Hullo

A Jury Of Our Peers
Thor hundred times two
Once more we return (to issue 2)
Sensual Pirates
Links
Bye

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The Eisner award nominations are out, and The Power Fantasy are in it. Hurrah!

We’re delighted by this – very much a surprise, and thanks for the judges for including us. These is a great selection of books to stand beside.

It’s difficult to write this sort of thing without my personality taking over and either either deflecting or self-deprecating, but if any professional reading this, consider a vote for us. Caspar is at SDCC this year, and it would make him extremely happy to win and see how much his work is appreciated by his peers.

That said, I did just do a house-ad for The Power Fantasy where I described us as “Award Adjacent” and it’d be a shame to step on a solid joke.

See, I couldn’t reach the end of a bit without doing a bit. I’m terrible.

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Thor is hitting the big birthday of 800. I was asked if I wanted to contribute a story. I was about to write back and say “Sorry – I haven’t time to think up anything new, unless I have an idea instantly” and then I had the idea instantly.

It’s out August 19^th, and speak to your retailer if you want it.

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The end of the month is coming and Script club is coming around again. And I figured, what haven’t I done yet?

I know, an issue 2.

The next Script Club will be The Wicked + the Divine #2.

If you want it, sign up before the 31^st of May. Script Club is essentially our tip jar which keeps the newsletter ticking over – paying for the costs of the list, primarily. On months where I send a script (or similar size piece of work), you pay $5.

You can sign up here.

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Lin Codega has a novel coming out, and I gave them a quote, which they put on the socials here…

Though not spelling my name correctly, obv. I’m hardened to that. My name was misspelled in the biggest selling book of my career (Darth Vader #1).

I actually couldn’t stop giving quotes. My first one was too spicy, but is nearer the point: "The fantasy pirate story that all the other fantasy pirate stories want to fuck."

Then there was an even LONGER one.

“One Halloween I arrived at a party. The door opened, and a woman opened it and introduced herself chirpily: "Hello - I'm a slutty pirate." She became a much loved friend and inlaw, and one of my favourite people. The lesson is when someone walks into your life and introduces themselves as chirpily as a slutty pirate, understand that's an omen you should heed. Pasha the Storm is opening the door for you. She's a slutty pirate. Don't resist"

I figure if you write a novel, you’re opening yourself up to me writing a novel in response. That’s how this works.

Pre-order details here.

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• Narrative Damage had me on to talk about RPGs, and we circled the ideas that being a GM can make you a better player. This was a fun chat – it’s a spin off of their other, more general narrative podcast.

• I finished Adrian Tchaikovsky’s latest book in his Children of Time cycle, Children of Strife. It has my favourite animal in it, but uploaded. I am all for it. He’s posted a chapter he cut from the book on his site, if you want a taste – also interesting to compare an early draft seemingly pre-editor – to what is published. It reads well as its own short story too. If you have read the book, it’s interesting to read and see why one would cut it from the final piece. I like this, but I think it’s stronger without it.

• 30 years on from Mcalmont and Butler’s Yes. The Quietus looks at it as a specific kind of queer anthem. It’s a great record, and one I’ve certainly used at various times, but it’s in an interesting place where it’s not QUITE as good as I wish it was.

• This just went live. Humble Bundle is doing a MISFIT HEROES bundle of Image books, including a bunch of great stuff. Including the Ludocrats! Help us get slightly nearer the being not in debt on this most ludicrous of endeavours.

• The Gutter Review’s pieces are being republished over at Shelfdust. Chloe Maveal on how John Smith used codeswitching, specifically on Devlin Waugh is really strong and worth your time, especially for an amazing high camp lettering choice in an example panel.

• Noah “Legion” Hawley writes about his experience with Billionaires, and seeing how they live a consequence free existence is really good.

• Explorers Design does the sort of high concept review of the scenario Rise of the Blood of Olms that brings to mind Ste Curran’s review where he weighed the merits of a Banana and Peanut Butter sandwich and Eminem’s third album. Which is sadly lost to time.

• The UK Comics Creator Survey is up. Go read!

• Sera Gamble on using your hate of a piece of work as a writer, as a gateway to greater understanding. This is good. “Why did this bug the living hell out of me?” is something I come back to a lot. Gamble also picks up that your feelings are also a moving target. Use this stuff, but hold it lightly.

• A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry is working from a typically monomanical exploration of the exact properties of what Carthaginian Armies would have been like. If I ever actually do a Carthage-set book, I suspect this would all go in the mix.

• The YET AGAIN Eisner Nominated Eisner Award Winning Eisner Posessor, Clayton Cowles, lays down some craft stuff, breaking down the taxonomy of Caption types. I just call them thinky boxes.

****

This is a plague house. Iris brought a cough in, and we’ve all got it. It’s a fascinating disease, as it really is just a cough. There’s nothing else. I’m just fine, and occasionally a monstrous green slug emerges from my lungs. Hello, Lung friend, I say. Lung friend say nothing. It’s a lonely job being a writer .

I haven’t got much gas in the tank today, so I need to save it. I still have things to do, as it’s been an interesting week with work. I wrapped the second script on a new thing, and handed in, to be politely asked why I haven’t set up the payment for this new company. It’s because writing a complicated script with a dozen characters is easier than making me fill in a form or two. This is how we operate, or rather don’t.

I started another second issue earlier, got derailed for a meeting, and I would like to get back to a proposal I’ve been chewing over, as I got a few extra pieces for it. It’s circling around complexity, and my tendency to do too much. For a certain mode of character in a certain kind of story, you need to say them in a sentence. The crystal of the person the rest of their identity builds of. You can say the sentence, and it’s not going to confuse anyone who you mean. That’s what iconic means. Finding a sentence that is them and no-one else is the trick.

I don’t mean literally a sentence, by the way. Just something you can hold in your head in one breath. Though I’d probably be more successful as a writer if I did mean a sentence. Never forget, the character I’ve made in a WFH universe with the longest shadow is “Gender-and-ethic switched Indiana Jones.”

In reality, what I’m going to do is go and get food to cook and get some more of my taxes done.

Let’s cut this off. I was about to put a quote from Musorgsky writng to Rimsky-Korsakov in here, but I’ll save that for next time, and actually do it as an essay, rather than a failed essay. Though all essays are failed essays, right?

Speak soon.

Kieron Gillen
Bath
20.5.2026