340: Big Dreamcast Energy
Hullo
TPF11
Join Our Club
Tease
Links
Bye
****
It’s on. The Power Fantasy #11 is out. A big issue. If you’re following it, you’ll likely want to read it as quickly as possible. The trade is out next month, so there’s not much time for those who are trade consuming. If you don’t know anything at all, here’s the introduction.
Our guest alt cover this time is Luigi Formisano, and is just a delight on this one too. Big Dreamcast energy.
If you’re not aware of Nights, go give it a look. There’s 18 issues out for you to catch up with, and it’s a great example of relative newcomers doing longer form work. They’ve got a patreon running to support it too.
We put the preview out last week, but as it started with the DIE: Loaded, it means extra scrolling to find it. As such, I’ll put it again here...
One minor bit of trivia which may amuse you – I was looking around for places to set this scene, and checked if there was a suitable stadium in Australia (as it’d be easiest for Etienne to get to). There was – and The Docklands Stadium was finishing construction in the real world circa our story, meaning it existed.
However, in reality, it’s been rebranded in recent years do to sponsorship by a major multinational media corporation.
It’s now called the Marvel Stadium.
****
I was talking about this on Blue Sky, and have decided I want to try this. You can skip to the end, or read on to see the working.
Basically, this newsletter costs a few dollars short of $1000 a year to keep running. This is the Not Being On Substack Tax. I’ve looked into various options (and Buttondown has certainly got more expensive to be on since I joined) but it’s all similar, or complicated. Even running on Wordpress likely needs a paid-plug in to ensure your mails aren’t just registered as spam, rendering the whole purpose pointless.
So I’d like to find a way to pay for it. What I want to do is a $5 per e-mail tier. You can sign up here...
No more than once a month, I’ll send a premium e-mail, containing something extra. It’ll almost certainly will be a script (hence the name) but I want to give enough wiggle in case I want to do something else – a short story seems a possibility. Equally, if we get a lot of subscribers at this tier, it may even reach a point where the amount is enough to pay an artist to do a short comic. I’ll say this: it won’t be anything TTRPG design related. I don’t want to cross the streams, and if you want that, it’ll be on my itch.
I’ll also say, in the previous normal newsletter, what’s coming up next, so you can always quit for a month if it’s of no interest.
That said, if you’re not interested in scripts at all, it’s also a lovely way to throw in to keep this place running. And obviously don’t worry if you can’t afford to – this is very much extra, and appreciated.
There is a possibility of a higher tier in future – general chat online was “$5 is a bit cheap for a script” but the advantage is that it’s not something that requires a lot of extra work. If I ever do a higher tier, it’ll be something like added commentary on the script or similar. I have been chewing over my How To Write Comics book a bit recently, though am aware the sort of How To Write Comics Book I want to write means I’ll never work in this town again. As in, in comics. I probably could work in Bath, though god knows who’ll hire me.
However, I am also aware the main appeal of this is that it only charges folks when I remember to do one. That’s a big plus. While I absolutely back patreons which don’t actually fulfil what they say they’re going to do, and don’t mind – I’m backing them to back their work! – I’m also aware my own mental nonsense won’t allow myself to do that. You only pay money when I do the thing.
Anyway – I want to give a little time to build up subs, and I think the first newsletter will go out on my birthday, September 30th. I’m not sure what it’ll be. Issue 1 of WicDiv seems a good idea, right?
TL;DR: There is now a paid-for tier on this newsletter to support its running. $5 an e-mail, no more than one e-mail a month. The e-mail will primarily send out pdfs of scripts. I will say what the script is in advance. Sign up below.
When writing this, I don’t know what logo I’m going to put at the top of this, but I guarantee it will be terrible, something meant to be a placeholder and will almost certainly become permanent as I am that guy.
Now I’ve done it, and I quite like it, as I am tasteless.
****
Oh, here’s the teaser for issue 11 of The Power Fantasy.
Jim Image keeps on reminding me to change the dimensions, as Instagram wants 1112 by 1472 or something, but I do keep on forgetting. Maybe next time.
****
* Here’s the full press release for DIE: Loaded, as announced last time. The news went down very well, which was just great to see.
* Jay Dragon explores the question “Does Super Mario Brother have rules?” as a lens to take apart the big ludic questions. There’s a lot of good chat around this.
* For example, Kayla Dice’s newsletter chewing over Teach Me How To Play Football, prompted by it.
* An increase in gender non-conforming women being targetted by transphobes in toilets, which is provoking a lot of “we told you so” and rightly so. Who could have fucking guessed?
****
When I sent the last one out as recently as Friday, there’s less than usual to talk about. But it’s been fun. We had friends up for the weekend, which led to wrestling with the big issues of the day.
It’s also a relatively broken week, meaning I’m cleaning up smaller bits and pieces. I’m re-reading all of Criminal, for reasons which is a joy. I haven’t read it all together ever, so seeing how the world is created piecemeal is just great comics.
In terms of scripting work, I got TPF13 over to Caspar, which basically reduced the whole team to a mess. The issue is heavy. Stephanie is working through issue 6(!) of DIE: Loaded – I’m aware that when I mail retailers about DIE: Loaded, it’s likely I’ll be able to show them the six issues we’ve got, which is not something I’ve ever done before. Has anyone done? Probably. But certainly not me. It also means that very close to the top of my To-do list is actually doing the tight plotting for issues 7-12. The first arc has a very episodic structure, which that a lot of its structure was just dictated from that. The second half is completely different, so working how we’re going to navigate through the material will be an interesting challenge.
So that’s next up, alongside writing TPF 14 – I’m away a fair bit in the next month, so I need to make sure Caspar is fed pages.
I am also wearing shorts, which is always an ill omen. At least for anyone who has to suffer seeing my legs.
Speak soon.
Kieron Gillen
Bath
13.8.2025