377: Intensely Intense for the rest of the day
Hullo
In the Summertime
AskedUsEverything
Last Train
Ash’s Very Naughty Day
Links
Bye
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The Image Solicits for September are out, including DIE: Loaded 9.
DIE LOADED #9
Arriving: September 16, 2026
Lunar Code: 0726IM0412
Page Count: 32
Cover price: $3.99Get ready for high adventure, DIE style. By which we mean, beautifully, though oft, depressingly. But don’t worry — you can see how STEPHANIE does kraken and sirens, which is a fun time for everyone.
We’re joined by Will Kirkby, who you may know from many things, but likely Eat The Reich. He brings the undead boys to the yard…
Meanwhile, as I was sitting down to write this, my comps arrive for DIE: Loaded 7.
Which look lovely, though having an issue of DIE on lovely sunny grass has made me think of Manic Street Preachers’ Die In The Summertime, which has led me to sticking on the Holy Bible and so risk being Intensely Intense for the rest of the day.
Anyway – out next week, so more then.
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Caspar and I both did AMA in the Power Fantasy Reddit. They were both somewhat significant. I’ll pull some of the answers out across the next couple of months, I suspect – my thread has 300 posts, so it’s a lot to even put the most relevant stuff in a single mail.
However, Caspar did post a panel from one of the new issues, which I’ll share here…
And you can jump in and read them here.
Caspar is also a guest at San Diego Comic Con this year, so folks can see him there. I won’t be, alas, but he can have fun for both of us. He’s in training so he can rush the stage and just grab the Eisner and run when it goes to someone else.
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Over at Old Men, Jim and I have a chat about Liars-Dice-meets-the-Musician-Faustian-Myth-’em-up Last Train To Bremen where we say things like…
Really, this is fun. Hit a classic faustian myth in a couple of hours, and make it your own. That said, it’s also less purely archetypal in the specifics than you’d expect in the roles too. Take your Mule, for example. The Drummer being the treasurer of the band? Spreadsheets aren’t exactly what one connects with the drummer stereotype – unless we’re doing mathrock, I guess.
That said, the drummer did die first, which shows we were embracing the spirit of Spinal Tap.
...and you can read the rest here.
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I’d normally have sent Script club out on the 30th, but I decided to wait until this newsletter was sent out, to plug it again before doing so.
The next Script Club will be DIE #10.
I’ll be sending it out this evening (July 2nd) – I’ll be setting it to send after sending this out. 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.
Upgrade now****
On July 25th , I’m part of a British Fantasy Society panel from the day in Power in Science Fiction and Fantasy. Our panel is on Power Corrupts, but there’s other ones It’s online as , at 4pm and you can grab tickets for the whole thing here.
I just started listening to this at lunch, and this big Ed Brubaker interview/feature is really worth your attention. It’s drawn from six hours of interviews, down to a tight hour, framed by analysis and really ripe with colour. It’s really worth your time.
Clayton writes about what he does when taking over a book, and whether to even take on a job. It circles around something Chris Eliopoulos told him – specifically “Show them why they should have hired you in the first place” Worth reading and applying to yourself, in other fields.
Blades in the Dark is one of the seminal 2010s TTRPG, and this is a great look through the precursor-games which John Harper worked on leading up to it.
As it’s World Cup season, I was reminded of this old article I wrote for the Escapist back in the day, about how Sensible Soccer taught me to understand football.
Shelf Dust continue their Gutter Review reprints, highlighting exactly how 2000AD’s Strotinum Dog’s mutant-sories have teeth that the X-men can’t really match.
Cory Doctrow on how two things are true at once with AI-coding – the personal code versus production code.
The Atlantic on the Warrior Witches of Ukraines’ resistance. To quote the strapline: “An underground intelligence network uses subterfuge and honey traps to direct drone strikes deep inside Russian-occupied territory.” Lots of stuff here.
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The short version is: June was not a good work month.
Cutting the newsletter there would probably be the artful thing to do, but minimalism has never been my thing.
Basically, it’s been the constriction of a schedule meaning that it took me three weeks to get DIE 11 written. It may still not be. Katie may come back with “this needs to be completely rewritten”.
As I said last time, I returned from seeing C’s family in Italy, failing to realise the coming weekend afterwards was the trip to Poland for the Pyrkon convention. Essentially, that was a three day week. I return, to a country in a heatwave – so no-one’s working, but specifically Iris’ Nursery is closed for two of those days, so C and I both need to take time off to for childcare. Also, in what little time we have, it’s hard to type when the keyboard is on fire.
The only upside to this – and it’s not much of one – is that most my artists are fighting through the same conditions, so they’re slower as well, relieving the pressure on them needing script. Stephanie had some pages, but has worked on the cover, and hopefully will have the full thing of 11 tomorrow. Caspar is a couple of weeks off needing more Power Fantasy, which means it’s the next thing on the plate.
I’m wrapping this work week in plotting that, and also clearing out as much other bits and pieces as possible. The plotting is key – I want to track the back end of the arc tightly, and work out whether I want to go one way (and make it 2 issues) or another (and make it 3). The upside there is that when that’s solve, the remaining arc issues should be relatively easy.
“Should” is a word I’ve learned to fear.
Anyway – that’s why we skipped last week’s newsletter and this week is coming a day late.
Before I head off, I did want to talk about Pyrkon.
I was told to expect something unusual. “There’s a lot of cosplay and it’s more like a festival” was the overview. Plus the fact it stays open 24 hours. This was born of me mildly WTF-ing! when I saw one panel kick off at 10:30pm. Was anyone going to turn up? At 10:30, I couldn’t be sure if I was going to turn up.
It was all that, and after three days, my main thought was “how is this paid for?”
Normally, you have floor space prioritised towards booths being sold to retailers who then sell things. But while there were two big hangars full of shops, there’s about another six which were just there, doing their own thing, sort of highlighting things? There was a whole hall of lego. Was that paid for by lego? Was it an attraction? Outside, there were three big stages, with bands playing throughout. Lordi headlined, facing head to head with the folks who did the Witcher music.
There was a lot of cosplay. I first thought it was about a third of people wearing cosplay – when I counted people, I realised that was way too high. But even 1:10 people wearing cosplay visually carries a punch. It was everywhere, with a greater focus on group set ups than usual.
It’s not a pure comics con – myself and Goran Sudzuka were the only foreign comic guests that I could see – but it’s absolutely a carnival of all the stuff under this geeky umbrella (that all the bands I saw were metal-adjacent says it, right?). It’s especially good on the tabletop side – I spent a lot of time hanging with TTRPG folks, with some real human time. I chilled with a cocktail with Felix Wildsea. I played the worst bowling of my life with Darlington Press. I really felt I got to know people – both guests and the folks at the con. A special note for that one: the helpers at Pyrkon were perhaps the best I’ve ever had. I bought a present for my PA before I left, she was so helpful. It was a lot of above and beyond.
Basically, if you find yourself in Poland, it’s a fascinating place to spend a few days, and I’d recommend it. It’s great to see things like this exist, and remix your idea of what a con could be.
And now Katie’s notes for DIE: Loaded 11 have arrived, so I better jump on that.
Speak soon.
Kieron Gillen
Bath|
2.7.2026