330: spoon content into your open mouth
Hullo
Shelved
Party
All Tomorrow’s Parties
May
Houses
Links
Bye
****
You’ve seen the hilariously elaborate The Power Fantasy primer, but I’ve been on the newer thing on Bindings, which is getting a Shelf working. A Shelf is basically a way to gather together a bunch of individual bindings together. Mine looks like this right now…
Which is basically an introduction to all my creator-owned work, with sub-games of various levels of elaborateness. I suspect certain creators who saw my The Power Fantasy one Erk!-ed a little, as it really is me doing Overkill. These are simpler, with a core introduction to the book, and the relevant links.
Basically, you can go to this shelf, look at my books (no matter what publisher they’re from), discover what they’re like and then get links to go and buy them. And it’s entirely flexible – I’ll likely be making some of these more elaborate (Phonogram and Ludocrats are the most minimalistic) and adding sections for some of my Work-For-Hire books too.
I think it’s neat tech. Go check it out. It certainly solved a problem that I’ve had for a while. It’s just better for someone working in comics than a webpage.
If you want to pass it around in a more memorable format, here’s a shortened one: http://bit.ly/kierongillen
****
In the Bindings above, you may have spotted something new. Namely, the cover of The Wicked + the Divine compendium which is coming out in comic shops at the end of the month. We’ve talked to our friends at GOSH and we’re having a launch party on Friday 30th May at 7pm. GOSH will have an exclusive bookplate too.
Come say Hi, and salute this 1500 page monster.
****
The solicits for July at Image are out, which include this beauty. You’ll note we’ve skipped June, as last week of May and a five week deadline basically ends up like that.
What’s the solicit?
The Power Fantasy #10
Arriving: July 9, 2025
Lunar Code: 0525IM418Find out what happened when the Pyramid went to hell (complimentary) and how it makes the present day go to hell (derogatory). Come celebrate THE POWER FANTASY’s triumphant, celebratory tenth issue (issue 10 is issue 100 in old money).
I think this is my favourite cover of Caspar’s so far.
****
It’s not in the issue until the end of the month, but I wanted to get this out early. There’s not much point of capsule overviews of Image’s new books at the end of the month, right? Keep your eyes out for these...
MAY AT IMAGE
Get ready. Exquisite Corpses is James Tynion IV, Michael Walsh and a dangerous, elite crew making a hostile takeover of your imagination. Every five years, the sinister ruling families behind America drop champions into a small town to fight it out and decide who’ll rule America. This is big concept on every level. “Battle Royale meets The Purge” is as basic as it gets. It is not basic. It is excessive and I applaud. You need to get into this now, so you get bragging rights when it takes over the world.
Taking over the world is just the beginning. What to do when you have it? What are you willing to do to keep it? Aubrey Sitterson and Jed Dougherty’s Free Planet is about that, through a sci-fi filter. With a Chaykin-esque devotion to storytelling density, this recalls aspects of Dune, Warhammer 40,000 and Firefly, and drills down to its theme. Honestly, books about freedom and what you’re willing to do to keep it feel both timely and right at home at Image. Freedom is what Image is for.
Creative freedom connects interestingly to Dark Honor, which started with K.S. Bruce and Brian DeCubellis wrapping their second film together, Trust, just as Covid hit. They wanted their third to circle a heightened-reality gang war set in those bleak days in New York. Films weren’t ready. Comics are. Adapted by Ethan Sacks (A Haunted Girl) and drawn by Fico Ossio, this is a post-John Wick crime story with the backdrop of that recent shared horror.
With Sleep, I’m interested in how little Zander Cannon (Top 10, Kaijumax) chooses to share. It’s a classic setup – Jonathan Reason falls asleep and wakes up to find awful events occurred in his absence. It’s a fascinatingly tense detective story where the detective already knows the murderer and has to work out how they can stop them killing again. Wonderful storytelling, a great eye for small-town characters and a limited palette with spot reds: this is pure comics.
Over at Skybound, Blood & Thunder gives big classic 2000 AD energy, making me think of all the bits of Judge Dredd, Rogue Trooper and Strontium Dog that had us all screaming in British playgrounds. Blood (the bounty-hunter lady with anger issues) and Thunder (her talkative but ethical gun) get into trouble and look just fantastic doing it. Kirkman’s concept developed with Benito Cereno and E.J. Su (Tech Jacket) gives high-kinetic high-caliber thrill power.
****
****
Caspar posting this did make me laugh.
“The Power fantasy creative process”|
It is very cute, but there’s also a syringe.
****
I’ve said this before, but I want to get RSS to be a bigger part of my life. I asked for recommendations, and A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry turned up, and their latest piece on why Archers didn’t actually volley fire is exactly my jam.
I didn’t know or ever work with Butch Guice, but he passed last week. Here’s Chip writing about him, and working with him.
Steve Shelfdust writes about Fantastic Four #48, the Coming of Galactus, and basically pitches it as a showcase of a slow reveal by a master. This is the good stuff.
Kelly Sue writing over at Uncanny Magazine. CW: Miscarriage.
Rowan Rook & Decard announcing they’re cancelling their attendance at Gencon. I wouldn’t have been going this year, even if it was a different world, but I certainly wouldn’t be going in this one.
Jon Peterson’s Playing At The World was the single biggest influence on DIE. It’s been out of print for a while, but has now been released as two separate (and still huge) volumes. Peterson writes a little about the editing process here, and how the manuscript worked. I don’t have these yet (I bought the first last year at Gencon, but that was the year my luggage was stolen) but I loved the first edition.
Graham Walmsley’s Cthulhu Dark is arguably one the most influential RPGs of the 2010s – it’s all over the Trophy games, for example. His latest is coming to kickstarter soon. Cosmic Dark is a game of weird sci-fi horror. Tarkovsky, Ballard, Vandermeer: the good stuff. I’m doing a scenario for it, as a stretch goal. My scenario is called Umbilical, and is basically Superman's origin meets Annihilation. I think it’ll be fun, by which I mean, horrific. Sign up for the announcement here.
Fabio Moon writes a little about his frustration of critics’ choices, and then turns the lens on himself: one can always be better and more attentive in your choices, no matter where you’re working. Don’t be your own worst critic. Be your own best critic.
****
With the double-bank-holiday period, all the weeks are getting squeezed, especially as I’m travelling on Both Fridays, I’m going to cut this short. There’s enough stuff for you to read up there, surely? Click a link. Go on. Pretend it’s the 00s and you don’t have to just sit there and let an algorithm to spoon content into your open mouth as you stare into the middle distance.
Wow! That is a cynical sentence. This is what happens if I write this bit of the newsletter in a darkened room rather than beneath the harsh gaze of my eternal enemy, The Sun.
Lots going on, but workwise it’s been writing a quick 10 pager for an anthology, as an editor asked me at the right time and I had an idea. I’m still trying to not take on any more work – I really want the space in my calendar – but I do talk to folks, and sometimes something slips through. I suspect I may end up doing a 5 issue work-for-hire thing that I’m talking to someone about, which seems about the exact amount of commitment I may be able to take on, assuming the various stars align and the entrails of the goat are favourable.
Now I come to think of it, there’s a lot of entrails in the 10 page short as well.
Speak soon.
Kieron Gillen
Bath
7.5.2025