321: the cake is now gone
Hullo
McK
Fury
The real power fantasy was the friends we met along the way
Childish
Links
***
It’s been busy for releases. Let’s have a catch-up, looking forward and around.
For a start, the solicits for May are out which is neat. My old comrade in arms Jamie McKelvie has provided the alt...
Which is pure, Jamie, right? I mean that both literally (he self-colored) but also that sort of big conceptual design play he excels at.
Meanwhile Caspar gets his goth on, as we give Isabella a cover.
Here's the solicit...
THE POWER FANTASY #9
Etienne knows Heavy is hiding a world-threatening son. What’s he going to do? Jacky Magus knows that Eliza Hellbound can stop his plan. Can he convince her to stay on his side? Isabella’s family are dead. Can she do anything about it? No. They’re dead. She’s just going to be sad.
Lunar Code: 0325IM349
Speak to your retailer if you want one. It's a book which seems to be rewarding to folks following in issues. It was nice to see some folks saying they were jumping aboard after the trade, and even starting pull lists to do so. Honestly, if you're talking about Power Fantasies, that's a comic creator one right there.
Oh - If you're intrigued, we have a big taste. Here’s the whole first issue of the Power Fantasy for you to read.
If you're excited after reading it, you can grab the collection from all fine places that sell comics, and The Power Fantasy primer gives a bunch of links to specific places if you like clicking.
***
While you're in your shop, you should know that Golden Rage is coming back. Golden Rage: Mother Knows Best goes back to the island and finds yet more drama. I've obviously read all this, and I think it's great – even stronger than the first, and really drilling down to the characters and the drama. While here's a Golden Rage primer for your entertainment,
I'll be doing an interview with Chrissy in the newsletter next week, so hang around for that if you want more, hit up your retailer to secure your copy. Its lunar code is 0225IM300. Oh – here's a youtube interview with Lauren and Chrissy about it. That'll tide you over.
There's been a bunch of recent writing about The Power Fantasy, so let's pull together some stuff you may like. Some stuff has fell through the gaps here accidentally, I'm sure. There's been a bunch.
For a start, let’s hit the big one. The Power Cut.
The Power Cut is a 100+ fanzine of art, essays and everything else. I haven't managed to look through it all properly, but it's really good to see people engage with the material. Even on a first skim, Tamsyn Elle's diagram from her essay Dialectical Immaterialism popped out as a “Oh my.”
I say a lot about how grateful for the readers I have, but this is very much one of the times I underline that a bunch.
You can get it from Dropbox here or Google Drive here.
CBR's big review on issue 1 actually struck me as a good one in terms of how it absolutely treats it as a new season and reintroduces the book – the sort of thing one could read to recap, right? It was also good to see TPF, now it's out in a trade, reaching writers outside of the core comics press. Movie patreon Cinema Sangha covering it in detail really well. Over in the Hugo/Worldcon scene, Neds of A Feather did a really nice piece too.
We've also done some podcasts and video stuff – I think there's more, or maybe there's more to come out? Dom of X had me on to talk about The Power Fantasy, which was a lot of fun as was stopping in with Biff Bang Pow.
Really, there was a bunch and I have missed so many. Chatting is the best of things. Word of mouth requires mouths making words. There’s a subtext to that sentence, and it’s “I may need more sleep”.
Since I'm in a plug-y newsletter, DIE RPG Scenarios 3: Childish Things is still available for pre-order. I like this one a lot. The pay-what-you-want Quickstart is available too, if you fancy a taste.
If I'm ever in the mood to play something gnarly, as if the heavy-metal-Ts I've taken to wearing were a world, I turn to Mork Borg. It's the current Bundle of Holding. If you're unaware, you should go nose.
Clayton describes how he budgets for time as a letterer. In short: very carefully.
Jay Dragon chewing over the limitations of Lines & Veils as a safety tool in games, and forwards a Palette Grid which moves topics into four areas – Be Careful, Have Fun, Block and Boring. This feels like a useful way to structure conversation in groups, especially intimate ones. I especially like “boring”, which is one of the things which should make it clear that Safety Tools really are more conversational support tools. It's not that anyone is hugely upset by something. It's just something we have no interest in having in our game, and now we've all agreed to it, we can avoid it.
This article about the owner of Sam Smith's (er) idioyncracies has sat in a tab since it did the rounds a couple of months back, but comrade Gordon prodded me at the last london drinks and I've finally read it. TL;DR: cripes.
I watched this deep dive into Musk's claims of being one of the best Quake players, and was struck both by the weirdness that it's the gaming community which is really just actively doing the digging of basic journalism and the horror of having to watch a 40 minute thing to actually get an answer, when the actual facts could be written in a 400 word article. I am old.
Sometimes it's interesting to see deep fandom theory just appear in your life, such as this critical mode that views Transformers media through the filter of whether they're Budianskian or Furmanist. I know just enough about 1980s Transformers for that to not be entirely meaningless to me, and popcorned away.
I've woke up in a bad mood all week, and have been trying to work out why. With a little consideration, I've realised I actually woke up in an okay mood, then looked at the updates on my phone’s lock screen, and then it curdled. I don't think I've been great to be around, but at least I'm aware of it, so hopefully I’ve mitigated it a little. It's not good, this planet, and we appear to be stuck on it.
But it has had good stuff in, which I hold onto. The work is good. Various projects advance. I feel directed and complicated. I finished issue 9 of The Power Fantasy (ridiculously complicated, in the way which if it ends up feeling complicated to a reader will mean I've failed). Have nearly complete lettering for the first issue of the new Stephanie thing, and there's a bit where Clayton and Stephanie just bring it. Folks liked How Do Aliens Do “it?”. I've made progress on DIE: Project Pillow Fort, now having a structure which I think can actually work. Bath is beautiful, which helps. Friends were up at the weekend, which was lovely, and Iris and I baked another cake.
“That's the most amazing cake I've ever seen” said Iris. To be fair, she hasn't been exposed to many cakes, but I'll take it.
This is a hell world, but we're not alone in it, and we did a cake.
Though the cake is now gone.
Hmm.
Speak soon.
77Kieron Gillen
Bath
5.3.2025