I’ve decided it’s time to mothball the site until I can find time to get it redesigned to something with its own distinct purpose – namely, something more stationary, ala Warren and Jamie.

At the moment, it’s basically just an extra task on the To Do list to port content from the tumblr to here. As such, the tumblr remains for my generalised blogging. At least at the moment, twitter is me in chatting mode, though I’m considering stepping back from there as well.

The Newsletter is basically the direct replacement for the Workblog, in terms of being the MUST KNOW updates, and extended pieces of writing. Follow that if you want to keep in touch with what I’m up to. I will try to entertain.

I’ve been running this workblog since 2002, so the decision of “no, this is not worth it any more” surprises me with how swiftly it’s come on. You wake up one day and figure “That’s enough.”

It’s been fun. See you elsewhere. The workblog is over, yet the work continues for us all.

Spoilers, obv.

The specials have been
quite the time, having several ways to stress everyone the hell out.
The amount of work that goes into a special is far more than any
single script can justify in cold commercial terms. It’s lucky that
I’m only choosing periods that I’m interested in researching to
death.

I suspect (or at least
hope) that in terms of background reading, 455 is the most. 1831 was
hard, but is a relatively tight period I looked at in depth. 455
basically involved researching the whole of the Western Roman Empire.
This means the work was a much broader sweep. In the same way I
suspected the 1831 story would be about Frankenstein, I knew this
would probably be about what happened at one of the sacks of Rome.
Not definitely – I’ve always got room to change tack if something
more profitable turns up in the research – but likely.

As I started work, I
realised the main advantage of the sack near the end of the Western
Roman Empire is that it means you can do a swan song for the whole
thing. Everything has already happened, so you can use it all. Thus
we’ve got something which feels a little like a Roman Greatest Hits
story.

Simultaneously, there’s
the awareness that while I think a lot of this is relatively well
known, even the most basic facts aren’t. Early readers made me aware
that even basic ideas like Julius Caesar being dead for 500 years by
this period can’t be assumed – a level of historical literacy
equivalent of not blinking if Joan of Arc turned up in a WW2 story.
That’s just audiences, and the vague sense of “Rome stuff” fills
about 1000 years of people’s imagination. As such, that our story is
acounter-history required the introduction of what the real history
actually was.

As I knew this was coming
along way off, the research was a slow boil. I knew Rome, in various
periods, relatively well. From the Punic Wars to Augustus is stuff
I’ve read about many times – Carthage is something I’ve always
wanted to do a story about. What I was looking for is a long sweep
across the whole thing, to live with it a while, and let me think
along the way. The actual device I used was The History Of Rome
podcast by Mike Duncan, which goes from legendary prehistory to about
20 years after 455. It’s about 60 hours of stuff, by my rough match,
which I worked into my listening routine – which is mainly when
working out, running, travelling or doing the dishes. I listen to my
podcasts at 1.5x.

That
was for most of 2016. After that, it was digging down into specific
texts, the majority which happened in December/January. Trying to
play with various theories about the decline of the Roman Empire was
paramount. Everyone has one, and be suspicious of anyone who gives
you one reason. The book which generally was most influential in
terms of how I chose to present Rome was The Fall of the Roman
Empire: A New History by Peter Heather, which
basically forwards the idea that Rome fell due to trade across their
borders creating increased population density of Barbarian tribes
which (as opposed to earlier periods) the Romans were unwilling to
integrate into the fabric of the Empire.

I went with my own
counter-theory, of course, which was that an Old Lady Did It.

(The Old Lady Did It is a
Roman Trope of long standing. I’m a proud owner of a Livia Did It
T-shirt.)

Anyway – too much
research, and I’ll try and drop some things I’d wanted to use but
didn’t as we go through it. Suffice to say, there’s nothing
comforting about reading about Rome in the current political climate.

Anyway – Andre! I’d
first encountered his work in Avengers AI, written by my friend Sam
Humphries. That weird, neon-infused Cyberpunk vibe was a big part of
the book’s appeal for me, so I started following him. I believe we
started talking properly around the time of his own Man Plus, which
was is a Otomo-does-Akira-In-Portugal kick, and was another thing
which made me file Andre in my “Sci-fi artist file.”

However, after we got
talking, he showed me some of his other in-development pitches, which
included historical and fantasy work. Which made me go “Hmm.”
He’s got a mass of gifts, but I had one image that I knew I needed
for 455 – the Roman Triumph, with a God in the chariot. That
demanded a certain sort of artist, namely one who was happy to
actually draw a triumph in all its ludicrous glory. Andre, someone
whose work had more than its fair share of city-scapes and crowds,
seemed like someone who’d nail that – plus the confluence of
European and Manga influences in the work would gel interestingly.
We’d get Rome as a place, and that’s what we needed.

He was working on
Generation Gone with Ales Kot, but they talked, and Andre took as
month off the preparation for that to do the special. Thanks, guys.

Colours are provided by
Matt “Eisner For Matt” Wilson, and seeing how the two of them
worked together was definitely one of the more intriguing parts of
the process.

Andre’s Cover

Done early, before the
script was actually completed, which meant we were more conservative
with the choice. The Laurel reef being lowered by elderly hands, the
arrogance of it. A call back to the head-shots of the first year of
WicDiv too. Also, compare and contrast Matt’s colouring choices here
with his ones in the issue. This is a much more subdued, chalkier
mode. Or that’s wot I think anyway.

Jamie’s Cover|
We were
originally talking about statues of multiple gods, but as the script
was still in process we didn’t want to tie down any of the cast bar
Lucifer. Equally, we leaned symbolic on the cover – the flames of
Rome, the statue, the grafitti’s Chi-Ro in paint (or blood)? Symbolic
is good. We like Symbolic.

The Chi-Ro is an old
Christian symbol. It’s what they say Constantine had his soldiers
paint on his shields to ensure victory. My fave thing of Constantine
from the research was that while he was more responsible than any for
the Christianization of the Empire, he didn’t convert until just
before his death. I enjoy the theory that it’s because the idea that
baptizing may have been a one-time “clear all your sins”
opportunity. The idea of confession and absolution wasn’t around as
much. So if you convert and then commit a mortal sin, you’re off to
hell. But if you commit a mortal sin and then convert, you’re fine.
So Constantine may have just been gaming Christianity to ensure the
best chance of a good afterlife.

IFC

Oh god. Looking at the
last paragraph makes me think this could be eternally long if I just
keep on stopping and telling you fun anecdotes from memory. Also,
factually dubious, as they’re from memory, and my memory cannot be
trusted.

Jamie designed the icons,
and had to work out what vibe to give it. I suspect he was grateful
to me for having most the cast already being dead so saving him work.

The Inverted Chi-Ro isn’t
a real symbol anyone used, but our best way to make a Lucifer. The
biggest historical cheat in the series is using any Lucifer figure
like this in the period – as far as I’m aware, the idea of a
singular satanic adversary in this mode simply wasn’t around. But it
dovetails with our mythology.

I get asked whether any
special will happen earlier in the cycle. The tendency to lean
towards the ends is basically the same urge which pushed towards a
Roman Special at the fall. Ends let you write about the whole thing.
It’s only at the end where you can say with any hope of being correct
what was really happening, and even then it’s only a hope.

But the 1920s special is a
little earlier than the end, if only because we’ve seen the actual
end in issue 1.

(More on the 1920s special
soon – there’s been a few changes in my planning on that.)

The text on the page is
the standard WicDiv one, but the final two lines, briefly explaining
the history of the Vandal sack in 455 were added at lettering to
provide the necessary context to a reader.

Page 1-2

Steady angle shot, three
panels on each page. The issue has been compare to Uber by several
readers, primarily for the volume of the violence and the detail of
the historical focus. It’s also a little like it in its storytelling
like this – this lingering attempt to make a scene very normal. We
don’t see the battle against the Vandals – instead, we observe from
a distance. We try and make it documentary, with us an observer.

The animal being gutted is
a goat.

An example of an earlier tweak, the shepherd’s first
line was “Wh…who in god’s name are you meant to be?” This could
read as that our Lucifer actually is Julius. Changing it to
“Dressed up as?” brings the artifice closer to the surface. While
the nature of lucifer/Julius is explained in a few pages time, it’s
not meant to be a mystery. Creating a false uninteresting question is
just a distraction for the reader.

I kind of laugh at the idea of Lucifer wandering
around near Rome, trying to find an army.

Ave Atque Vale!
Is a quote from Catallus, related
to death. Originally was Ave in my first draft, which of course
means “Hello!” so makes no sense to say when he’s heading away to
the shepherd. If you were generous, you could say he was greeting the
Vandals.

The first pages which Matt coloured were these, and
when I saw them, I knew it was going to be something special.

Yes, panicked sheep in the
second panel of page 2 is a star.

Page 3-4

WicDiv is about many
things, but “The fucking obvious” certainly rates highly.
Triumphs are one of the big core Roman rituals we think of, when a
general is given a personal parade. They’re rare and hugely
important. The slave whispering “remember you are only a man” to
warn against hubris is the detail which everyone loves. Clearly, in
WicDiv, the resonances are all kinds of fun.

In terms of how comics
panels are not one moment in time, have a nose at the last panel. You
read the line, then the Oh!, and then the response of the slave
seeing something, and then you look at the miracle, the smug, painted
face, of Lucifer, and his Heh.  That’s a little journey.

The red face paint is
ceremonial, to be akin to Jupiter. Bear that in mind for later, obv.

The big triumph is the
first issue money shot – after 3 pages of very low atmosphere, we
have the sprawl of Rome. Choosing the direction of the march was key
– I gave Andre the best guess route of the triumph, and he chose
his angle. By luck, he would enter via the gate here Lucifer is
dragged out at the end of the issue. The triumph also ends at the
temple of Jupiter, which is yet more fun subtext for those who really
like digging into it.

We tweaked the colouring
on the crowds, to try and get more of the cosmopolitan nature of
Rome. The majority of legionnaires are white, but that’s because most
were Germanic in this period.

The triumph was originally
planned for a spread, but I decided I needed another page later in
the comic.

Page 5

Title drop, and a bleak
laugh. The idea of calling a story IMPERIAL PHASE which isn’t in the
actual Imperial Phase trade came from thinking of Julian Cope having
his single World Shut Your Mouth not on the album World Shut Your
Mouth, an idea he in turn got from some sixties band I haven’t time
to look up.

The date was tricky to
decide exactly, due to the timeline of real world events I wanted to
get in. Clearly, for full trash-Roman pulp, I’d have pushed this
story March, so I could Ides of March it, but alas, no dice.

Page 6

Nice atmosphere in the
first panel, in terms of going from the chaos of the Triumph to
something a little more contemplative.

Enter Dionysus/Bacchus.
Flashback colours and… one of the thoughts of Matt was that the SFX
budget for God Stuff would be lower back here. So the god powers
aren’t quite as SFX-y as they are in the present day. Not that
there’s much here, but I’m reminded by how low-key this is. The
intent here is that he’s done his god thing on stage and come off…
but he could just be an actor, which is about as close as WicDiv gets
to a 1:1 thing.

The nature of art in Rome
(or “Rome”) is key here, and talked throughout. Actors were the
underclass. To act was to be disreputable. The “actress as
sexworker” trope arrives in Rome, I believe. I reference Lou Reed
in the panel descriptions, in terms of these being a Walk On The Wild
Side Romans.

Falerian is a type of fine
wine. Mithras is presumably one of the other gods – Scythia being a
place.

The nature of Imperial
Phase has been about women involved with women, which has nagged.
Having the humanising part of the story be a love story between men
felt timely. It was a place we could do it, so we should. Though more
on that later, in terms of the specifics.

There was the obvious
worry of doing it, of course – where Lucifer ends up. Lucifer is
not good representation. I haven’t seen anyone pick up on that angle.
We spend a lot of time worrying about stuff no-one picks up on, which
is why we spend all that time worrying about it.

The word “play” is, of
course, loaded, as are the name changes. Story about identity, we are
in it.

Page 7

The best thing about the
specials is definitely getting a chance to write Ananke again. She is
a fun time.

If I had more space, I’d
have almost certainly done more with Lucifer’s adventures during the
day. It’s worth stressing that by this point, I believe Gladiatorial
fights were no longer actually happening in Rome, due to
Christianisation. My research has went straight on from Western Rome
and barged into Byzantine Rome, and the story of the chariot races
there is a delight.

Page 7-8

These scenes are very much
me getting my I, Claudius on. Very limited set, two actors going off
at one another. Of course, all of this will resonate with anyone
who’s been following the main series.

Panels 3 and 4 on page 7
are the bit of tight acting I like most from Andre here – it’s all
about the actions, and the space, with us positioned a little back
from it.

I smile at Lucifer
referencing something that was said of 2014-Lucifer in the first arc.
Ananke has been doing this for a very long time.

A quick buzz through
various other gods’ fates in the first panel on page 8. There’s a lot
of historical reference packed in there to unpack for those who wish.

The Inanna/Attila The Hun
panel is, I think, the largest panel description in the issue.
Well… not true. The Rome Triumph one is much longer, but that’s a
splash. This one included a potted history of a bunch of Hun-related
information for Andre to play with, in terms of deciding the looks,
etc.

It was also the most
discussed panel at the stage of pencils – avoiding objectifying
Inanna here was key.

Attila The Hun died on
(one of his) wedding night in the real life.

The “As I understand”
is pretty key in the captions, as is other distancing effects.
Lucifer would not have been a god when Inanna did this. It is very
early in this pantheon’s time.

I think this may be a
place to have a word about Pantheon times through history. 455
doesn’t seem to fit in one of these 90 years, if you follow that
strictly.

The short version is, as
seen in the first scene of WicDiv which ends the 1920s pantheon at
Dec 31^st 2013 and we start our story about 6 months into
the new Pantheon on January 1^st 2014, the question of
where the 90 years is measured for has to be (to some degree)
flexible. Gods appear over a period of a year or so in our 2014, and
die at their own rates. You can assume that the “true” length of
a pantheon can wiggle a little – some would be less than a year,
some could theoretically stretch across 4 calendar years. As such,
it’s hard to predict exactly on which year any given recurrence could
occur – even from the data we have from 1831, 1923 and 2014, we
know that.

I suspect before the end I
may give hard dates for every Pantheon. I suspect, anyway. I know
where it would appear.

Page 9-11

You know, I suspect Page 9
– for an action scene – is one of the most story-beat laden of
the issue, in terms. Lots of great Andre stuff here – the
casual-ness of both the burning and the brutal-ness of the kick. Matt
goes to town on the colours too, the reds taking over. Obviously the
fire is a key thing with Lucifer, and his flame grows and ebbs as we
progress.

There’s some difficult
hard cuts here – page 10 to 11, for example. We just have the
“Ananke leaving” beat there, then moving to Dio and Lucifer in
bed.

There is a tendency when
discussing the ancients to be a bit blasé in terms of writing about
their sexual habits. This normally is based around us mapping our
readings of sexuality onto the past, while erasing their own social
mores. I’ve ran with some of the information on page 11 before, when
doing THREE, specifically the politics of different sexual roles.
Relevantly, the status elements Lucifer alludes to here – in terms
of being a bottom is always dishonourable. I could ramble at this at
length, but I’ll spare you.

Lots and lots of stuff
here, in terms of trying to set up thematic elements here, but let’s
just say none of it would matter at all if Matt and Andre hadn’t
nailed the last panel.

Page 12-13

Lots of historical bits
and bobs here. Perhaps the implicit question we don’t answer is “what
happened to the last Emperor?” He was cut to pieces a few days
before this and thrown in the river, because he’d pissed off the
Vandals enough to have them invade.

You may notice how thin
the senate is populated. That’s because the majority of the
population of Rome have fucked off to hide. Rome’s population is
artificially lower during this point in history, which is a thing
which tries to lend a little credulity to the Ananke/Geiseric
cover-up.

The main tweaks here was
making sure the exact nature of Lucifer’s slip was tricky. Someone
getting mixed up in the time-line requires making sure the reader
understands the timeline. I half wonder why I went with Crassus
rather than Pompey.

Anyway, let’s hope that
Lucifer manages to keep on the straight and narrow.

Page 13-14

Well, that escalated
quickly.

When planning the issue,
you start doing maps of time and space, and I rapidly realised with
25 pages, and so many other essential scenes, there was no possible
way to show a slow descent.

The story’s structure
immediately suggested itself.

While the Triumph was the
image we needed to enter the world, this is the one that will be
remembered. People reference my Crossed work here – which is true,
to some degree, in that it was also about turning flesh into art. I
suspect I was more thinking of Banks, and a certain beat involving a
certain object of furniture. I say, dancing around spoilers.

The influence here which
gets kind of buried is Domitian, who threw the most goth parties of
all time. Have a
nose at this here, in terms of Things Emperors Got Up To.

Page 15-16

We’ve already namechecked
Caligula and here comes Nero, the other of the most famous Roman Bad
Emperors. The elements about Nero here were the closest thing the
research unveiled which made me want to reposition the story to a
different period – Nero interacting with the gods would have been
fascinating, for all the reasons described here.

We had a reader question
the direction of Imperial Phase, in that the
insanity-leading-to-murder trope that appeared to be coming and the
inherent ableism in that. It was a usefully timed question, as it
made me dig more sharply into the exact choices we were making in
explaining the idea. This isn’t about going mad. This is – as
Dionysus puts it – about excess. I’m thinking of Bowie living off
cocaine and peppers. We lean into it pretty heavily in this issue,
and hopefully it delineates the aim.

Just looking at my script,
and found the anecdote about the time I threw up a handful of blood
slipped in there. I’d forgotten that this page was autobiographical.
Comics, eh?

Look at what Matt’s doing
with the colours here – the whole panel is bloodshot as we
progress.

Page 17-20

In terms of buried
research in the comic, that a hole was knocked in the roof of the
Temple of Jupiter during this sack of Rome is the one which makes me
laugh. Behold! Let team WicDiv present the true story of how the
temple of Jupiter got a dirty great hole in it.

(I also like that this
makes the sack of Rome much more efficient for the Vandals.)

This is an actor making a
soliloquy scene, perhaps obviously, recalling both the stage and the
Passion. While this issue is heavily in the research, it’s also doing
ahistorical work. Shakespeare’s fingerprints is all over this, to
state another obvious thing.

The “Emerge like an
Eagle” thing is very much Roman Pagan belief.

I mentioned Nero,
Caligulia and Julius. The other Roman Emperor who is in the mix with
Lucifer was Julian
the Apostate who was the last Pagan Roman emperor, and tried to
revive Pagan Rome before dying early. A “What if Julian had lived?”
is a counter-factual history which is always a fun one to swill
around your mouth. He’s the one we don’t reference, but much of
Lucifer’s thought comes from mashing Julian with someone of lower
birth and more melodramatic tendencies.

This is the sequence which
I cut the page from the Triumph earlier to expand. Clearly this could
happen quicker, but we need to let the death sequence come out, in
all its horror. Also, the collapse on the page turn seems essential.

I’m almost surprise Et Tu
Jupiter reached the final page. We were always wondering whether it
was too funny. In the end, it was decided it was, but in
juxtaposition with the art, sufficiently bleakly to not break the
mood. Especially before the collapse on the next page, which is very
much human stripped by the divine.

Clearly this plot beat, is
the biggest one for close followers of the book. I suspect at this
point of the story, there would be strong suspicions that the “you
die in two years” isn’t true. Unless this sequence is deeply
deceptive, it is true. You die in two years, by yourself. We place
the specials pretty carefully, in terms of what they reveal, so this
being half way through Imperial Phase underlines what could await our
cast.

In terms of craft, going
silent for a page after the monologuing seemed key. I mean, Ananke’s
fundamental disrespect in terms of how she’s carrying Lucifer says
everything.

Page 21-25

Out the gate towards the
Tiber. The names listed are famous Romans whose bodies were thrown in
the Tiber so that they could have no honourable end – and in the
case of Marius, that there was no place for his followers to gather.
The man who did that was Sulla, btw. Marius was dead, he dug them up.

The “Pagan burial, but a
shit one” is very much Ananke at peak “I will tell you the truth,
but you really have to pay attention to the details” mode.

And here’s Geiseric!
Looking good. The Vandals have been in Carthage for 20 years, but we
decided to have him be kind of pallid so as not to confuse people.
Stories like THREE were all about the pure-historical aspect and
risked (and often did) lose people by doing things in line with the
best research rather than common belief. WicDiv has a slightly
different set of priorities, especially on secondary aspects like
tanned Vandals.

Heh. Story starts with
butchery of a goat, and ends with butchery of Lucifer. WicDiv is a
very subtle comic.

Sulla’s an interesting
dude, and I think the use by Ananke here seems pretty fair. The
future she’s pointing towards never happens – the marriage is
there. Germanic hands ended up ruling what came after the Empire, but
that’s not really what is going. Of course, Geiseric is also entirely
right in recognising he’s being manipulated.

They’re a fun pair,
actually, in terms of the fencing. I kind of realise this is the sort
of conversation which is going to be key in Spangly New Thing, which
makes me excited about writing it again.

I smile at the Vandal
line. People have wondered why I didn’t do the earlier sack, so I
could have had the goths. Well, it didn’t really work for the story,
which is about the end of an era. But also it would have been perhaps
too much. I did have a joke take, where Ananke is debating which
Germanic tribe to manipulate into invading Rome. “The Goths again?
No. No More Goths.”

But 455 isn’t that kind of
book.

The final image! Lovely,
in its bleak and awful way.

Page 26

City of God being
Augustine’s book, written primarily in response to the crisis of
faith in the Empire over the 410 sack of Rome by the aforementioned
Goths.

Anyway – thanks for
reading, and thanks for Andre for joining us on this beast. We’re
back (eek) tomorrow, with Imperial Phase II. Onwards, etc.

Our table is O-18.

Friday 21st April

14:45 – 15:45 – Signing at our Table
16:00 – 17:00 – Image Comics: Contemporary Storytelling Panel (Kieron) – S404
17:15 – 19:00 – Signing at our Table
20:00 – 21:00 – Artcred Panel (Kieron) – S405B

Saturday 22nd April

10:00 – 11:00 – Signing at our Table
11:15 – 12:15 – Image Comics: Storytelling Panel (Jamie) – S405A
14:00 – 16:00 – Signing at our Table
16:30 – 18:00 – Signing at our Table

Sunday 23rd April

10:00 – 11:00 – Signing at our Table
11:15 – 12:15 – Marvel: True Believers Panel (Kieron) – S401
14:30 – 15:30 – Masterminds Behind The Wicked + The Divine Panel (Everyone!) – S402
15:45 – 17:00 – Signing at our Table

(”Masterminds Behind The Wicked + The Divine? Really?”  – Ed)

Er… Imperial Phase?

(”You disgust me” – Ed)

The Complete Phonogram. 504 pages comprising all three volumes (the first coloured for the first time), all the eighty-odd previously uncollected B-sides and all in an oversized hardback format.

If you want it digitally, you can get Phonogram from Comxiology or Image.

The end of Imperial Phase II, where there’s a party and lots of things happen. Next month is the 455 special, the month after that is the collection of Imperial Phase Part 1 and we’re back with the next arc in July.

That’s Elsa Charretier’s cover, but Jamie and Matt have done one too.

If you want it digitally, you can get it from Comixology or Image.

End of the first arc, where Aphra continues to make sensible life decisions.

You can also get it digitally, if that’s your thing.

And, after some delays, the final issue of Mercury Heat 12 drops. I’ll miss this. You can get it in shops or digitally.

Hope you enjoy them.

One book out today, being Uber Invasion 3, which is probably the most classically Uber issue I’ve dropped, being primarily focused on a single battle engagement. 

Available from your local shop, or Comixology.

Spoilers,
obv.

This felt like a big issue to us. I mean, in a literal sense it was a big
issue. We normally are 20 pages of art (plus cheats). This is 23
pages of art, due to me completely fucking up and writing a 22 page
script extremely early, thinking I’d go back to it and work out a way
to compress it to 20. Except I forgot I had extra work to do on the
script, so didn’t leave enough time to rework it before Jamie had to
get it. And then Jamie insisted on expanding a sequence by a page,
because he loves you guys, or at least loves the comic.

I
don’t really think I could have compressed it without hurting the
comic either. I compress the action at the start, and it leaves a
reader cheated. I talked about false drama of cliffhangers last time,
and if you don’t have at least some manner of satisfying that
promise, it’s a cheat, and not in an interesting way people would
thank us for. However, at the same time, that’s not what we’re really
doing here. Equally, losing stuff from the back of the issue would
move it into the next issue… and that is also sub-optimum,
for reasons you’ll see next time.

Put
it like this: Jamie joked “can we split this issue in two?” and I
took it entirely seriously, and started doing the math on making this
a seven issue arc.

But
no.

There’s
also one change which should be mentioned – we’ve gone up to $3.99
from $3.50. Why? Image suggested we should. There are very few Image
books that are $3.50 now. The vast majority are $3.99. We’ve had our
price set at $3.50 ever since 2006, with the exception of Immaterial
Girl. We figured we should listen to our publisher. 50 cents across a
decade seems reasonable, especially in an industry where $3.99 seems
standard.

Anyway,
let’s do this thing…

Jamie/Matt’s
Cover
The Norns, and they are kind of core to this issue, so more
of a connection between cover and contents than for most of the
issue. For reasons that become clear this issue, The Norns and Baal
step forward as alternative protagonists for the story structure.
They are key.

There
was considerable EEEK! Over the wearing of masks.

Nicola
Scott’s Cover

Nicola’s
wonderful. I’ve wanted a candid photo cover for most of WicDiv, and
I’m surprised it’s only turned up now. It’s also delineating Sakhmet
and Persephone, which is a key note towards the end of the issue.

The
Image 25^th Anniversary Cover

It
should be stressed, this was Eric Stephenson’s idea.

You
may wonder how we did it.

This
is how we did it.

In
short: we did it like an episode of Playschool. The lighting being a
lamp, gaffataped to a wall is a particular highpoint.

And
then Katie-west worked her magic.

All
the good jokes on the covers are Jamie’s, which is very annoying, but
makes me feel better when I laugh at it, as at least I’m not laughing at my own crap.

Page
1

I
love the first panel. I almost put it in the newsletter, but decided
we should save that thrill for context. It’s very much in the
establishing shot mode, and a promise. Jamie and Matt executing
things like Minervas concussive wind blasts out of the swirling body
is lovely detail too.

I
did have something akin to a NOT AGAIN! As a line of dialogue from
Minerva here, but was obviously killed for breaking tone. See later
in the notes for other thoughts on that whole sequence.

And
by the end of the page, we’ve changed direction entirely. No, this
isn’t going to be a straight fight. We have other narrative fish to
fry.

Page
2-3

RISING
ACTION was basically four issues of straight punchy, with a middle
act of woe. We’re not the sort to do that again, and immediately try
and make this feel different. That first panel where we get a very
human observation of a superhero event. A glance out the window, and
shit is going down out there. There is a lot to try and ground this
as we go on, even as it escalates…

I
suspect Amaterasu’s realisation is one of the cruellest lines I’ve
written for her.

Heh.
Okay – want to hear another example of me messing up? I knew I
needed Amaterasu here, ASAP. But I had also set the scene at night,
so her long-range-teleportation doesn’t work. This led to a rewrite
to bring in the Woden-designed-arm-piece from Rising Action. And it
helps in other ways – we get the interaction with her mum, which
says a lot about Amaterasu. I do like the idea of Amaterasu having
left this piece of fancy armour lying around on her bedroom floor and
her mum tidied it up.

Jamie
pushed a panel from page 3 onto page 2, which is obviously a smarter
call, letting him keep a steady angle on the three teleportation
panels, which nails the effect. The breaking up dialogue to show that
things are instantaneous is obviously one of our tropes.

The
lettering on this sequence involved some messing around with layers
to get work, and to make the fade in operate. Nice work, Clayton.
This is also an area where my suspicion of sound-effects was entirely
over-ruled.

Page
4

And
hulllllo Baal’s family.

This
strikes me as a very WicDiv take on a reveal. It could have worked
with just a reveal of his family – we’d want to see that. But to
reveal that, and juxtapose it to the creeping monsters, so mixing the
excitement of meeting new people with the fear of losing them? That’s
WicDiv, innit? Sigh.

This
was also the page which went through the most colouring notes.
Getting the exact level of reveal on the Great Darkness creatures, of
how much they’re in the light or not took quite a few takes. We’re
very happy.

Page
5

We
are totally not rated PG.

Page
6-7

If
you follow me on twitter, you’d see me doing a crowdsurfed suggestion
for a line of dialogue for someone to say when they’re pulling
someone out of the way. That was this page, and Persephone pulling
the tentacles. I decided that any dialogue was too much. It even
makes it jokey (clearly not the intent) or slows down the action.
Even a “NO!” felt too much for me.

We’re
heading more towards action here, and doing a beautifully rendered
fight-scene in someone’s garden. This feels a very us thing to do.

I
believe I described the Amaterasu laser beam shot in the mode of a
Quietly moment, that sense of a still moment in time. Jamie and
Quitely don’t have a huge amount of overlap as artists for me –
Quitely is all about the 3D space of a shot, which Jamie simply isn’t
– but this captures something really furious. The colouring from
Matt on the heat vision is particularly A+.

The
push and pull of Amaterasu is very much her thing. Her bravery is an
open question, as is her capacity for anger and violence. From
Persey-Poo to incinerating her foes in a couple of pages doesn’t
exactly make me feel comfortable about her. So nice work, J ane M.

Also
Good Job Baal’s Brother on spotting the baddies.

Page
8

Jamie
and my debate on exactly how to (er) Biggify the Darkness creature
was quite a thing. Of course, the creatures are granular. We can’t
just make the grains bigger.

We
were a little worried that Persephone firing red thorns being a
little confusing, when red is Amaterasu’s signature. We may end up
tweaking them green in the trade. Not that we’ve seen anyone complain
about it.

I
think Amaterasu’s living-Darkseid-stary-beam is my favourite regular
power signature in this book.

Lots
of careful unpacking on what is said on the phone, to ensure clear
storytelling. That we never actually show the Great Darkness Creature
back at the shard defeated is an unsusual choice… but we need to
make sure that people know it HAS been defeated and Minerva rescued.
Equally, we come back to the nature of cliffhangers we mentioned
earlier. We’ve promised a fight against the Great Darkness, but are
much more interested in introducing Baal’s family, showing
Amaterasu’s complicity in this, Persephone’s powers, etc. So you DO
get a great darkness fight, just not the one you were expecting,
which is hopefully okay as the one you were expecting is a lot less
interesting than this. Hopefully.

The
Phone is a Woden design, as referenced later in the issue. Baal can’t
just go down any phone. You’ll see one on his living room table in
last issue.

Page
9

This
is the sort of page I’d have ended up cutting if I tried to reduce
the issue… and why would I want to do a thing like this?

There
was a discussion of whether ALL I DO IS WIN was too much. It
eventually worked around to obviously it’s too much, but WicDiv is
too much, so that’s all fine.

This
is a lovely set of colouring from Matt here. The white and purple is
just a delight.

Notice
tiny Scarab-esque thing shooting off in the top right panel. In a
moving medium the Great Darkness’ nature would be a lot cleaner, but
we do stuff like this.

Page
10

And
we’re back to grounded colours. Just turn this page and see how
things change. Isn’t that a delight? Matt Wilson For Eisner, etc.

Yes,
Baal’s name is Valentine Campbell. Obviously we chewed it over a
bunch. Valentine has so many connotations seemed to be useful.

I
find myself thinking that in the first half of the issue Persephone
is almost back to volume 2 Laura. She’s primarily an observer, one
who is taken places and sees thing. That does tend to make
Amaterasu’s final line particularly pointed.

Lovely
pair of expressions in that final panel.

Page
11

The
title for this was originally ONCE MORE, leading directly into Baal’s
first line, and hitting the beat again. That changed when I realised
I wanted to do the whole sequence as a nine panel grid.

This
is the first time all the surviving gods have been in a scene
together, and it’s a circular table. Luckily, when I mapped the gods
to the seats, the ones who are most important to interact are
actually sitting beside each other – imagine how difficult it would
have been if Baal and the Norns weren’t seated by each other.

(We’d
have done something else, clearly, and had the Norns standing like
Persephone is.)

So
I was trying to work out how to panel all this political-meeting
style chat, and hit the bit where the gods vote. And I realised that
as there were nine gods voting, it’d work really well as a nine-panel
grid. That rapidly expanded to… wait, especially with Baal/Norns
sitting by each other (so minimising the need for wide shots) I could
do the whole thing in a nine panel grid. That allows you to cut
between individual characters speaking, and not have to worry about
the interactions for most of it.

That
unlocked the way to best dramatically sell the Persepone’s final
line. If we build a structure, we can get an aesthetic effect by
demolishing it.

It’s
not the first time we’ve done a Nine Panel Grid in our work, but its’
certainly the longest. And if we’re doing Nine Panel, it brings it
back to Watchmen, which means that we should highlight that. Hence,
the title altering to THE WATCH, which obviously has all kinds of
connotations.

I
go through this to primarily show how much fun this job can be. Stuff
builds on top of other stuff, and you eventually end up with
something much more full than the original idea. For me, pretty much
nothing is as good as writing is when it’s going right.

Which
is the sort of thing I’ll get depressed about if I think too much
about it, so let’s not for now, eh?

Page
12

If
we’re going to do the nine panel thing, we need to establish the
scene properly. Two panels, built on a nine-panel grid
superstructure.

Obviously
this was a heavy described panel, as we had to cram in all the
character beats for all the people. Baph’s slouch is particularly on
point. The coffee that Dio is hanging onto for dear life another. The
Norns not getting a seat.

One
thing I particularly like about this page? It forefronts the visual
element of the table with twelve gods around which people may not
have noted. This, on a page after a big title saying THE WATCH is
more obviously a clock face.

Yes,
Watchmen was a big influence on me as a writer. Did I mention it? I
may have mentioned it.

Page
13

Oh
man – look at Matt’s use of shadow here. Baal in the darkness on
last page was great, but passing from the shadow to light in the
first panel.

When
I first saw Jamie had put Minerva in plaid I worried for him. “Er…
Jamie. Drawing Plaid is a lot of work.” He noted that as there was
only a few panels with her in, it’ll be fine. Jamie is not entirely
foolish.

The
page does show one of the things about the nine panel – as in, you
get more beats… but you have to be pretty particular to choose
those beats. 9 panel is good for a writer, for certain things (most
important: timing), but you can do less with any one panel. On the
plus side your beats are more deliberate, more delineated.

In
this case, showing Persephone’s is relatively “expensive” in page
space, but clearly necessary – Baal is saying the stuff he’s never
said before. We need to see her response.

And
yeah… Baal finally lays out his main motivation. I suspect for
close readers or re-readers, things make a lot more sense.

The
seventh panel is one of four two shots I can see in this whole
sequence, to get an idea of how sparsely we tried to use them. Maybe
5 if you include the one with Woden asking “Does she get a vote.”
Though I say this having only skimmed quickly, and am sure I must
have missed one..

The
non sequitur panel of the 8^th is one of my fave things you
can do with a rigid panel like this. Drop a silent panel and break it
up.

Page
14-15-16

Honestly,
this kind of shit is stuff I love. Just lock characters in a room and
let them argue. Political dramas. Legal dramas. It’s just a
fascinating writing challenge – who speaks next and why. How to
delineate the information, how to lampshade information is
questionable, etc, etc.

I
mean, in some ways this sort of debate is pure exposition – here
are some statements – but the fact that each is immediately
interrogated turns it into something else.

Basically,
if left to my own devices, I’d have just done a 40 issue series in
the style of 12 ANGRY MEN called 12 ANGRY GODS.

In
terms of my outline, I knew that the pantheon would have a schism at
this point. Until Brexit happened, I didn’t realise that it would be
by something as clear and true as a simple democratic vote.

The
hand on Cass’ shoulders is the sort of thing I’d have only done in a
nine panel grid.

Yes,
Baphomet, there was a time for jokes, and it was in the first arc.

PAGE
17

This
issue, for reasons which we’ll get to shortly, had some consultants’
eyes on. That bit was fine. The thing which was tweaked then, and
tweaked time and time over is trying to delineate the sides. The
first draft simply hadn’t sufficiently. Hell, the second or third
lettering tweaks didn’t do the trick completely. At least from the
comments we’ve seen, no-one seems lost, so the effort seems worth it.

The
problem is that each member of the debate wants to phrase their
position in the best way possible and their enemies in the worst way,
which actually leaves it hard to say what’s actually go on. This led
to Baal in the final panel actually bringing it together – the
PRIORTISE THE GREAT DARKNESS vs STUDY is the key thing. ANARCHY had
to be introduced explicitly by cass to describe someone else’s
position as a label before it could be used here too.

In
terms of minor fact drops? One of the things people always ask is
what’s going on with the skulls. Here we just let people know they’re
ornaments.

In
terms of the nine panel grid, I think the single hardest decision was
letting go of showing the Norn’s response to Sakhmet’s threat. Alas,
everything else is more important.

The
second one would be Baal doing something like counting people around
the room, to ensure that the reader knows that Baal thinks he’s won.
In the end, we highlight that later, and with the ellipsis  in the
eighth panel. And, of course, as always a Jamie McKelvie expression
goes a long way.

Er…
I’m writing too much about this stuff, but I hope it’s useful for
people who think about comic craft. And to double-triple stress, as
always in these notes, I really am just telling the surface level
storytelling basics.

Page
18

And
the vote page. As said earlier, was where the 9 panel grid came as
possible.

These
lines were especially tweaked to sell the positions and why.

And
Dionysus, for the first time in the scene, speaks. Obviously a key
issue for Dio, where we move him into an explicit new position in the
plot.

Page
19

Man,
I don’t even want to unpack this page.

But
I can easily imagine how both Baal and Cass are feeling in the last
panel. Uh… wait…

Page
20

Formalism
doing its formalism thing.

This
was written in a nine panel grid, but with descriptions of which
panels are covered by Persephone’s hair.

Page
21

And
then we go into our quick cuts to move to the new status quo, the
nine panel.

It’s
very much our aesthetic that we show the break-up but don’t show the
getting-together.

I
suspect it’s the sort of scene I’d like to talk about further down
the line, but not now.

The
gold prize for Jamie here are panels 3 and 4. For me, that’s comic,
and that’s why I love comics.

Well,
one of the reasons, anyway.

Page
22-23

Cass
continues to be a gift for those who like reaction images.

The
strangest rewrite of the issue for me was the “What’s the saying
about stopped clocks?” line, which was originally a lot more
suggestive and less explicit. But 2 of the first 4 people to read it
didn’t get it in its more suggestive form, which meant that I was
always going to dial back for clarity’s sake.

So,
yes, this is a Cass/Dio/Woden team-up for the Study side. Splitting
your cast into smaller narrative units is a good tactic in a team
book (I sort of learned it properly when I was writing my
9-core-person Uncanny X-men team). You also see it all over the place
– if you listen to Community notes, you’ll see how they split their
cast into different arrangements and see how the characters interact.
Having three characters who, on the surface, appear to have very
different priorties come together under a larger banner is an
interesting one.

In
terms of the explicitly delineating at least part of the sexualities,
this has been considered for a while. Let’s start with Cassandra.

Early
on in WicDiv, I saw a random comment of someone annoyed with
something I’d said. Specifically me saying something akin to “I
sometimes need room to discover a character’s sexuality.” Her
response – and one I completely get – was annoyance with
suggesting people don’t know their own sexualities. The “No, I know
I’m Bi – don’t say it’s a phase. Don’t say it’s something I’m
discovering.”

As
I said, I get it, but that’s not what I meant. I meant characters.
Writing often feels like excavation. Not always, but sometimes, and
especially in a book like WicDiv. You get to know them by writing
them, sometimes in actually fundamental ways, ways which were always
there but now come to the surface. For all my planning in WicDiv,
it’s also a living creature.

So
when starting off, I always had a few feelings about Cassandra. There
was the possibility that she was actually asexual. It would fit with
her for a few ways, and the evidence for a reading of that was
certainly there. However, I rapidly realised it caused huge problems
inside the narrative in terms of what it was saying about asexuality.
One of Cassandra’s primary traits is that she doesn’t experience the
performances. If she’s asexual, that implies that it’s linked to that
– especially when the performances have been linked so strongly to
sex at various places in the narrative. I thought that’d be true even
if we had another asexual character in the primary cast to show the
contrary. I continued writing her and thinking, and having an
awareness of the various potentials I saw in her. I didn’t have to
make a choice yet.

The
flashpoint was issue 20, where I realised that it just was untenable
for her to be asexual. Because if performances are linked in the
readers’ mind to sex, that eventually Cassandra does response
to a performance is a sign that asexuals just haven’t met the right
person yet.

No.
I’m not writing a book that suggests that.

There
is also the real world thing that trans women are viewed through a
hypersexual lens or an asexual one, which is certainly one feeds into
the final dialogue on the page.

So
everything re-arranged and solidified in the other way I saw them –
a stable lesbian polyamarous triad. I saw with Imperial Phase ahead,
that felt more and more necessary. WicDiv is… not a book where
relationships are healthy. Every single romantic relationship in the
book is openly dysfunctional. Relevantly, there is a lot of people
doing polyamory very badly. It comes to a point where it looks like
the book saying this behaviour is bad rather than this specific
practise is bad. The Norns would be the counter-argument. In this
issue, we show them in an private, loving supportive relationship
that’s arguably more unconventional than any other in the book.

We
don’t get to see any of the sex, of course, as it’s none of our
business and they’re not there for the readers’ pleasure. But with
them in our story, it shows there’s nothing implicitly wrong with
kink, or polyamory or anything else… as long as you don’t act like
sentient burning trashcans.

That
was the thinking. Some of it, anyway.

Oh
– on the note of discovery, I only realised that she’d lean
submissive as I wrote the page. It was a surprise to me as well, but
seemed to align with everything else and make a lot of things make
more sense.

In
Dio’s case, it was there as a possibility even as I first wrote him
into the bible. I see myself writing around it in my notes, saying
that I just didn’t feel like sex was a big drive for him in the way
it was for so much of the cast. The problem eventually came for the
place to introduce it, and how, and in the same action where we move
Dio towards the centre stage (or at least primary supporting
characters) seemed to be it.

We’ve
had a lot of supportive messages about both of these, so thank you.
And thanks again to our consultants, who we will continue to high
five at the slightest encouragement.

Page
24-25

This
was originally written as a page, but Jamie insisted on MOTORBIKE
DRAMA!

And
how could we resist that?

I
actually wrote a first draft of this, and wondered if it was too
much, and then did a completely different end scene based on
Persephone leaving the Shard. Arguing it over with Chrissy, we came
down strongly on this. It’s WicDiv. We crash motorbikes into walls
for the sake of it.

Worth
noting: this is a return to a non-cliffhanger ending structure. The
“read the next issue” comes from the whole of the issue rather
than a specific beat. This is about leaving it with a mood.

Favourite
thing in colour – the circle of light on the wall, a half second
before impact.

I’ll
give you one for free: Persephone is on the phone to one of her
people, probably an agent. I could have put an explicit call in that
to the dialogue, but it was too crass and fake, and the specific
identity doesn’t really matter that much. It’s just someone who’s
clearly going to get her a new bike.

Also:
the main reason why I wondered whether this scene wasn’t too much, is
because it is literally the lyrics to Icona Pop’s I LOVE IT.

Page
26

“Hey,
C, is referencing Kesha too much on the interstitial? It sort of is a
trashy pop take on Watchmen’s encroaching apocalypse feel.”

“No,
that sounds like exactly the sort of thing you do.”

“Cool.”

See
you next month, where we reach the penultimate part of IMPERIAL PHASE
(I). It’s just being put to bed, and we like it a lot.

Thanks
for reading.

A big issue, this, both in terms of events and pages – it’s 3 pages longer than normal due to (er) me writing it longer and not realising until it was too late, and then Jamie adding an extra page for extra motorbike. Something for everyone in this, I think. Also HOT NINE PANEL GRIDS.

Oh – there’s also two other covers for this, one very beautiful by Nicola Scott and the other one (er) less so.

You can get it from your local comic shop, or digitally either from Comixology or direct from Image. You can read the preview here.

As Beck once sang in the 90s, where’s it AT-AT? It’s here, in the fourth issue of Aphra thinking things through properly and not accidentally making everything worse constantly.

It’s available from your local comic shop or digitally. Preview here. 

Lots more about this week’s comic and what we’ve been up to in the Newsletter. Do read and sign up. 

I wrote this in the newsletter about this one…

It’s an especially horrible issue, but one I’m intensely proud of. It’s one of those rare books that I think may actually be unique for its genre, and the logical end point of the line of thinking that’s run through all my work in superheroes. Namely, a disinterest in the people knocking over the buildings in favour of those who have just had a building knocked onto them.

It’s also one which you could read entirely by itself, if you wish to dabble in these dark waters.

…and that sounds about right.

Available from your local shop, or Comixology. There’s a preview here.

Third part of Aphra goes happily into action adventure temple exploring mode. Highlights include: not keeping up on current affairs. needy droids! Wookiees, winning! Archaeology! Stuff! Things!

It’s available from your local comic shop or digitally. Preview here.

Let’s just dive in, eh?

Jamie’s Cover
One of the interesting things about comics is the solicitation process. As such, a sub-section of the fandom will be aware of a cover before it comes out (or the month before it comes out if it’s a comic which puts a NEXT MONTH cover in the back). So for the hardcore readers, this will actually be the first image they see of Minerva’s new look.

So yeah, good debut, Mini.

This arc we’re clearly not doing quite what we did on previous ones – the link from the cover star to the interior one is much more tangential than the first two years. Let’s not make it too easy.

Emi Lenox’s Cover
Emi is one of our favourite people in the whole world, let alone comics. Her co-written with Jeff Lemire (and drawn by her) of Plutona was one of our favourite minis of last year too. I believe Emi wanted to do another god, and then read the latest issues and I WANT TO DO PERSEPHONE!

Which has been a running theme this arc, actually. We’ve had to encourage other gods for the B-sides later on. Persephone, you’re more than a superstar, but you’re not our only coverstyle.

Very much a continuation of our Wide Variety Of Styles On Cover theme. This is about art.

Page 1
Compared to many of the issues this arc, this is a less demanding one for the artist than usual. I don’t do it unless I have to, and I knew there’s horrible stuff ahead. That said, the world fell apart during the production of this issue, and we lost a week. So it was hard anyway. Comics!

Anyway – we start slow. Three panels. Establish location, establish situation, establish key character. This is aimed towards being reserved, clear and efficient.

First swearing of Cass in the issue. And not the last.

The cliffhanger last time is an unusual one for us, as I believe I said (I totally don’t re-read these notes after writing them. When we come to edit them for the hardback, it’s always a thrill. Hey C! Sorry about all the typos.) It’s a mid-action cliff-hanger. Normally we’re in a “reveal of important new information” or “completion of surprising action” place when we cliffhanger, and half the time we don’t even do that. This is a “half way through action” cliffhanger. As such, it’s about “How does this action complete?”

Structurally speaking, I tend to think that these tend to risk creating false drama. If you don’t go through with an action in any meaningful way, that’s what it is – a raising of expectations and a quashing of them, which – to use the technical writing term – is total bullshit. If you do go through with it… well, why didn’t you do it to end the previous issue? Then you have a “completion of surprising action” cliffhanger, which is much more honest.

So the main way to resolve them, for me, is that what DOES happen has to be at least as interesting as what didn’t happen.

So that’s where we try to go, as Persephone is totally going to torture Woden.

(In my original synopsis the previous episode ended with Woden’s reveal, with Persephone raising her fingers at the start of this. I made this call when writing both issues.)

That was a lot of words.

In other notes: I would really like Persephone’s trousers here.

Page 2
Anyway – this whole sequence is about Jamie again. The push and pull of Persephone’s reactions here is key.
Obviously the most important expression closes the page – we lose the skull eyes and have a push and pull of responses which caused me to pretty much instantly tear up. There’s lots of ways to read this, and none of them good.

Page 3
Cassandra, voice of reason once more. “Go on a bender” makes me smile too.
Steady angle on the hands puts an unusual pressure on things – steady shots, in profile are something which tend to be most used in comedy. But it’s all about the hands and the emotion. Also compare and contrast to the one over the page…

Page 4
Oh no, Persephone!
And this is very much about the scene as comedy. Breaking a scene into individual moments – decompressing, to use a much maligned and mis-used term – is all about increasing the effect. It is paramount in comedy.
Page 5
From the Hobbit. Bilbo and Smeagol. You can probably guess who’s Smeagol in this metaphor, except not.
Page 6-7
The first page was written in a standard format – once more, using the very basic structure of establish/scene/character beat set up of the first page – and then moved into Marvel Method for the rest of the sequence. It’s the first “real” performance sequence since issue 20s, so has been a while.
This sequence brought to mind the movie adaptation of UNDER THE SKIN when I was writing it, and that’s not an inaccurate comparison, I suspect.
What’s to look at here is Matt’s purples, which are just lovely.
And black.
All that black.
And…
Page 8-11
EVEN MORE BLACK! Doing try printing scans of our pages at home, as your printer will hate us.
Obviously reminiscent of issue 3’s performance sequence, and I love what they did with the tumbling sequence. Persephone’s voice, caption-box less, dropped on the backdrop too.
At script, there was originally a couple of lines on the second spread. It was questioned by C, in terms of “He’s a long way away – I don’t think we can hear two beats like that” which is right, but also got me thinking about time operating in comics. The second you add dialogue to a page, it becomes a period of time. When you remove all dialogue, it gets a timeless quality. As in, you have no idea how long it’s been like this. Seconds? Hours? Years? We don’t know.
And that certainly adds to the effect of the sequence.
Page 12
Heh. I’m reading this as we put issue 26 to bed, having just passed Jamie the script for 27 earlier today. They are… somewhat denser. It’s going to be a while until we have a three panel sequence like this.
Page 13-16
Oh, hello again, eight-panel grid structure, old friend. We’ll be seeing you again soon.
The dumbest “I should have realised this in the script” mistake was that Cass didn’t have a line in the first panel of this. That adds time to the sequence, and a repsonse to the appearance of Cass.
I remember the thinking on this for me. Okay, Persephone has dragged Woden away. What does Cass do? Try and free the Valkyries. Like, obviously.
Anyway – what we get instead of Woden being killed is this. Giving up the Valkyries. Dragged to be essentially Cass’ helper. Working the level of reluctance and ego back and forth is key.
The Harry Potter line was probably the most closely debated line in the issue. C and I basically had a bunch of conversations trying to unpack the meaning, what Woden was trying to say about it exactly, what Woden thought he was saying, etc.
Whole sequence clearly important as it’s stating a selection of the various mysteries in the book, signalling to the reader than them not knowing answers is not accidental, and making the characte’s direction clear. “Direction” is tricky in Imperial Phase, which is kind of the point. Showing that we do have an idea what we’re doing is probably a necessary tell.
The steady angle on the last two panels – once more, for comedy – makes me smile. The “Enigmatic Wankery” made think of a friend. I asked C who she thought would most likely actually say “Enigmatic Wankery.” She answered the same friend. So let’s conclusively say “Enigmatic Wankery” is the line most likely to be said by author and punmeister supreme, Si Spurrier.
Page 15 – which, without saying it, where Cass implicitly agrees to working with Woden – is where I realised how good Woden and Cass are to have in the same room, in terms of pushing information around.
(Perhaps too much – Persephone is definitely an observer in these four pages)
Page 17
Text conversations are fun, just as how much you can get into it, as a piece of character work. That Cass hasn’t updated her phone to change Laura’s name ever since meeting her is certainly one thing, but also says a lot about various other bits and pieces.
Three golden expressions on the page., You can trust Jamie McKelvie to deliver on such thing – the specific annoyance and the somewhat enigmatic sadness of Persephone. And the… peevishly frustrated nature of Cass.
Also, easy panels! See, I’m not just a monster.
(Says the man who’s just sent Jamie a script with a whole middle section sub-titled “ FUCKING HORRIBLE BEYOND ALL HUMAN BELIEF”)
Page 18
The quote’s from Anna Karenina by Tolstoy. “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
Page 19
Ananke’s speech from issue 5 of WicDiv, being broadcast. Fun juxtaposition. And god, that’s a hard mask to draw.
And honestly, this page – which you should recognise in its structure – so upset me when I thought of it, I knew it had to go in. The more I think about it, the worse it gets.
The copy of Pantheon monthly on the table especially makes me grin. I think that was Jamie’s idea. Or maybe Katie?
Page 20-21
Persephone and Baal have been going out for three issues now. This sequence is the first time we’ve seen them in the same panel. Plus first time to see Baal in his guardian role. As such, wanting to live with them, albeit briefly, felt necessary. For a book that’s often about death, we have to show life.
(The lightning-to-make-toast is the apex of that. The Mundane + The Divine may be an alternate title for WicDiv, or at least our aesthetic and interests.)
Also, let Minerva – ahem – continue to stretch her wings. Last time we got the human intelligence side of it. Now we get a more analytical mind.
And yes, Baal self-correcting himself is cute. You’re trying, Baal.
Everyone’s hair game is on point here. Minerva’s fringe (aka Bangs, but we’re in the UK, guys) is wonderful, but the winner is Persephone’s braids.
On a really minor craft note? It’s standard to say you end the page on a cliffhanger – an unanswered question, an reason to turn the page. The “Was Ananke right?” is a pretty good example of that, I think. Even mentioning Ananke changes the tone. The question is pointed, both in story and not. And, most of all, who’s saying it?
Page 22
Oh, it’s Amaterasu. Hi, Amaterasu.
This is very much catching balls we threw into the air, earlier. In terms of Amaterasu’s actions, this is how the cast see it. Or at least, this part of the cast.
The third panel of this page makes me optimistic we’re going to get away with an issue down the line. That’s a lot of wonderful acting inside a tiny panel from Jamie.
I wasn’t sure if “Li’l flower” was too much, but decided, no, it was the right amount of much.
Page 23-24
Yeah, this is a swing back to action-mode comics earlier than I suspect people were expecting it.
Kept really basic, leaving room for Jamie and Matt to do their thing. The tendrils whirling around, use of space, etc. Also, let’s nod towards Matt’s hot pink in the last panel.
Page 25
And hello what we can only presume is the Darkness, Great, which I probably better not say more about until next month. It was certainly a design conversation, but probably best to work in there. Clearly we wanted something interesting.
Yeah, that’s enough for now, I think. We’ll talk the nature of Cliffhangers again next time.
Page 26
I had a string of names for this one, before ending up here. I liked most of them enough to make me suspect they’ll end up being used elsewhere.
Right – issue has just headed off to Image, so we’ll see you in a month.
Thanks for reading.