344: paper-mâché, kitchen detritus and hope
Hullo
TPF12
Nearly Loaded
Blood
Signing
Uncut
Detectives
Next Club?
Links
Bye
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This is such a hefty week that I’m actually going to save some content until next time. Too much in a newsletter is going to lose you, right? The TL;DR: is DIE: Loaded and the DIE RPG Quickstart have their orders cut off on October 20th, so speak to your retailer, sharpish.
But first, The Power Fantasy is back with issue 12.
Here’s the teaser I’ll be sticking online later today.
Here’s the first three pages.
It’s the start of our third arc, The End of History, and as you see above, picks up seconds after the end of the last. We rapidly explain some big questions folks have been having, before setting up a whole bunch more questions and yet more trouble. Dominos, falling. Here’s an early glowing review from Comicon.
If this is your first time reading about the Power Fantasy, here’s the introduction. There’s two trades out now, so it’s easy to jump aboard.
It’s New York Comic Con this week, and Caspar will be there – and I believe he’ll be on one of the Image panels too. Come and say hello. I’m in the UK, writing newsletters.
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As said above, we’re approaching order cut off for DIE: Loaded. I’m going to devote the next newsletter to that in detail, breaking down a whole bunch of stuff – there’s the incentive covers which will have been revealed by then, including our sketch variant (which is pretty fun, we think.) Hopefully I’ll also have had a chance to sort out more marketing stuff about this for you all to nose at.
If you want to know more about the timing, read my outro, where I’ll fill in what’s been going on.
Anyway: Get your orders to your retailer by October 20th, and ideally before. Just yabber at them politely about your enthusiasm of our fine comic product.
Products. As, also on the same day…
The DIE RPG Quickstart – a comic format version of the Quickstart. 56 pages to get you playing DIE, with its own stand alone adventure. The RPG is multiple award winning now (which is amazing) so if you’ve been curious, this is a perfect time to try it out in a relatively inexpensive format.
There’s going to be some new Beta material in the back of the DIE issues too, from issue 2. Issue 1 is 28 pages of comics, so fills the space entirely. Comics!
More next week, as said, repeatedly.
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Youngblood is coming back in November, and Image are doing a celebration across the line, with a bunch of books doing crossover covers. It’s nice to have a chance for some Image solidarity, and we had a giggle with it.
Here’s the Power Fantasy’s cover.
We don’t normally do comics homage covers – it’s kind of anti my-aesthetic, generally – but this idea was suggested and seemed so much fun that it seemed worth being an exception. Two post-X-men Image books, head to head, in a homage. Caspar on art and the logo, Drew Gill on the design and Clayton on the lettering.
Here’s the DIE: Loaded one.
Stephanie did a homage to Youngblood #3, with a DIE fantasy treatment.
Go look at the rest, by the way – there’s so many really good ones. To just choose one, I’ve been thinking of the Assorted Crisis Events since seeing it.
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I’m doing a signing at Excelsior in Bristol this Saturday (11th October) at 1pm. Come say Hi!
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The Power Cut is back for a second issue, circling all things The Power Fantasy.
It’s a community zine, with over eighty pages of essays, criticism, art and shitposting. Come for the specific discussions of who is topping who in their shipping forecast, stay for their meticulous examination of Catholic Dogma and specific discussions of who’s bottoming who in their shipping forecast.
Honestly, it’s everything to see people this engaged with the book. It’s everything a creator can hope for.
Here’s some direct links to download the PDF.
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As I’m writing this, the Ex Tenebris kickstarter has 30 hours to go. I did an interview with Black Armada games about it over at Old Men Running the World, digging into where it came from, how it does what it does and where they’re going to next. It’s… oh, let me just quote part of the introduction.
Yes, It’s very clearly influenced by the Inquisition in Warhammer 40k, as turned into an RPG in Dark Heresy… but look again. You can forget the modern, bespoke mechanics (but why would you?) but the specifics of the setting seems to make the point all too clear – specifically, it a game set after a grimdark empire has fallen, about a civilization trying to form itself in the aftermath of this star-addled fascistic fuck-up. That’s intriguing for me – it admits the interest and the formative influence, but also – in mechanics, text and subtext – speaks of the need to move past it.
I’m also in the mood for games which assume fascism can fall, and we will then work out what to build in the ruins. That sounds like a useful theme to me.
You can read the rest here and back the game here. Oh – worth saying I’m doing a scenario for it.
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Script plug went live when I was away, and seems to have worked. I have got the money, and no-one has complained. Phew.
I’m working out what’s going to the the October Script club – I suspect a DIE script is a good idea, likely DIE #1, but I’ll confirm that nearer the time. There’s also some fine detail with the back end I have to decide how it works, but I’ll confirm that too.
TL;DR: Script club sends you a script (or some similar bit of writing) once a month. $5 to help pay for the Newsletter costs and the time I spend on it (and hopefully a chance to do more with it, down the line.) I’m very much feeling this out.
Thanks hugely for this – I had no idea how many people would sign up for this, but the numbers were definitely more than what I was thinking of.
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The Shortbox Comic Fair is back. I haven’t had a chance to go through in depth, but there’s clearly a bunch of great stuff here. Go shop.
This Tegan Comics Journal piece on Nemesis the Warlock has been in a tab on my browser since it was published back in 2023. I saved it, as I thought it’d be good. I have now read it. It is good. Nemesis the Warlock is one of those brit-cult-comic rosetta stones that leads to a bunch of places.
Becky Black Armada writes about what you can learn from Scripted Reality TV shows if you’re playing an RPG. These will broadly make any but the most tactical game better.
Comedian Guy Kelly writes a TWINE-based piece of interactive fiction, I Will Strangle A Horse. In it you try to… oh, come on, you lot. You know.
Wyrd science is my favourite TTRPG and tabletop magazine of the moment – it just has great vibes, ideas and art. Issue 7 is out, and you can order your copy here, and you really should – it’s the sort of thing which will die without support. Jim also posted an interview with editor, John Power, on Old Men Running the World.
DIE: Loaded pops up in Fangoria’s best horror comics of Fall 2025. While DIE is a lot of things, it certainly includes horror.
Comics Philosophy has quietly been doing some fun stuff – it’s looking at comics characters through the filter of actual philosophy and arguing the moral systems characters seem to follow. He’s most recently been writing about my Marvel Event, AXE: Judgment Day, which obviously lends itself to this kind of filter. Here’s the final piece in the series, where he tries to work out what actual system The Progenitor is using to pass or fail people.
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I spent the last week away at Center Parks, where I turned 50. This is me, turning 50, at Center Parks.
Our friends with a similarly-aged child to Iris were going, Chrissy suggested joining them and it sounded fun, and it was. Also, in a perverse way, turning 50 in the perhaps the least Kieron Gillen Brand place was fundamentally funny. I’d never been before. It was exactly what I expected – basically, lower-middle-class Butlins with a health kick and trees.
I’ve been calmer turning 50 than I have turning 40 and 30, where I spent the run up imploding. As if I have time to be consumed by existential dread right now. Iris needs rice crispies. It still churns things up in lots of interesting ways, which will probably leak out here, and likely in the work. I I’ve had the urge to re-read Tolkien’s Smith of Wooton Major.
It was a lovely birthday though. I was reduced to tears by the book C put together of messages from friends, as I always handle that kind of things badly (but appropriately).
My mum also gathered some photos into a book, and I want to share this one...
Yes, this is a 28mm scale Warhammer 40k Gargant my brother and I made out of paper-mâché, kitchen detritus and hope. Yes, creative overambition has been a constant.
I’ll give one other constant that amused me, in terms of me being very me. C asked if there was anything I’d like to do for my birthday. I joked that I’d like a couple of hours to write a blog post starting a list of my favourite 101 TTRPGs. Then I decided it wasn’t a joke. My special little treat is more writing, which says something about my wiring. Sitting there, hammering out an essay, using art as a filter to look at autobiography, is just what I love. I am lucky. I’ll write more about this little project next time, but consider this above link a teaser.
Center Parks also ends the travel that has disrupted the last month – I haven’t had a full work week at any point. That this is the month before an Image Book launch isn’t ideal, but this was decided before we changed DIE: Loaded schedule to push it back a couple of months to ensure Stephanie’s holidays. As in, DIE: Loaded was meant to be out by now, instead of looming.
The good thing is that I am ahead of everything script wise – I’ve broke ground on The Power Fantasy #15, which is the first thing anyone needs. Stephanie is just starting on issue 7, so she doesn’t need a script for a while – but I’ll be getting 8 done before she heads off on holiday too. So I can try and catch up this two-page to-do list, including all the DIE: Loaded hype that’s required… which is what I’m on next.
Speak to your retailer to get a copy, and come back next week, and I’ll tell you in detail why you should get a copy.
Speak soon.
Kieron Gillen
Bath
8.10.2025