Hullo

Same Old Story
One Foot In
Promises
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Bye

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This was announced yesterday – following on from their one off special, the Creepshow anthology extends to a full mini of SuperCreepshow special. Details are here.

I was chatting to Ben Abernathy at Skybound, and he asked if I had any interest in writing a short. I don’t do a lot of short work, because they always derail me much more than you’d imagine, which seems counter-intuitive. It’s only 10 pages, right? That’s a couple of days work. In reality, generating a specific idea you think is worth a damn is the thing – and when I’m doing that, I’m not concentrating generative energies elsewhere. Also, you do realise that effort is the same no matter whether the story is 10 pages or six issues. There’s more work down the line if the story is longer, obviously, but a core idea is a core idea.

However, “horror short with superhero flavour” was actually something I had some ideas lying around for. I sent them over. One fit the bill – and actually my favourite, a story idea that I’ve had for as long as I’ve been reading comics as an adult. Great, eh?

Except when I sat down and thought some more, I realised the story idea was bigger than 10 pages. And also just plain bigger – I realised it’s the sort of thing I could use to launch a whole book off. And I swiftly realise that I want to keep that door open, just in case.

So I ended apologising, withdrawing it, and then doing what I was trying to avoid, and work out a whole idea from scratch.

Creeping was it.

You may be able to see what we’re riffing on.

Art is by Rossi Gifford, who you may know from Wonder Woman: Black & Gold, who really was a joy to work with, and really good at everything the story asked for. It’s got a real seedy Archie vibe – that I was in the middle of my Criminal research probably rubbed off on this. Also Jamie and my old “Teens aren’t rated teen” maxim came to mind a lot.

Anyway – a short story we had a lot of fun on. Seriously, Rossi just does wonderful stuff. I walked away thinking “is there anything I can write for her to draw, because if I don’t work out something now, she’s going to be doing an Absolute book or something and I’ll never work with her again.”

Out March 18^th 2026.

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Talking about Ed and Sean, their Giant Size Criminal special came out on Wednesday.

With the TV series approaching, this is designed as an introduction to the whole world of Criminal, including a big Ricky Lawless story, a primer for the world and more. Criminal been some of the most consistently best comics across the last two decades, and if you’ve never tried it, this really is for you. And if you’ve tried it, you know you want it.

I’m also in it – Ed asked me to write a short RPG for it. It’s a six page game called CRIMINAL: FLUSHED. I wrote about it a little before, but it’s a single session narrative game where a group of criminals play cards and we flash back to the heist they’ve just got out from. It inevitably ends with murder and betrayl, and is fundamentally criminal. Oddly, with its sub-2-hour playtime, I realise it’s actually something folks could play with their family at Christmas. Crime-tropes are, after all, a different thing to fantasy tropes, right?

Anyway – Criminal is great, and I did a game.

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My December at Image round up column is over at Image. Go nose, there’s some great stuff in here.

I also absolutely forgot to send this out to everyone, so this will probably end up being in less comics than usual. Man!

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Script Club going out December 31^st will either be Once & Future #13 or Once & Future #18, as both are actually set on December 31^st. Probably #13, and then we can work forward. I believe #29-30 is also in that end-of-year period too.

This will be a fun one – I can’t share Work for Hire scripts (at least, I don’t think so, or at least without worrying about a lawyers’ letter) but this is looking at how I work in a different mode than DIE or the big ones.

Anyway – details on Script Club here (TL;DR: $5 a month, I sent you a script/other bit of writing, to support the list) and your support is welcome.

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• Here’s a really nice review of DIE: RPG over at the RPG Gazette. “DIE is the type of TTRPG that not only asks you what character you would like to be, but also who you are as a person, what your past is, and who you could be had things gone slightly differently.”

• PJ Holden has been doing his own weekly comic strip – TERRAN OMEGA - for a while now, and it’s worth going to look at. The black and white pages are free to read, with coloured versions available if you back the Patreon. I’m really happy to see PJ doing his own stuff – he’s got a great flexible attack to his art, and I’ve loved it since he drew the most horrible looking pig in a story we did together back in my small press days.

• Mechritter is presently in its last 24 hours. To sell it in you in a sentence: an RPG where you play teeny meeses and you have to assemble yo ur mech-suit from actual real-world stickers. Who could say no? Go nose.

• Tom Ewing is back to Discourse 2000, his project to review every strip in 2000AD, in a year by year basis, with an eye on the comic, the culture and everything else. Tom’s one of my favourite writers on music, so it’s a real treat to apply his skills to comics. Go read.

• Jay Dragon has some thoughts on “Procedures” and “Abilities” in Role-playing games, which is typically clear eyed.

• Another good Mindless One newsletter.

• Last time I mentioned how good it was seeing Morrison seeming in love with comics, but a good sign of that is how they’re so energised that they’re actually doing annotations for Deadpool/Batman. That’s usually a sign of something. In my case, when I did them for everything circa 2011-2014, Hypergraphia and an inability to fucking let go. Anyway – I’m sure Grant is in a healthier place. Go nose.

• Metropolitan Review does a big profile piece on Alan Moore. I haven’t finished this yet, but what I’ve read has been really strong.

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It’s December. It’s time. I find feelings of longing growing inside me, and I can’t resist. It’s time to listen to One Touch by the Sugababes, on repeat. It’s an album I loved at the time, and have never really let it go. It’s the delicate toughness of it, and the naivety of it all, and a production which does feel that specific kind of warm coldness – Christmas, innit?

Well into planning my 2026 and even deep into 2027. There’s a lot of interesting things to consider, and I’m really considering what I want to say “yes” to. I’m particularly aware if I say “yes” to too many of them, that’s going to be it.

In terms of scripting, I’ve mainly been at work on DIE: LOADED 8, and the better plotting up to 12. I’ve ended up with a map I can trust, while still having a lot of give in it. The first six issues were fairly clear and driven – here, I’m aware I’m at a bit of the map with a lot of subquests in, and while they’re tempting, I know if they distract me from the main adventure, that’ll be rushed. It seems that December is the time for mixed-metaphors.

I’ve also been starting the reading on the new thing that got green lit next week, which is fun. It’s a lot of reading, but it’s not like it’s Uber or DIE. It should leave space for things which aren’t specifically relate to it too, which is a bonus, as if we continue The Power Fantasy, there’s some more reading there.

My brain is fizzy right now. I said at the opening that generating ideas is distraction and intense. That’s true and not true. If you need a specific idea, it’s intense – you’re gnawing at a problem. But then there’s the other source of ideas – stuff which just appears. That happens all the time, and the stuff I’ve been getting in the last few months is genuinely frustrating, as they all seem really tempting. There was one I’ve had, which felt like impossible to do in comics, and then the solution hit me and unfortunately now I’m thinking “who is a great action storyteller who can work inside strict grids and is interested in ridiculously constrained storytelling choices?” which basically leads to “Is David Aja busy?”

But that’s one – there’s a lot more which are neat, and then there’s also outside of comics. I also know having this number of compelling ideas (as in, idea you find compelling - god knows what you will make of any of them) is a symptom of your brain rebelling on what you’re actually doing – so I have to be careful about that too. What’s really going on, Kieron, mate?

All I know that all signs point to 2026 not being the year that I finally Stop My Bullshit.

Speak soon.

Kieron Gillen
Bath
5.12.2025