, and an interesting snapshot of a period of british game design. It reminded me I'd written a retro piece on Syndicate in my previous life, and I realise the retro piece is older now than Syndicate was when I wrote the retro piece. I am dust.
- Esad, my and friends' ETERNALS collection is out now, and available to buy. AIPT write about it here.. This was a great thing to do for a year.
- In the run up to The Power Fantasy, Graphic Policy are doing some pieces on some older things I've written. Here's Logan Dalton writing about his favourite seven Phonogram B-sides - these were short stories in the Phonogram universe, in various modes, with various artists. It's the sort of thing I'm not sure I'd ever do again, but does itch at my brain a little to try and find a different kind of use for. Imagine something as plot-driven as Once & Future, which then does what amounts of mood pieces for 4 pages in the back. That could be interesting.
- Comrade Rossignol writes what amounts to an open letter to a friend who said they have enough time to run a role-playing game, but not enough to prep one. The short version is that it's a problem in the games you're playing, and you don't have to play those games, but it's a broad exploration of the topic and is a lot of fun.
- MIT Press publish a lot of academic work on games, and this Humble Bundle lets you grab a load, cheaply. I own quite a few of these, and bought it anyway to get access to E-reader versions. I'm going to finally read Peterson's The Elusive Shift when I'm travelling thanks to this – his Game Wizards is also in here too, which I have read, and is just a great source for the Arneson vs Gygax D&D war.
- Kelly Sue and David Lopez announce FML from Dark Horse, which sounds great – coming of age, mother/son relationships, music, excellence. Glad to have them back.
Before I do an update - if you're reading this online, and wondering why it's not in your inbox, drop me a line. Last week I had someone reach out wondering why they hadn't got it, and it was something in Buttondown's system. Check your spam filters too though.
Anyway!
Iris' sleep hasn't been great this week, so I'm a little chewed up – it's why this is coming on Thursday rather than Wednesday. Yesterday wasn't a complete write-off, but was certainly less productive than you'd hope.
The main thrust of script work this week was what's next for Stephanie and Me. As implied by the above mention that The Power Fantasy is my only comic this year, this is planned for next. I'm not even sure when. Easter? Maybe later? We'll see. I just finished off the first draft of the first issue for it, which I'll be polishing up tomorrow and getting over, and then I'll be back to the Power Fantasy – I'm very close to finishing the next issue, but I decided to step away as I want to do some structural thinking for issues 5-15, which will impact how I nail down 4. In reality, some of this is wanting to do even more work on the timeline. A timeline is infinite, in that it's always fractal – you can add more fine detail. As such, I know this job has no end... but I've decided that some extra shade in certain point could be really effective.
I'll be working on that while I'm travelling. Next week is Gencon, then I'm back to the UK for the Power Fantasy signing at Forbidden Planet and then off to Glasgow for Worldcon. I'll publish my schedule next week for Gencon, and hopefully Worldcon too – they haven't quite confirmed that one, but there's some really fun stuff. While the whole period will be thrilling, it's also something which I'm tentative over. This is basically two weeks away from the family, and I didn't even like being away for just one week in Seattle. I doubt I'll do anything this long again, at least without somehow dragging Iris and C along.
In terms of other actual work was continuing to run the Heart actual play for Rowan Rook & Decard (And, yes mum, running a game can be work now, I'm not just hiding in my bedroom). The penultimate episode was on Tuesday night, which went really well – you always hope stuff really starts cooking towards the back end of a game, but the big beat at the end hit like an aortic leviathan. Er... an aortic leviathan is something we've made up. It's basically what happens when Smaug makes love to a train.
What's next on my plate? Cheese on toast, I think.
Speak soon.
Kieron Gillen
London
25.7.2024