313: no exit plan, no endgame
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My last comic of the year, the last issue in the first arc of the Power Fantasy where Caspar and I lead our pirate crew home to the winter docks. Here's what we said in the solicit...
They call aging punk Jacky Magus a sellout, just because he's betrayed his principles. Jacky Magus rolls his eyes. Oh, you sweet naive things. He hasn't even begun to sell out yet.
As the first arc of THE POWER FANTASY ends, we discover exactly what the world's worth.
...which is me dancing around a whole bunch of stuff, obviously. We still haven't said the inciting incident of the whole series in the solcits yet, I think.
Anyway – this is a cult book, in a literal sense, and a look at the man behind the mask, and the people he chooses to gather around him. I'm chewing over what else to say before going in? Valentina and Etienne are two poles of the book – morals versus ethics, specifically attempts at Kantianism versus attempts at Utilitarianism and all that. They're kind of constants. Magus isn't, which is kind of what his story is about. I see him as Johnny Rotten, looking out into the crowd as his band falls apart saying “Ever get the feeling like you've been cheated?”, but seen from several angles. I think that'll do.
But it's mostly about power, because it always is.
We've definitely reaching the state where we're enough into the book that I've started having insights on what the book actually is which has come from the act of creation, but I suspect I'll save that for the backmatter down the line. Or an interview. God knows I yap.
Our alts are by Alex Eckman-Lawn and the fifth florescent cover from Rian Hughes.
We ran a preview last week and is available from all good comic shops and digital comic shops now. If your shop doesn't stock it, they can order copies for you. I'll say that, as I'm aware my own local shop sells out of their shelf copies basically instantly, so it's likely true for others of you. To state the obvious: they don't know if folks want it unless folks tell them they wanted it.
Trade is out for January, and is looking great. Issue 6 arrives in February.
Also, as this is the last newsletter before Xmas, I'll note that We Called Them Giants is available and would make a perfect Christmas present.
Oh, while we're talking The Power Fantasy, it's been a good week for people saying we're good.
For a start Patton Oswalt and Jordan Blum were interviewed over at Polygon about their book on the best Marvel Comics ever. They were asked if there was any book coming out right now which they'd file with their classics, and Patton says...
...which is obviously really nice, and we probably should have asked Patton for a quote for the trade, right?
It's also end of year list time, and we turn up on Games Radar and Comics Beat's lists, both of which were lovely to be included. Oh – and I saw AIPT had a reader poll of what they're digging, and The Power Fantasy did really well. Joint Second best ongoing of the year, for example, and keeping some strong company – second best first issue of the year too. When comics sites are mainly about the big two, for any indie book to show up high in a reader poll is really wonderful.
The personal messages from readers have also been great – we're definitely doing a letter column for issue 6, so if you want to write anything after you read issue 5, you have time to do so. I'll be pulling it together before Friday.
This was aces. Butch Mapa took time out from his professional schedule to do a fanart piece for The Power Fantasy...
This is just lovely.
Ken & Robin Talk About Stuff is one of my favourite RPG podcasts, so I was delighted to get together at Gencon and be a guest. It's broadcast in the new episode. I was both jetlagged and nervous, so was worried I came across terribly, but I was relieved to hear I wasn't quite that bad. A little scattershot, perhaps, and I should have an actual answer for comparisons between game and comics, but fun.
Interesting Teaser from Image. No, it's nothing to do with me, but I've read the first issue and it's fire.
This, and other things, got me thinking about comics in the next year. I think Image are going to have a strong 2025. There's been a bunch of new publishers doing creator-originated work over the last few years, so the things which image does, and has always does has just became... there, and perhaps taken a little for granted. But what Image allows is kind of magical, and unique.
To put it simply: Image are the only major direct market publisher who just wants to sell you comics. It's got no movie rights. It's not looking for an angle. All it does is make comics and sell them. That's the goal, and that purity of purpose is rare and precious. Whether you're a retailer or a reader, you can trust them to be there when the venture capital runs out or they ascend into a transmedia powerhouse.
They have no exit plan, no endgame. In the long run, it's about the comics.
This does feel like an “It's the economy, stupid” position, though “It's the comics, stupid” does seem to include a certain truth. Either comics are worth it or not, sufficient or insufficient. Image believe it is, and I do too.
If you want some extra feed material here, here's Heidi on what she calls the Big Lie. Image, of course, profits when their books get turned into TV... but by selling more of the comics.
I haven't really said why I think it'll be a big Image year, explicitly, but I hope it's there. There seems to be a real hunger for story, for comics, and as things shake down, it's what Image do.
I've been following Ed Zitron's newsletter for the last year, and his increasing radicalisation seeing the collapse of tech into what he terms The Rot Economy. This newsletter just sums up a whole lot of his thinking, and it's hard to argue with. Tools purchased for one thing warping horrifically in your hands. I've been fascinated how my own Facebook feed is over 50% AITA posts, because I always stop. An app with one purpose has become a micro-mirror of my worst instincts, as if my gym just started feeding me cake, because you like cake, don't you, you just fucking love cake.
Simon Parkin writes over at the New York Times about the fall of mainstream videogames as an art form. I suspect this actually links to what Ed is writing above. “Game design is often no longer predominantly the task of crafting challenges that elicit joy, delight and surprise (or the noblest of creative goals, encouraging people to see the world from an unfamiliar perspective). It is primarily the job of building machines to keep players engrossed and spending, in many cases, by grinding out repetitive tasks rather than ones that encourage creative or exploratory play.” I occasionally feel off that I mostly abandoned videogames so soon after stopping being a working critic. While there's other reasons (the long form games I most enjoyed didn't fit my spare time any more) reading this reminds me that, actually, no, I saw the way it was heading and a good chunk of the form wasn't what I was interested in. That I went to analogue games, especially RPGs, is about me actually embracing what I find most interesting – and furthest away from game(singular)-as-lifestyle capitalism.
Age of Ravens describes his seven basic starter situations for one-offs or short campaigns. These are all golden.
Judith Butler interviewed, and basically a masterclass of efficient disection of bullshit. For example, when posed with the idea we should abandon trans people because the harm is to relatively few. “You could say that about the Jews, Black people or Haitians, or any very vulnerable minority. Once you decide that a single vulnerable minority can be sacrificed, you’re operating within a fascist logic, because that means there might be a second one you’re willing to sacrifice, and a third, a fourth, and then what happens?” I wish I was even five percent as good as this.
Oh – I mentioned cooking Cantucci last week (i.e. basically biscotti). I should have linked to the recipe. These are delicious and also really easy to do, especially considering the results we got. I'm absolutely baking more to bring to the family this Christmas. I replaced the Glace Cherries with Raisins, because that's all I had in the house, and they still slapped.
Becky Annison from Black Armada Games writes a thread of things players of story-forward RPGs can learn from scripted reality TV shows. These are all golden. I love seeing people do more player tips.
Grant and Matt from Rowan Rook & Decard talk to Fiona on the What Am I Rolling? Podcast about their experience of running Megagames – as in, RPGs with a LOT of players. A good chunk of the back half is about the 36 player DIE games we ran. I have thoughts for a new one I need to start noodling at properly.
Charlie Jane chewing over whether an Unreliable Narrator has to be an asshole, but really what is an unreliable narrator anyway. I mainly think if a narrator actually shows up and narrates the book, they're not actually unreliable. More seriously, I'm interested in the dramatic irony of a narrator we recognise is simply mistaken about the world they find themselves – it's the romantic lead who we know is in love, and can't recognise or understand it. The lies a person tells themselves are distinctly more interesting to me than the lies a person tells someone else.
Shardae R over at Rascal presents the research into the actual nuts and bolts of D&D's ingrained sexist history. That makes it sound dry, but it's fascinating in terms of how things have been mechanised in different points (and in doing so, reveals prejudice and stereotype, as mechanising are how games reveal their “truth”). Honestly, read for the pregnancy mechanics alone.
We're well into wrapping up the year period. The good thing is that everyone wraps up before I do (mainly as, due to brain, I never realise the holidays are as close as they are) so I have time to dismount. The main thing I've done is finally wrapping The Power Fantasy #7 last week. I've got notes from Katie, which I'll hopefully start on making later (I want to rip out two scenes and replace them with something significantly weirder) and then tweaks to get over to Caspar (who's wrapping #6 before Xmas, I believer).
While I'll likely start on #8 (the two issues are a duet structure, so I've got the majority of it already written in notes) it's really about wrapping things up – a few bits of game things, backmatter for TPF 6, clearing out inbox, house stuff – before heading off to family. That's a big theme for the week too. Iris had her first nativity on Monday. Normally they have 12 kids doing it. This year they had 26. This was the most chaotic thing I've ever observed in my life, and joyous.
Long-time readers know that I often try to do something unusual between Christmas and New Year, work wise, and send over a new project just after midnight into the New years. I believe last year I didn't do a new project – it's just family time now. It's probably true this year, but I have got an entirely separate small project I may want to write, to see what it looks like. Just a prose short. When “more prose” is on my list of things to do for 2025, it'll be a good warm up.
However, I already have the plan for the aftermidnight drop. It's a basic thing, but it makes me smile, as I sip G&T in the retirement pavlillion of my old career.
If you want some updates from me over the time, I'm on Blue Skies, and still messing around. I'm doing an (abstractly) daily-updated thread of my non comics influences which is a good place to start for semi-serious content. I'm still pretty busy on my Instagram Stories too. Or you can just get on with the end of year, and have a nice time.
In fact, do that. That sounds lovely.
See you in the New year.
Kieron Gillen
Bath
18.12.2024