297: I appear to like the word "chew"
Hullo.
Power Company
Glasgow
5000
Links
Bye
And today we launch The Power Fantasy.
One final little surprise as it hits the shelf. You'll see above that we've actually split the print-run of cover A, half being Rian's design, and the other half being a more classic Image comics layout with the larger corner symbol.
Take your pick.
A caveat there, as the comics industry has been the comics industry. I'm going to bold it.
If your retailer orders from Lunar, they'll have it. If your retailer orders from Diamond, it seems they'll have the rare variants but not the main cover – that'll turn up next week.
And it's uncertain whether anyone will get cover B (The Stephanie Hans variant) as we scrapped the entire print run of them due to a printing error.
Yes, frustrating. Comics!
Of course, it's already available in digital US, UK and Canada to provide three links. US folks can actually pre-order the whole series here, so it'll turn up whenever we release an issue.
However, I would secure your copy as swiftly as possible – in fact, perhaps Diamond being a week late to some shops is a help there, because we sold out of the print-run on advance re-orders by yesterday. So we had to go back to the printer for a second printing even before the first issue was on sale. Press release here.
That's our second printing cover, using the teaser images to make the themed dual set of covers. Speak to your retailer to order one.
In the chance this is your first newsletter, I should describe the book. The short is: imagine Watchmen if there was 6 Doctor Manhattans, desperately trying to save the world by simply not fighting with one another. It's a cold war drama, as if an Uber sequel was done in the style of the Wicked + the Divine.
Here's the Bluesky thread where I compile a bunch of key information on the book., which includes the teaser, interviews, press stuff, reviews and a bunch of stuff.
But we haven't actually shown a classic teaser, have we?
Here's the fist six pages of this 40-page issue for $3.99 issue.
There's also been a bunch of coverage of it. At the time of writing, there's been 7 reviews which gave scores and all 7 reviews gave 100% scores. Which is definitely approaching the area where my terminally British self wants to stop mentioning it, but I'm forcing myself, because we're still trying to reach as many people as possible. I think we've got something here, and that folk are responding to it like this is great.
To grab a few pieces – From Cover To Cover do a critical piece on it here, chewing over some of the big questions and El Sandifer chews it over here, noting (not incorrectly) how this is fulfilling promises I teased elsewhere. I appear to like the word "chew" in this paragraph.
We also did a big interview over at AIPT about it all. Caspar and I both get our oar in here. Here's a random quote...
AIPT: Would you describe this as leaning more toward a spoof/satire or celebration of superheroes? Can you have both at the same dang time?
KG: Oh, I’d definitely reject the dichotomy. In fact, this is a question quite a few of my works get asked – Die got it, The Wicked + The Divine got it, Phonogram got it. For example, The Wicked + The Divine got asked if it was a satire or a celebration of celebrity a fair bit, and the answer is that it’s neither. People get confused as there’s elements which are deeply critical of what an artist is, and there’s elements which are about how important an artist is. It’s a complicated portrait of a complicated thing, so is going to include it both. I just take it seriously.
The same is true of the Power Fantasy. It’s a story that takes the idea of powered people seriously. I’ve been twitchy over describing it as a superhero book for various reasons, but not least that there’s no superheroes in it. No-one does superhero-y things, and I don’t want folks to read it and be surprised. No-one goes and fights crime.
At the same time, there’s certain tropes of superhero comics, which we just take entirely seriously and build off. Etienne Lux is a telepath, and folks are going to recognise some elements of what I did with Xavier in him… but he’s not commentary on Xavier. It’s us taking an enormously powerful telepathy with political goals entirely seriously and building off that.
Hell, if you look at the book from certain angles, it’s even dealing with some classic superhero themes — Uncle Ben’s classic “With great power…,” etc.
But I’m just taking it really seriously. Let’s do a novel with superpowered beings, and write it with commitment, wit and all the intelligence we can muster. As such, like most novels, it’s going to have elements of all the interesting things about the subjects. We just want to serve a really rich, complicated dish to folks.
… and you can read the rest here.
We're also signing tonight at Forbidden Planet from 6pm.
I mentioned Worldcon last week, but I probably should put my schedule here again for ease of access. The full schedule is here which looks excellent. Here's what I'll be doing...
WORLDCON
Friday, August 9, 2024
10:00 BST - Not Just Superheroes: The Best of the Rest in Modern Comics
Gala,Duration: 60 mins
11:30 BST - Table Talk: Kieron Gillen
Hall 4 (Table Talks),Duration: 60 mins
14:30 BST - Autographing
Hall 4 (Autographs),Duration: 60 mins
17:30 BST - The Unique Storytelling Medium of Comics
Argyll 1,Duration: 60 mins
Saturday, August 10, 2024
16:00 BST - DIE RPG (Live game)
Gala,Duration: 60 mins
Sunday, August 11, 2024
10:00 BST - Comics Masterclass Mastercut
Meeting Academy M4,Duration: 60 mins
14:30 BST - Exploring the Fantastical through Comics and Graphic Novels
Alsh 2,Duration: 60 mins
You can look up the programme for the full descriptions of these in the guide The live DIE game should be hilarious – I've ran it twice before3 now, and sings. Looking forward in doing a redux version of my Comics Masterclass – the full thing is over two hours, so this will be a real pure burst of the best stuff.
Image asked us if we wanted to do some bookplates for We Called Them Giants stuff.
And I said sure.
Image suggested 5000.
I said sure.
I didn't realise that meant I had to sign them.
I never said I was smart, etc.
- I finished the Elusive Shift by Jon Peterson when travelling (an academic text looking at the first generation of RPG-players arguing about what the hell they were actually doing). I'll try to write about this next time, but found myself watching Wandering DMs interview with him on it, which is good stuff.
- X-Men horrorscopes had me on to do their thing – namely do an oracular reading based on the issues of X-men that were out the month I was born. This was lots of fun – also, some Power Fantasy chat too.
- Also out this week is the second Hardcover of Once & Future. This is a lovely essay at AIPT about what the book meant to them – which gets powerfully personal.
- Graphic Policy continue dancing through my backlist and cover Modded. This is probably the most under the radar thing in my career? Avatar were talking about doing trades of them all before they went quiet. After we get to Uber, maybe.
- The first full write up about playing the first DIE Scenarios book, specifically my Bizarre Love Triangles scenario.
- 10 years after launch, and we have a new set of WicDiv annotation. Uniquely, these are being done having read the whole thing, so are aware of the whole shape of the story. That should be interesting, to say the least. It's kind of what the story was built around.
- Via Jim, this heartwarming look at the early days of the Skaven which comes to important conclusions like the Skaven are amazing.
Arrived back home yesterday, and heading off tomorrow for Worlcon. As you can imagine, today is crunched, and it's not over yet. I'll likely get this half formatted for sending before a podcast, do the podcast and then head straight out for the Forbidden Planet signing.
I'll try and write about Gencon the next time, but the short of it is that it was lovely.
However for fans of last year's disappearing luggage drama, we have a sequel. You'll remember last year my luggage was lost on the way out AND the way back, and climaxed with me up a mountain in Italy in a small village and a guy driving through it shouting “GILLEN! GILLEN!” in hope of finding me.
This time, travel was mostly smooth. The exception was an aborted take-off in Indiana. Everyone was nervous, and then the pilot informed us a bird had wandered onto the plane when it had landed, and hid itself in the cockpit.
My luggage went to Indiana. My luggage returned to London.
My luggage got stolen off a rack on the train on the way home.
Luckily, I had all the important stuff on me. The only things which are real losses are the bouncy dice I bought for Iris and my Origins award for DIE RPG.
I suspect I'd be more stressed, if all the other stressful things weren't distracting me. I have a comic to launch, goddamit.
Speak soon
Kieron Gillen
London
7.8.2024