318: this hurtling train of meat and philosophy.
Hullo
Shopping Forecast
Child's play
Mouth Yabber
Word Yabber
TPF Yabber
Links
Bye
Firstly, welcome to newcomers. I've done one of periodic bringing over of new subscribers from the dormant substack to the active buttondown. It's a bit just-the-biz this time, but does cover most of what I presently do. Anyway, most importantly...
The Power Fantasy should reach all shops today. All shops. Expect to be able to get it in your local supermarket, or even a pet store. I have singlehandedly solved comics' distribution problem. All hail me.
It's available in two main editions, the one on the right only available from comic shops, the rest everywhere.
It's $9.99 so, as previously said, an absolute bargain.
If you want to know more, The Power Fantasy Primer will explain everything, including links of where to get more. As said last time, this is the link to forward to friends if you're trying to spread the word. In short: six people will end the world if they ever actually come into direct conflict. Can they just not?
I'm also writing this quickly as I need to get a bunch of stuff done and then jump on a train to London, where this is happening at GOSH.
Caspar and I will be at the shop from 7-9pm tonight. Come say Hi. We're friendly.
GOSH is actually also doing a bookplate edition of the book, which is this...
Which will be available on the night and can be ordered here.
There's been a bunch of great coverage about The Power Fantasy, but I'll compile that next time, I suspect. Thanks for folks writing about us.
Also, next arc actually starts next week, so you really can jump aboard this hurtling train of meat and philosophy.
The third volume of DIE Scenarios is now live for pre-orders, with the full release happening on April 1st. What's in Childish Things? Well...
In NO REZES, Kieron Gillen takes a group of adults back to the fantasy world they roleplayed in as teenagers and asks where their lives went off the rails. Where did they lose that sense of joy and possibility? When did they stop being the people they remember? And most importantly, why was their GM always so violently opposed to resurrection magic?
CHILDISH THINGS is Chloe Montgomery’s contribution. It’s our nicest, most cheerful DIE RPG scenario ever and features a suburban home turned dungeon, giant robots, and a bratty young Master mounted on a teddy bear kaiju. It’s also rich with parental secrets, sibling rivalry, and the genuine warmth of a family coming closer together.
Finally, Steffie de Vaan’s SINS OF THE PAST doubles down on DIE’s core concept of a roleplaying game gone wrong. Last time this group of teenaged players met up to LARP together, something terrible happened. This scenario’s about lost friends, inaccurate memory, and most of all consequences.
As always with RRD, you'll get a PDF if you order the hard copy as well. Some fun news for DIE next week too. The DIE Discord is running a DIE resources Jam at the mo, if you want to go and nose or join in.
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Actually, if you can't make the launch tonight, this is a good way to get a dose of Kieron and Caspar.
Us at the Superhero project, talking everything comics and The Power Fantasy for an hour and a half. Heavily spoilery, if I remember correctly, so a great one to jump on after reading the trade.
On the DIE beat, I published a remixed version of my designer notes for DIE RPG over at Old Men Running the World_. A version of these were originally in the Arcana, and obviously cut from the final manual because – in Grant's words - “you have a blog.” I start like this...
The early drafts of DIE RPG were mostly written in a mode which Grant described as Uncle Kieron leaning over to you in the pub and ranting enthusiastically. Some of that remains in the final book, as one can’t purge that level of avuncular horror that easily.
However, one thing I don’t talk about explicitly is what I was trying to actually do. And so this is basically me answering the question “Hey, Kieron, wtf you doing here, man?”
My primary aims were to:
Support the themes of the comic in a different medium.
Be as accessible as possible. These broke down in a few areas.
And continue, at length, because of course I do. I am the opposite of the Lynch meme saying the film is me talking. The film is me talking, but I am unable to stop talking. But if you're interested in some of the thinking behind the development of the game, go nose.
The next two (count 'em) podcasts in the Decompressed interview series has dropped.
Firstly, Clayton Cowles talks about lettering the Power Fantasy and lettering generally.
And brand new today, Rian Hughes talks about design in comics and how he pulled together The Power Fantasy.
Also, somewhat embarrassingly, I messed up the link to the Caspar interview last time. Here it is.
Next up – Katie. And then me, if I can find the time to ask and arrange someone to interview me. Or I could just talk to myself, as if I'm Colonel Kurtz in my bunker and I really need to explain my
Launching shortly is The Power Cut, a free power fantasy zine. I'll link to it properly next week, I'm sure. This is just great to see.
I haven't time to write about it properly, but I read the first issue of Mine is a Long, Lonesome Grave by Justin Jordan and Chris Shenan (published by Oni) and dug it. You can read about it here, and it's out today.
As the occasional publisher of Decompressed, you can guess I'm interested in folks' method. Tini talks about her use of Pintrest (and how she taught Gerard Way how to use it). Pintrest is a common one for artists, in my experience (Stephanie does) but it's never quite stuck with me. Closest we came with the WicDiv style tumblr. In terms of gleeful process stuff, I need to get Leah on Decompressed to talk about her syste, which is some magic stuff.
Screenrant writing about DIE. It's going to be a good year for DIE, I think. More on that next time, where we probably will have dropped a surprise.
Over at Old Men Running The World, Jim Writes about “Why Dungeons”? It's because that's where the treasure is.
Eek. It's nearly noon, and my train is in an hour and change. I need to start motoring.
In short: I finished the next power fantasy script, then finished the next script for Stephanie (just handed to her before writing this), learned a chunk of how to use Affinity to replace the Adobe suite in my life, did the first lay out of the zine I've meant to do since October and stuff and things and it's nearly 2 guys, and I need to go, sorry, bye, bye, bye.
Speak soon.
Kieron Gillen
Bath
12.1.2025