389: The Power Fantasy loves you (trad)
Hullo
Loves You
Will Continue To Love You
Empty
Links
Bye
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I wasn’t going to do a newsletter this week, but remembered that the order cut off for THE POWER FANTASY’s mighty return is November 16th . So while next week will be the bigger one, and give the preview, but I need to start banging the drum so folks can talk to their retailer. I’ll be writing to them as well, in the “We have five issues in the can here, btw” to help confidence that we’re professionals.
I’ll also be updating the Primer before next week, which I’ve mentioned before, but I figured I should wait until the preview before doing so. Its still gives a pretty firm grounding if you’re intrigued and know nothing – the three trades await you, and also make fine seasonal gifts for friends, or enemies, or anyone really.
The order codes are…
Caspar’s Cover: 1026IM0300
Toru Terada’s Cover: 1026IM0301
Oh – here’s Toru’s cover.
I just love Toru’s stuff. I saw his take on Valentina and did think “Can we get him to do one every issue, so we can have a set? Please.” You can tell he’s cooking with a powerful flame, as I’ve had mails from editors on other comics asking for introductions. I digress.
This is actually also the hand in week for the issue, so we’ve been getting our final notes and tweaks. In a full on “this is how the sausage gets made” these are the actual comments on the final PDF for Clayton to tweaks.
You may notice by the number of pages that have art on that our comeback issue has more pages than a normal one, because The Power Fantasy loves you (trad).
More next week, but don’t wait. Tell your retailer. Retailers, tell yourself, but gently, you work hard.
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Have I shared The Power Fantasy 18’s cover yet? I forget. Here it is.
If you’re talking to your retailer, you can talk about this too.
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Reminder that this Saturday I’m doing a live Hollows game in London, with some excellent folks. Tickets here.
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A History of Rock Music In 500 Songs reaches David Bowie, and this walk through his earliest work one is a real boon for any creative. Rejoice as you see David Bowie create work which is at best underwhelming and at worst laughable! Sometimes it can take a while. It is a journey.
Gita Jackson over at Aftermath picks through folks on X doing Anankin/Malfoid stuff basically inventing fandom from first principles without quite understanding why folks did it, and it’s actually an expression of powerlessness not power.
And Tom Humberstone finishes his articles and art on Horror sequels with Aliens. I’ve said before, this was a great series, and worth reading the whole thing. Finding a strong angle on a film that’s been written about so much before is a battle, and one Tom does incredibly well with.
Smithsonian Mag on an Italian Farm finding old grain and figuring – why not grow this stuff and see what happens? Good happens!
I went to Pyrkon in Poland this year – basically my only actual big comic convention this year. Here’s my panel, where I talk about stuff? I remember it being fun, but I have no memory of what I said.
Elizabeth Sandifer’s Last War In Albion reaches the Invisibles, and downloads the whole first thing, wrapping her book 4. The Invisibles remains the most 1990s thing that ever 1990s.
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As said, I wasn’t planning a newsletter this week – I wanted to concentrate time on the job at hand. Which is basically plotting. This is simultaneously the best and worst thing in writing. Scripting is fine – it’s a closed task. There is usually 20 pages. How can we make the story work well in. You can even do it badly, and then make it better. Pages are pages. You can make progress, even if it’s illusionary – and illusionary progress is actually real progress, because writing anything is actually a process step towards making something good. The brain then can chew with what’s off, and when you go back to fix it, it’s fixable.
Plotting is nameless and endless. It is a blank page. It can last forever. It’s Wednesday, and I have the first arc pretty well done of this thirteen issue thing… but I had that before I started. I am generating material and ideas, but it isn’t strictly speaking a story yet. This should worry me, if it’s just how it always works. You keep on playing, and then things coalesce, and suddenly it’s an actual story. You have to trust the process. Keep working this wet slop of random ingredients, and it will become dough, I swear.
And then when that’s done, I need to do it again for something else, before Tbubz.
And then for the next arc of The Power Fantasy – though at least there I have all the material, and it’s a question of organising it.
I suspect that means the majority of my November will just be doing this – so it’s something of an existential nightmare, and you never feel you’re making progress, until it’s done.
Except the upside of this: this is also one of the strongest highs of being a writer. The moment it clicks, is absolutely everything.
If you hear a barbarian-victory cry from the direction of Bath at some point in the next few days, assume that’ll be me cracking it.
Speak soon.
Kieron Gillen
Bath
4.11.2026