Hullo

Double
AMA-1
Links
Bye

****

Next week is the last of the double-releases – The Power Fantasy 15 moves a week later, as the schedules divulge. But in seven days time, we have DIE: Loaded #2 and The Power Fantasy #14.

Let’s show the preview pages.

First, DIE: Loaded #2…

Secondly, The Power Fantasy #14.

Out next week, go get ‘em. I think they’re good ones.

****

A few weeks ago I did an AMA at the League of Comic Geeks. It was very long! It started on the Thursday and I was still answering questions the following week. Here’s a selection of answers, which I think are worths repeating here for you entertainment. Not least, as it’s probably time I answered something about Uber again. I cherry-picked a bunch, but realised it was about twice as many as I needed, so will run the rest next time. I’ve leaned into some of the writing advice stuff this time.

Do you have any advice on balancing 'killing your darlings' with keeping the core of your story intact? How do you know what's an indulgence and what's truly integral to your story?

I suspect you're asking the wrong person.

This is a much bigger piece, and you should ask me another time, but there's two warring things.

One is "What's the story?" and the second is "Why am I writing this story?"

If you strip enough of the latter to feed the former, the work fundamentally ends up blander - if only because it's created by someone who isn't invested in what they're doing. If the "why am I doing this?" is particularly limiting, you're going to end up forced into choices that are less populist (or even, strictly speaking, good). Phonogram stories could have been much more popular if I stripped away the need for it to be filtered autobio and every act of magic being literally something music did. In fact, it was - that's WicDiv. But it wouldn't have been phonogram, and the point of phonogram was to do phonogram,

But that involves really knowing what you're doing. Not just "I like this bit" but "I need this otherwise it's pointless."I just cut a whole load of Worldbuilding I wanted to do in TPF 16 before heading up to Tbubz - it's stuff I've had from the start, and I love it... but it will derail the narrative flow, which is what's important here. So it's gone, and likely folks will never know.

At the same time, I'm aware that I will be looking for chances to add it back in at lettering draft, or down the line, etc.

The "What's the story?" also involves you really knowing what your story IS. As in, what's the flow of ideas you're imparting to the reader right now. Where is their attention? How are they feeling? How can you increase that?

I used to do something - I don't any more - of having a post it note at the top of my monitor with the theme of the story written on it. So any time I looked up I was reminded of the core of this thing.

Balancing the two is both impossible, and also the job, and also one of the biggest parts of your style.

Do you have any advice for where to start when writing the [WFH-Ed]characters to capture their personalities?

In terms of writing the characters, it's a question of making them your own while also being recognisable to their fans. The more obscure or unpopular the character, the greater leeway you have for reinvention. Like, when I'm hired, it's either to work on a character which works (in which case, the job is DON'T BREAK IT) or a character that doesn't quite (in which case the job is, MAKE THIS WORK!).

For me, you read a lot and then get an angle, a way of thinking or looking at the characters that makes sense to you. Just think about it. What does it mean?

I always use Beta Ray Bill as an example. When I was asked to write him, I sat down and stared at the horse faced guy and thought - what's your deal? Well, he's an alien. That's a science fiction conceit. Primarily a materialist, even atheistic set up. He's got the powers of a god. A Fantasy conceit. A supernatural, theistic set up. Oh - and his people are now all dead.... when they were eaten by Galactus (who is, of course, originally conceived of as "the fantasy four fight god".)

And from that, I made Bill my own, while also clearly being grounded in what folks like about him. (Edit: To be specific, my disappointed atheist Bill going off to try to kill Galactus for killing his own people.)

You do your version of that. My answer is my answer. Your answer is your answer. That's why they hire people - to give YOUR take on these iconic characters.

It's like covering a song. Everyone knows how the song goes. How do you sing it?

If you can do Voice Acting for any Comic Book character then whom would it be and why?

Go listen to any podcast with me on. Come back. Wince.

I would not wish me voicing any comic character on anyone. I speak in a lightning fast nasal midlands mumble. If you want someone to voice someone, you'll be after - say - Al Ewing, who would be great for any gruff but loveable wizard in any fiction you could choose.

You have a limited bibliography when it comes down to DC Comics, but has there ever been a character or team you wished you could have written for them?

Yeah - it's an odd one, isn't it? It's primarily born that Marvel were interested in me first, and when I was finished with Marvel, I was burned out on writing Superhero comics, so wanted to go off and do my own thing. And whenever I got the hankering to do some again, it was easier to go back to Marvel - I know and like people there, and they also offered me interesting stuff at the relevant times.

But I speak to people at DC. I suspect it's more likely if I do something of size, It'll be more likely to be at DC rather than Marvel.

What to write? Well, Batman, because I like money.

More seriously... I do have a rule. I just don't name characters in a thing like this, as I'm a prominent enough writer there's a chance if I say "I always wanted to write Princess Pooble" the editor of Princess Pooble will think "I'd rather have Kieron write this book than the current writer" and move them off the book to try and get me.

It's not likely, but I'd rather not take the risk. Answering this seriously is a bit like hitting on someone who's going out with someone, if you see what I mean?

My question, you seem to have a real knack adding depth to your characters in a way few other writers can… to what do you attribute your EQ and human understanding? I know that begs a long answer, but maybe just an instance from your past that helped you really understand how people think?

Thank you. That's a humbling one. [Edit: And the following should be read with me looking sideways at the question. It would be been more in my nature to just reject it.]

I honestly don't know. I remember there's a Moore quote about writing being a career that can make you smarter - I paraphrase badly. What he means is that you are stuck in your own head and turning things over and over and over. I hope that leads to empathy. I look back at myself as a younger writer - mainly before I was in comics - and there's certainly things I've written which I feel lack a fundamental empathy.

My first comic work - Phonogram - was even explicitly about that. Kohl is a nearly-30-critic looking back at his mid-20s arsehole critic personality and slowly realising how shitty he was. It's not even that he was wrong - he was often right and shitty. Most people who write go through a period of that, and sometimes they come out and and sometimes they don't. I'm glad I did? Or at least, I hope I did.

(It had costs too - I used to get angry more. Now I primarily get sad. I think that comes with empathy too. I'm less able to reject human beings.)

And saying that, the first Phonogram is a good example of a book which I feel is overly harsh in a few areas - how it ends the Richey manic plot, for example. Kohl is justifiable and even right, but clearly hasn't learned what he thinks he's learned, and I hadn't either.

I've done a bit on the Trapped Inside Your Own Head stuff, but it's the other side - just listening to folks. You live and know more people from more walks of life. If you're interested in people, that'll widen your world too.

With the recent news from the usually silent Avatar Press with Garth's Crossed film and their filings in the Diamond debacle, have there been any rumblings, interest, or proddings in relation to finishing Über at all?

Not specifically, alas. I keep in contact, and there's provisional things have been talked about, but in reality, it's out of my control, and depends on Avatar being in a place to continue. I still think it will happen eventually, but whether I will be alive to see it is a good question.

It has been eight years since the last published issue of Über Invasion, with how life, the world, and I assume yourself have changed in that time, would these changes have impacted any planned ending that you did have in mind at the time, if it were to return for the final few issues?

Only in the details, if at all. The last four issues exist in a draft already. I'd tweak them, I'm sure, but the actual story is done.

It's far too late in the process to divert anyway. Uber started in a period, born of the idea of "I think people are forgetting what it was to be petrified by Nazis, and I would like to remind folks of that, as I think that may be useful" was part of what went into Uber. That desire is somewhat obsolete now, of course. I think we remember what it is to be petrified of Nazis now.

If you could eat one food your entire life, what would it be

Hmm. Whatever I pick, I suspect after eating it for years, I'd wish that I had answered "Cyanide."

More next week, lots more here, including a whole bunch of folks asking about Aphra.

****

• Comrade Meer returns to the Transformers beat, writing about the blank-eyed horror of Omega Supreme. I shamelessly enjoy seeing Alec get his nerd on with this stuff.

• I haven’t linked any Shelfdust in a while – the site that gravitates around critics writing about old issues. It was brought to mind as they’ve dropped a couple of striking things this issue – a repost of Tom Shapira writing about Judge Dredd’s Letter From a Democrat (presumably prompted by the recent use of Dredd as the face of ICE recently) is really strong and just as I started writing this, they posted Keith Pille’s piece on the Milligan/Cooke issue of X-Force, which was also good to see.

• Deb Chachra reposts and updates her 2014 essay about the École Polytechnique shootings, how it’s a harbinger of where we are now and the position of women in tech. “I don’t think being a woman in technology is worth dying for, but I learned early that some men think it’s worth killing for.”

• I keep at least one eye on academic game pubishing, and Dr Friedman’s essay brought Playing Outside the Mainstream to my attention. Available for pre-order. Expensive, but interesting – certainly worth thinking about, or talking to libraries about.

****

I’m writing this newsletter earlier in the day than usual, as I want to move onto actually properly clearing my inbox, and then seeing what time I have left. I want to write something else, perhaps for the newsletter. I suspect that won’t happen, which is why I thought this is the week for the AMA recap. But we’ll see.

Answer: hell, no!

This week has been wrapping DIE: Loaded #8 and getting it over to Stephanie. It’s got one line which has been making Katie every time she reads it, which I have to take as a win. I suspect after I clear this inbox, I’m going to concentrate on getting DIE: Loaded #9 done before Christmas, which will wrap me up for the year. I’ll start the next year with a couple of issues of a new work for hire thing, while doing the plotting for the second WFH thing. I don’t know quite yet what I’ll do in the Christmas break, if anything. It may be less likely than usual – we’re hosting Christmas this year, so it will be all kinds of glorious hectic.

Weekend was lovely – I went to a proto-Christmas in Oxford with friends, got over to London for our regular club night, nightbus to a friend’s house (not so lovely, but pretty high level comfort for an early morning nightbus), back to Oxford in the morning for more friend time and home. There’s a lot of socialising stuff in the mix here.

Stephanie is still on Holiday in Japan. Caspar is pushing onto The Power Fantasy #16, and turning in beautiful pages. He should have it wrapped before Christmas, which seems absolutely unbelievable. We’re still finalising our plans for what’s next with it, and suspect we won’t make a decision until literally the book goes to press in early January.

And now, e-mail, and other decisions I’ve been putting off.

Speak soon.

Kieron Gillen
Bath
10.12.2025