303: the fundamental healing power of zines
Hullo.
One Way Or Another
Atomic!
Heart of Glass
Bye
Prompted by an event in the outro, I was reminded of something I haven't actually said explicitly yet.
The DIE Hardcover is back in print!
I've talked previously about why reprinting Hardcovers doesn't often happen, primarily due to cash flow... but chatting to Image, we realised DIE was worth doing, for various reasons. Mainly, it's a single stand alone volume, so we're not in a position where we're trying to keep multiple books in print. It's a single volume you can just have. There’s other reasons, but I think that alone may justify it.
So – DIE's Hardcover a beautiful volume which showcases Stephanie's art on a larger scale, and is just one of my favourite things I've ever worked on. An ideal gift for a RPG and/or comic loving friend this Chrimble. Pair it with We Called Them Giants for a lovely Stephanie Hans Hardcover Seasonal adventure.
Available from comic shops, book shops and probably other shops.
I think I normally hide “this newsletter is about plugging my stuff” better than this, I think?
It was FOC for The Power Fantasy on Monday, so we released a teaser. Coo.
Orders were strong, but do speak to your retailer. Shops should actually have copies of 1 and 2 now, so if you've had no luck in getting them, you should be able to go in and grab a copy.
Sktchd also ran a big interview with me about how things are going – mainly The Power Fantasy, but touching on everything, as an interview with Harper tends to. It's not behind the paywall, so you can go and read the whole thing. Here's an example quote...
I want to say Peter Cannon was the last go at me writing The Wicked + The Divine. It is a formalist book and it is especially about me and my formalism. And WicDiv was me and Jamie (McKelvie) really showing what we could do. We were intense and the scripts were dense technical beasts.
With Power Fantasy I’m explicitly not. I’m not even seeing roughs. Caspar just shows me finished pages, and then he’s quick enough to redraw if there’s a major problem. But I’m very into him taking lead instruments in this form. I give ideas in the script. I give shape. I give structures. There’s stuff he does in issue three which I pick up on issue four. And say, “Hey, how about having this visual motif running through the issue separate to the actual story?” and leaving it to him to interpret. That kind of stuff.
Fundamentally, I’ve done WicDiv. I don’t need to do WicDiv again. In fact, WicDiv again would be bad for me. Instead, I can actually spend my time on everything else. And the thing about Power Fantasy is there so much of everything else. We drop a timeline in issue three. God bless John Hickman. (David laughs) Hickman’s quote was “care that borders on being obsessive,” and he could see that in issue one that, “Kieron doesn’t say things like this without knowing what it is.” Few people’s compliments are like John’s. John sees what we’re up to, so he sees what I’m up to as a creator.
But me spending so much time there instead of the wanky stuff I normally do is interesting. WicDiv, though, is kind of like Young Avengers, but really WicDiv was, “I want to make Jamie a star.” And what that really means is, I want to create a place for him to do what he does and make everyone realize, “Fucking hell, look at this guy.”
Caspar’s really good. I don’t think he’s had enough eyes on him as he should have, so giving him as much space to go as wild as possible and push his interests. So much is just not doing the same thing again though as well. So that’s how I keep myself interested. Also, he’s inspiring. I see something (Caspar does) and think “Okay, why not this?” Because that’s the other side. You talk about the structure. I have firm ideas of what’s going to happen here, but I’m discovering a lot of the story by writing.
I smile a bit. There's something in here which actually breaks some big news, but is right at the end of a long interview, so hasn't crossed over to Socials yet.
Anyway, go read and consider subscribing to Sktchd/Off Panel. I think good comics journalism is worth supporting.
The Heart actual play I GMed is coming, and RRD have released some more details.
Here's some art of the four characters by Sar Cousins...
Edits are still being done, but RRD also cut a quick trailer.
I believe there may be something planned for Dragonmeet too (November 30th).
Logan at Graphic Policy have an early review of We Called Them Giants: “We Called Them Giants is an expansive, yet intimate story about finding friends and families at the end of the world with career best art from Stephanie Hans”
Rings of Power, as well as messing up ego-searching for “the Power Fantasy”, has led to a load of Tolkien chat. And it's not just about Tom Bombadil fucking a bear being the origin for Beorn – a lot has floated around specifically how his stuff worked*. Here's an older piece about why, despite the fact he didn't throw the ring into Mount Doom why Frodo Didn't Fail.
McKelvie's One For Sorrow has just gone past FOC, but here's an Ashcan of the first 16 (Count 'em!) pages which you can download and read.
Talking supernatural 19th century gothic-detectives... if one was to make a One For Sorrow game, I suspect you'd want to run it in The Between, which is presently kickstarting. I've yet to get this to table, but it's mechanically really interesting.
On a design front, The Case Against System on Indiepod was great listening. I didn't know Huffa's work before, but this convinced me to go nose hard. The early Between The Skies is still available on her Itch and Exalted Funeral have the huge hardcover.
Another link to Dan Watters' newsletter, but his observation around continuity struck me as really interestingly resonant. “Myth aside, I actually have another way I think about continuity in slightly more solid continuities such as the mainline DC universe. Those old stories? I treat them as memories. Memories are not crystallized recordings by the brain, but constructs our minds put together when we recall an event or a time. The brain uses a variety of stimuli to puzzle-piece them together meaning, more often than not, they aren't all that accurate. Eyewitness reports of traumatic events often don't end up being that useful to police putting together reports. Everyone remembers it differently. There are even theories that the more we remember something specific, the more that memory becomes warped.”
This news piece about security strongarming men trying to get into a gig and making them say their favourite songs by the Last Dinner Party did make me smile, as if it were a Phonogram story loose in the wild, where Silent Girl got to run security at a gig.
Jack Bern writes a long piece on Peep Show, how it worked and why it's never been copied. It's a strong piece and drills down into the existential horror in its comedy.
I wasn't going to do a newsletter this week, and then a magical event occurred. The start of October is accruals, which mean that you get all your accounting from Image and the cheques fly your way (Or in the case of Ludocrats, you just stare in amazement at how it's actually managed to lose even more money just by existing.) I noticed that DIE, instead of making money, was in the red. I realised it was in the red as we had just re-printed it at the end of the 6 month period, so had to pay the print cost, but without having gained any money from selling 'em.
So: I should tell folk it exists. I'm a pro, me.
It was also my birthday on Monday, where I took a day off work to do a rewrite of my Indie RPG How Do Aliens Do “it?” and pull together my list of 50 singles of 1977-1999. I took some time off work to work on something else, which is almost self-paradoic. Both went well – especially How Do Aliens Do “It?” which now seems to be in a state I could release. I did a final playtest/recording on Tuesday, which was just a lovely time with lovely people, and now have Katie proofing it, and I'll be moving into designing it myself into a little A5 zine format. I realised that with Dragonmeet a couple of months away, I actually may have time to do a physical version. Fingers crossed. It would be the first time I've done a zine all on my lonesome since my earliest comics – the HIT anthology of my first work, the selling of which at Bristol Comic Con was how I met McKelvie. I'm a firm believer in the fundamental healing power of zines, so it excites me. Finding time to do things for the art is important.
Birthday was just nice. Iris is just old enough to be properly excited for birthdays, so having her go DADDY'S BIRTHDAY for days around it was a lot of fun. She basically views all birthdays as a device to deliver balloons, and who can blame her. I'm also in a broadly good mood about the age of it. I look back at being 48 almost suspiciously. I basically have a history of imploding 2 years before the a birthday. Phonogram: Rue Britannia as about being 28 and seeing 30 coming. WicDiv was about being 38 and seeing 40 (and death) coming. But this time... I'm okay. Is it because I've got more balancing influences in my life? Is it because 8 years in Therapy actually did some stuff? I dunno. I also may be jinxing it, as I proceed to autodestruct in the next year. We'll see.
I hope not – I actually had an unusual insight a week or so back, which I'll save for the next birthday, if it's something I still feel is true. Occasionally something orientates you in the strangest ways, and this was one of them. Most the people I've mentioned to think it sounds grim, and it's not that at all. It's really... clean. I like that.
Anyway – that's sufficiently enigmatic.
In other notes, I cooked my first bread from basic ingredients this week. This is my bread.
It's overcooked, sure, but it was absolutely edible. I find myself smiling – less worrying about being dead, more worrying about bread. It's a change, but probably for the best.
Speak soon.
Kieron Gillen
London
3.10.2024