Hullo

DI5
Cowboy one-shot
Links
Bye

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DIE: Loaded #5 is out this week.

I think this is my favourite of the first six. There’s less of the big cultural-essay approach in DIE: Loaded than the first book, but this is the one which goes (relatively) hardest there – but then goes hard in a whole bunch of other places. It’s also got one of Stephanie’s best spreads in the whole book. Go grab – I think you’ll find it interesting.

I forgot to do the preview pages last week, so we can have ‘em here.

Coo.

If you want to know more about DIE: Loaded, it’s over here.

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I also released a new zine!

(I must remain) THE GLAD COWBOY started as what is basically a shitpost, and became something else, while very clearly still being a shitpost.

It’s a storygame where one player is a Glad Cowboys and another player is the Repressed Horror At the Thing They Did.

It has a sparks tables like “Beautiful Songs To Sing”, “Beautiful Pretty Flowers” and “Beautiful Things That Don’t Reminds You Of Blood”. There’s rules for playing with a posse of Glad Cowboys too.

It’s a pretty pure burst of my aesthetic, and folks (perhaps surprisingly, actually) seem to like it.

It’s pay what you want with a $4 suggested price, but just grab it if you want it. I mainly charge for these things because it’s worth signalling that indie zines are actually worth money.

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• Interview with Gareth Hanrahan about the forthcoming DIE RPG: The Metadungeon. Sign up for update upon launch here! I think this is a banger.

• Chrissy writes about her time running the Poetry Library’s zine digitization project with care, permission in diligence, and a compare and contrast with how the AI scraping has been done. Also a chance for you to discover Poetry Digest, and realise I’m not the only person with a pun problem in this household.

• I only just listened to the latest 500 Songs on The Who’s Pinball Wizard. Part 1, so still no-one near Pinball Wizard, going up until the release of I Can See For Miles. Oh – for those who don’t do podcasts, it’s worth stressing Hickey also releases the full script of these audio-essays, and if you don’t ear-read then you can eye-read instead. This was a strong one – if I had more time today, I’d write about how The Who are a band who I’ve always wanted to love more than I did (and I like them a lot) and how Townsend as a deeply frustrated figure at war with his art sticks with me a lot, and it’s even more so after listening to this.

• Italian Piece on the Power Fantasy, which is reminding me I need to start practising Italian again.

• Null’s You (Probably) Haven’t Heard of short overviews of RPGs hits up DIE RPG. You likely know about this if you’re reading this, but if you’re not...

• Sktchd’s top 10 from last week writes very nice things about Issue 16.

• Grant Howitt writes about the process of making Eat the Reich, which is a lot of fun, and also really honest, which is one of the things I love about Grant. Great stuff on things that get under one’s skin.

• I’ve linked to Joe Quesada’s nuts and bolts storytelling pieces before, but the latest is another really strong one – about the tools creators have to try and control, massage and play with reading speed. The comics-as-music with a rhythm to a page is something I think of a lot, if not always reliably execute.

• How far back in time can you understand English?

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I’m going to not write essays here, as I have yet more on my plate. I need to jump straight onto the lettering notes on DIE 7, which I half got done yesterday. Leaving lettering notes half undone is unusual.

Really, this week is warped by having a large and intellectually tiring job of indeterminate size. A 20-page script varies, but it is at least I know how close it is to being done, in terms of basic work. This is a plotting challenge, for characters I’ve never written before, in a genre I’ve barely written, and it’s as complicated as anything I’ve ever written. It also has to basically be perfect at synopsis stage – or at least in that neighbourhood.

The good thing is that whatever is coming, is arriving at velocity. I’ve done a lot of research and reading for this, so I know a lot – perhaps more than I’ll never need. But it’s certainly coming out on the page. I dunno if it’s any good, but it certainly exists.

I also was in London for the Image event at Waterstones, on stage with Chrissy, Jacob Phillips, and Sean Phillips, which was a lot of fun, if a very striking artist/writer dichotomy in terms of a phlegmatic vs spouting nonsense. Which is kind of what this is for. I would have stayed for drinks, but all the late trains were bus replacement services, and hell, no, no, no.

So yeah – busy, in a fun way. I haven’t even decided what the next Script Club will be. I’ve changed my mind about THE POWER FANTASY #1 – I’ll save that for May, after the trade is out in bookshops too. So this time will be (er) something. Something good (probably).

You can sign up here, if you want it.

Right – now to get back to the lettering and then some notes on roughs, which are absolutely kinetic joys. I’m aware what I’m working on right now won’t be out until 2027, but the artists are doing the work of whole pantheons.

Speak soon.

Kieron Gillen
Bath
11.3.2026