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sethnakht · 6 years

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thoughts on aphra #25

spoilers beneath the cut.

[writing this with a bad headache and in prescription sunglasses (broke my glasses during the work-rush of the past few days). so this won’t be comprehensive or possibly even coherent.]

Thoughts in no particular order:

Tolvan literally sacrificing her mental integrity so Vader would think Aphra dead fit the dynamic of their relationship to a T - Tolvan had been doing precisely this all along. As Tolvan hates when things are “sloppy”, I could almost imagine the thought of wiping Aphra from her memory being a relief. Alas, she was dealing with Aphra. Aphra using the Bor to manipulate her memories such that her love for Aphra remained intact but the details of their parting turned bloody was so very Aphra - saving herself meant more than showing Tolvan some kindness, than giving her new memories she could live with. On the plus side, although Tolvan now thinks she murdered Aphra for breaking her heart, she was rescued by Sana. So she’s escaped interrogation and murder, escaped Vader - and renewed heartbreak in the form of Aphra. Better yet, Sana’s presence suggests she might recover her memories and be able to get a fresh start, since Sana also saw the Bor and knows how Aphra thinks, and since we know from Rogue One that memories can be returned through proper jostling. In that sense, things might finally be looking up for her.

Sana saved so many lives in this one issue alone - not just Tolvan, the Rebels on the planet as well. And of course she salvaged the Volt Cobra on the way. She’s amazing.

Lopset returning to put his proximity bomb in Triple-Zero and create the conditions for #26 had been set up several issues ago - those lines about being an “electrician” and “multidisciplinary”, his strangely specific knowledge of murderous bio-fauna, the way he kept carrying Dek-Nil/the hub-droid around as though planning blackmail, the fact that he had worked for Cornelius Evazan and yet emerged without any sort of visible bodily transformation - and it was sort of a relief to learn that he’d simply been Evazan all along. Not only does this contextualize the cover of #28, it means an end to the name-dropping - it’s been hinted since the beginning of Remastered that we would eventually run into the man himself, now we finally have - and an end to Tam Posla (thanks, Trip). [EDIT: the solicits for #28 suggest that Posla survives, bleh!] As for his disguise, it was fittingly disgusting - reminiscent of the Bor. Presumably it also explains why "Lopset”’s eyes always changed color - a detail that had been bothering me, since other shape-shifters don’t do that. The reveal also helped reframe some of the details on Posla’s ship. If you go back and look at Posla on his ship in #22, you’ll see a severed arm in a jar on prominent display, an arm that could only have been sliced from Evazan’s partner-in-crime during their encounter with Obi-Wan on Tatooine. While the arm-in-a-jar certainly works an Easter Egg, evoking the depths of Posla’s obsession, the way it’s drawn also suggested greater importance. Now we know why it was featured - so that Evazan can take the arm with him when he jumps ship with his arm-less partner-in-crime. (That entire page in 22 is also full of clues about the Evazan twist.)

EDIT: looking back at #20 is also pretty illuminating:

Evazan had some nice thoughts on monstrosity, art, and science. More on that when feeling less like bricks have been thrown at the brain.

Vader’s role in this comic had been telegraphed from miles away: it was clear from the covers that he was going to destroy Beetee, from Tolvan’s summons that he would question her, and from the nature of the spores themselves that he would interact with them. The interaction with the spores was possibly for that reason a tad disappointing - in the end, they were little more than a way to keep him distracted so Sana could rescue Tolvan. After having seen the spores project images of beloved dead people from the minds of its potential victims, one might have expected a Padmé-shaped variation on that trick - but nope, the spores unwisely tried to kill him, only to be repelled by his suit as one might expect, then destroyed with the Dark Side and a bunch of his characteristic burns, as one might also expect. His final line, “You bore it [it = the darkness]”, is kind of savage if he meant “you bore me” in the sense of “you are boring and not worth my time”, but I was left wondering whether he instead meant “you bore the darkness” in the sense of “to suffer, endure” or “to create, bring forth”. I do think it’s interesting that he spoke of the “darkness” as of himself, that he spoke so impersonally.

Vader’s interaction with the spores was also interesting in another sense - it gave him room to claim that the spores represented mere biological “urge” whereas he by implication represented control, control of the Force (life) with his “will” - that’s free will discourse right there. And it contrasts notably with the very first panel of the comic, where Aphra tells Tolvan that Vader “won’t stop. You have to understand that. He won’t tire. He won’t forgive. He won’t forget. He doesn’t know how.” That “he doesn’t know” suggests compulsion, determinism, at very least a lack. One could unpack that in cool ways.

EDIT: Vader’s decision not to murder Tolvan but have her sent to the Executor for further interrogation has been beautifully analyzed by @glompcat - I very much like the reading that it represents the very opposite of mercy, the best form of torture at his disposal - possibly also a form of paranoia, a desire to make certain that only Tolvan was ever told, that Aphra has no other lovers out there he should be tracking

Another notable Vader moment: while he considers it “likely” that Tolvan is telling the truth, that Aphra is dead, he isn’t convinced (because he knows her too well? because he senses her?), and thus sends the jail back onto its collision course with the planet. “Let it fall”, he says, which is very meta for him. Aphra being knocked out / unconscious when the collision takes place, he seems convinced that she dies in that moment, telling his RA-7 droid (I think?) to mark her as deceased - I don’t know if that’s what they’re called, but it’s the same sort of droid sent to Lyra Erso in the DV Annual, warning her that the Death Star would create a terrible world for her daughter.

Final minor detail: Vader wanted Tolvan sent to his “chambers” for interrogation, probably because she knows too much - still, I loved it as a character moment, because doesn’t it tell you everything about Vader that he would consider his personal rooms an appropriate location for an interrogation?

Triple-Zero and Aphra referred to as “lovebirds” may just reflect Evazan’s sick sense of humor - “you deserve each other” - but it also calls back to #19 in a striking way, where Trip tells Aphra that “love is murder”. The coming arc certainly seems to be shaping up into Evazan’s (lbr, Evazan is the stand-in for Spurrier) experiment to measure degrees of evil by twisting Lona’s mantra - “evil’s just a measure of how much your choices take away other people’s” - from something figurative, regulative, aimed towards guiding future actions to something literal, reductive, aimed at classifying the past. If Triple-Zero represents “programmed evil”, Aphra has yet to reveal whether her worst behavior is “intrinsic” (biological) or something she “picks up” (cultural). But Triple-Zero’s line about love confuses such neat categories, and I hope that what lies ahead is messy indeed.

#wednesday spoilers #star wars spoilers #chelli lona aphra #marvel doctor aphra #doctor aphra #si spurrier #tam posla #cornelius evazan #sana starros #magna tolvan #triple zero #darth vader #star wars comics #sw: comics #star wars comics spoilers

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judgeanon · 6 years

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A SHORT HISTORY OF FEMALE JUDGES IN JUDGE DREDD FROM 2012 TO 2015

Seemingly satisfied with having thoroughly destroyed Mega-City One and making Dredd horribly responsible for and uncharacteristically powerless during all of it, John Wagner let go of the reins of 2000AD’s flagship character after “Day of Chaos”, leaving the strip in the hands of a new crop of writers who’d waste no time in staking their territory. First with an absolute tour de force of storytelling, and later with epics of their own, filled with supporting casts either handpicked or created by themselves, these writers have carved their own place in the strip by exploring the themes and characters most interesting to each other.

Speaking of characters, the most important development of this era as far as this series is concerned is the return of Judge Hershey to the Chief Judge’s seat. Ostensibly brought back to form an interim administration while the city gets back on its feet, Hershey would end up staying far longer than anticipated, mostly on account of there being nobody else willing and able to take on the monumental responsibility. Least of all, Dredd himself. More on that… right away, actually.

(Previous posts: 1979 to 1982 - 1982 to 1986 - 1986 to 1990 - 1990 to 1993 - 1993 to 1995 - 1995 to 1998 - 1998 to 2001 - 2001 to 2004 - 2004 to 2007 - 2007 to 2009 - 2009 to 2012. Cover art by Cliff Robinson)

We hit the ground running with “Bullet to King Four”, by Al Ewing and Henry Flint (prog 1803, October 2012) a prologue to the year’s first epic. Back in the driver’s seat of a city dangling from a cliff, Chief Judge Hershey is already hard at work. During an interim council meeting that includes Dredd, Judge Stalker and new Wally Squad acting chief Judge Folger (Judge Hollister is mentioned as being MIA, her cover blown during Chaos Day), she reveals her plan to merge Justice Dept’s various units into larger divisions as a way to consolidate their beleaguered forces. She also introduces, to Dredd’s immediate disgust, a new head of Undercover Division and obvious source of future trouble: Judge Carolyn Bachmann.

Bachmann had been introduced in a Megazine story set during Tour of Duty called “The Family Man” by Ewing and Leigh Gallagher (Megs 312-313, July 2011), where she was hinted to be the secret head of Justice Dept’s Black Ops Division, introduced years ago in Si Spurrier’s “Dominoes.” An incredibly shrewd, cunning and manipulative woman, Bachmann clashed with Dredd over unsanctioned killings in the mutant townships, but he was ultimately unable to gather enough evidence to go after her in any official way. In fact, during “Bullet…”, Hershey directly references having heard Dredd’s accusations, but stands by her decision to keep Bachmann around. And then we get three of the most savage panels in the history of the strip:

Oof.

Clearly, the good old days of the Dredd/Hershey team are over. Or at least on life support. There’s definitely a lot to be said about Hershey’s words here, starting from the fact that she’s unequivocally, absolutely, 100% right. Dredd has proven, again and again, that he has extremely little patience or desire to deal with the logistical consequences of his decisions. The clearest example of this is back during “Mutants in Mega-City One”, when Dredd arm-twisted his way through the entire Council of Five, but then grew tired with all the politicking he himself started and left them to deliberate it on their own. It was Hershey’s cunning and willingness to stay the course that saved the repeal then.

And then there’s the resignation thing. This is something that Hershey’s not only had to deal with twice (first in “Total War”, then in “Mutants...”), but she was also there when Dredd did resign and eventually came back, during McGruder’s second term. She knows, arguably better than anyone alive, that Dredd is a judge and could never be anything else. What’s interesting is that this time, she doesn’t hesitate to call his bluff. While before, Hershey would’ve been more open to cooperation and second opinions, now she’s stuck doing triage for a half-dead city. And the last thing she needs is Dredd’s constant small picture problems meddling with her attempts at saving what’s left of the big picture, a responsibility that Dredd is staunchly reluctant to take as long as there’s someone else available to do it.

But although Hershey is right in her assessment of Dredd’s mindset, Dredd is likewise right in his assessment of Bachmann’s intentions. In fact, it’s even suggested at the story’s end that Hershey and Bachmann might be working together, which, given Hershey’s penchant for secret operations during her first reign, isn’t entirely unfounded from an in-universe perspective. Par for the strip’s course, nobody is entirely right. But despite the particulars of the story, the key element of “Bullet…” is how it has come to define Dredd and Hershey’s relationship for the last six-odd years.

Following such a strong start, we have “Asleep”, by Rob Williams and Mark Harrison (progs 1804-1805, idem), about a sov sleeper agent being reactivated by accident and gunning for the Chief Judge. The end result is an unabashed Hershey-in-peril scene, complete with her staring down the barrel of a gun on her knees and Dredd saving her life with some quick talking. So bit of a disappointment after the previous story, but hopefully it won’t become a trend or anything. Also of note: yet another redesigned female med-judge.

Then we get to the first epic of this new post-Wagner era, “Trifecta”. Which, in my opinion, is one of the strongest and smartest uses of 2000AD’s anthology format in storytelling since “The Dead Man”. Even in collected form it’s still not quite as interesting as it was reading it in the progs, and that’s because it is formed by three different series by three different creative teams that all started independently, and were only revealed to be different parts of a same story one third into it. Now, because I’m a stickler for the self-imposed rules of this series of articles (and certainly not because I’m a lazy bastard), I’ll focus only on the Dredd portion of it: “The Cold Deck”, by the returning team of Ewing and Flint (progs 1806-1811, October-November ‘12).

The story starts with the news that Judge Folger has been found dead in rather grisly circumstances, and to make matters worse, she’d also taken an important file from Wally Squad’s computers and erased all copies before dying -- a file so top secret, nobody knows what it is. Dredd suspects Bachmann, and Buell, former head of the SJS, agrees, further suggesting that she’ll use the scandal to prompt a reorganization, strengthen her position and eventually become Chief Judge herself. Which of course, doesn’t sit well with Dredd at all.

We’re also introduced to Judge Estrella, Bachmann’s partner in crime. A psi-judge, she spends most of the story mentally spying on Dredd on her boss’ behalf. Bachmann is not one to leave anything to chance.

Dredd tracks the file down but intentionally fails to stop it from being sold to someone off-world, where it’s revealed to be a list of every Wally Squad judge in operation. For this, Hershey summons Dredd to her office in an episode that picks right up where “Bullet...” left off, in more ways than one. Opening with Hershey having a flashback to the final pages of “The Judge Child Quest” during a budget meeting with Judge Maitland (who’s also hinted at being part of the epic’s underlying plot), she’s left alone with Dredd. The chapter, set almost entirely from Hershey’s perspective, is an exceptionally sharp bit of writing that segues flawlessly from plot to character development and then right back to plot with notable ease, comfortably aided by Flint peppering the pages with tight close-ups that convey a feeling of claustrophobic closeness between the two judges.

On one hand, we find out that Hershey was fully aware of Bachmann’s underhanded tactics, having made good use of her advice in the past, and wanted her in the Council as a way to get her out in the open and hopefully find something more solid to arrest her for. For the sake of the city, Hershey is willing to give an ambitious spymaster just enough rope to hang herself with, while Dredd would prefer to just hang her himself. But now, both Dredd and Hershey find themselves playing different games but not trusting each other enough to let the other in on them.

And on a deeper level, we get to see the differences between Hershey and Dredd’s conceptions of what it means to be Chief Judge, which is where the flashback comes in. After all, it was Dredd who refused to bring Krysler back to Mega-City One, espousing the notion that the Chief Judge had to be incorruptible. Hershey notes that Dredd idolizes the position of Chief, often leading him to stand in harsh judgment of the men and women who have taken it in the past. Indulging in a bit of armchair psychology, I feel like a lot of it has to do with Dredd’s relationship with the closest he had to a biological father: Judge Fargo, the first and best Chief Judge, against which all others have to be compared. And even if Fargo proved to be more human than it seemed, his myth and Dredd’s indoctrination have created an impossible set of standards in the latter’s mind that nobody else is able to live up to.

But Dredd has never been Chief Judge. Hershey has. Twice. If Dredd knows what the position should be, Hershey knows what it is. And she has no qualms in admitting that it comes with a hefty amount of compromise, subterfuge and even corruption. She laments the loss of her ideals, some of which we’ve been first-hand witnesses to over the years, but still proves to have the good of the city as her ultimate goal at all times. In fact, her attempt at ousting Bachmann is likened to her “victory” over Judge Edgar during her first reign. But in an even more personal level that has very little to do with the current situation, Hershey is shown to be wounded by Dredd’s lack of trust in her, when she trusted him enough to be kicked out of office for him. Dredd’s narrow focus on his vision of what the Chief Judge and the city should be makes him willfully blind to the compromises needed to fulfill it and to the sacrifices others make for believing in him. And Hershey, who has already given everything save her life for him once, is officially through taking his stomm.

And on a personal (for me) note, having such an exceedingly layered, compelling relationship between two estranged former friends without any romantic tension at all is one of the reasons I absolutely love Judge Dredd.

Things escalate pretty quickly after that. Bachmann is forced to execute her plan sooner than expected due to the Wally Squad list being a fake used to lure her out and ruin her scheme to create a shiny new Mega-City reserved for indoctrinated citizens with the assistance of an insane shark-headed (that’s not an euphemism, he literally has a shark’s head) business mogul. Her black ops troops start taking over the Hall of Justice, and she herself beats up and guns Dredd down, but he’s promptly saved by Maitland, who also kills Estrella in the process. This all sets up the stage for the last episode of the epic, the titular “Trifecta”, by Al Ewing, Simon Spurrier, Rob Williams and drawn (gorgeously) by Carl Critchlow (prog 1812, December 2012).

With all the conspiracy and most of the character bits out of the way, the conclusion is a very two-fisted action affair that includes an honest-to-grud flashback cameo by Chief McGruder of all people, a hilariously uncomfortable one-panel reunion between Dredd and Galen DeMarco (who’d been featured in Spurrier’s portion of the story), and one of the all-time greatest Hershey panels:

So with Dredd finally fessing up to knowing about Bachmann’s plans and Hershey admitting that she underestimated their scope, all that’s left is dealing with the mastermind herself. Like any good final boss, Bachmann proceeds to beat the crap out of everyone, including lobbing a stun grenade at Hershey to get her down on all fours which is awkwardly similar to the end of “Sleeper” up there. But in the end, she gets killed from behind by Judge Smiley, a more-secret-than-secret black ops judge who’d been brought in as a countermeasure by Judge Griffin after Cal’s reign, to prevent something like that from ever happening again. Hershey is understandably upset to learn there’s been a presumed-dead spy living in the walls of the Chief Judge’s office for the last 20 years, and berates him for not coming out for any other previous crisis and Dredd for not trusting her. So although the day is saved, it wasn’t without damage, both inside and out.

To Dredd’s credit, however, he’s not a bastard to everyone in this story.

What’s especially notable about “The Cold Deck” is the sheer breadth of roles in display for its female characters. The antagonist, the main side protagonist, the sidekick, the antagonist’s sidekick, even the catalyst for the story itself are all female, plus a handful of background judges in the final chapter. In many ways, this story is the end result of all the past years of development for female judges in the strip. Women encompass all possible roles, from minor to major, from incidental to fully developed, and on both sides of the conflict. By comparison, the other two parts of the story have either no female characters (”Saudade”) or only DeMarco in a very secondary role (”Jokers to the Right”). Meanwhile, the many female characters in "The Cold Deck” are all established characters with different degrees of development, none of which were created for this story except for Estrella. And while it can be argued that it’s astonishingly easy to introduce new characters in Dredd, the fact that a major storyline can encompass such a wide variety of female characters in an organic way still speaks volumes of the people behind it.

After such a whopper story we get a chance to catch our breaths with a Judge Hughes doing sidekick duties in prog 1818’s “Witch’s Promise”, by Alan Grant and David Roach (February 2013) and then it’s right back into the fray with 1820-1822’s “Wolves”, by Michael Caroll and Andrew Currie (idem). The story concerns Dredd and Hershey’s efforts to stop a wave of violence against sov-born citizens after Chaos Day. When things come to a head, Hershey orders all citizens with roots in East-Meg to be taken to a massive internment camp, and then repatriated by the sov block in exchange for much needed food rations, a plan that Dredd is adamantly against. When the citizens refuse to be moved, Dredd proposes relocating them to Mega-City Two instead.

So we can see how Ewing’s character development threads have been picked up by Carroll: Dredd’s increasingly humanistic streak clashes with Hershey’s cold, pragmatic worldview, and in the end it’s Dredd who suggests the solution. At times it reads like a modernized version of much, much older stories where Dredd suggests a straightforward solution to a complicated situation (“Bob’s Law”, anyone?) but I’d argue that the wider context upon which it happens and the decision to let these problems become longer plotlines instead of isolated incidents all conspire to create some annoying quibbles, at least for me. But more on that later.

The story continues in “Cypher”, by Carroll and Iñaki Miranda (1824-1825, March ‘13), where Hershey and Dredd have a meeting with a soviet envoy and his bodyguard, Judge Caterina Pax, to discuss their reneging on the deal. The meeting is almost immediately broken up by a sniper who wounds Hershey and is driven off by Dredd and Pax. With the sov judge’s assistance, Dredd manages to kill the sniper, who turns out to be a cyborg hired by the envoy to kill Hershey for not quite clear reasons, and Pax expresses her desire to defect to MC-1, netting us our first new recurring female judge of this period.

Speaking of new recurring female judges, Psi-Judge Hamida returns in “Suicide Watch”, written by Gordon Rennie and Emma Beeby, and drawn by Paul Davidson (1826-1829, April ‘13). The first Dredd story written by a woman, it features Hamida having a bit of an Anderson/Corey moment, hallucinating a chat with her dead imam over halal hot dogs and feeling the weight of all the dead citizens killed by the Chaos Bug. She links up with Dredd after having a psi-flash, and together they go on the hunt for a potential suicide cult. But things get complicated when Hamida reveals that there’s a jinn -- a supernatural entity who erases people from existence and history behind it, and then even more complicated when Dredd finds out Hamida has been a suicide risk herself since Chaos Day. Ultimately, Hamida perseveres and beats the jinn, saving both Dredd and the day in a rare case of Dredd playing sidekick.

Carroll returns with PJ Holden in tow for “The Forsaken” (1830-1835, June ‘13) which features no less than five female cadet judges, each one with full names and in one case a big secret. Lori Cassano, Madison Echavez, Cheryl Tanuma, Angela Sorvino and Jessica Paris are all part of a group of cadets left for dead after Chaos Day who, feeling abandoned by Justice Dept., made a run for it. The story is told mostly in flashback as Dolman and Dredd track each surviving member, some of which are terribly wounded, and eventually manage to find Paris, who is then revealed to be a clone from Fargo’s DNA strain, effectively making her a female Dredd. Dolman brings her back to the city, with the added complication that she’s carrying the child of one of the other survivors of the incident.

The main hook of “The Forsaken” is getting to see a group of would-be judges giving in to absolute despair, their training falling apart under the strain of an extreme situation and how they form bonds and relationships between each other. While we’ve seen female judges “give in” to their humanity more than once, it rarely comes accompanied by dereliction of duty, and this one has it en masse. Unfortunately, far as I know neither Paris nor her child have appeared again so far, so we’ve yet to see what a fully-fledged female Dredd can look like.

Up next, a Judge Lawadski meets a gory end in Rob Williams and Trevor Hairsine’s “Skulls” (1836, idem) and we check in on Judge Beeny in John Wagner and Dave Taylor’s “Wastelands” (1837-1841, July ‘13). She only makes two short cameos in here, but we find out that she’s been taking a page from Dredd’s book and keeping busy to stop herself from brooding. Interestingly enough, Dredd suggests that she take a break, noting that she’s “going to have to deal with it sometime” and that, if she really wants to change things, she’s going to have to do it “from the inside.”

That last comment in particular is interesting, as it sets up a plotline that Wagner will eventually bring to the Megazine while also staying true to Dredd’s characterization. Dredd, like Beeny, wants Justice Dept to change, but he remains reticent to go in and do it himself. And now that Hershey’s been compromised, he’s putting all his chips on Beeny, making sure that she doesn’t burn herself or become too attached to the streets. Dredd even sugars her up a little, off-handedly noting that she’s one of their best judges. Of course, Wagner being Wagner, this is all conveyed in about eight panels and less than twelve lines of dialogue, all book-ending a completely unrelated plot. In other words, a grand study in character development economy.

Carl Critchlow comes back to art duties in the Rob Williams-written “Scavengers” (1842-1843, August ’13), which sees Dredd travel underwater to the submerged ruins of Bachmann’s new Mega-City. The story features a Judge Chen who sacrifices herself in a fight against a giant mutated squid in order to keep the mission a secret and also a rather handsome Chief Judge Hershey appearance. We have a Judge Bova in Wagner and Ben Willsher’s “Bender” (1845-1849, September ’13) and Judge Pax returns as one of the stars of Michael Carroll and Paul Davidson’s “New Tricks” (1850-1854, October ’13). After an in-depth screening, she has been allowed to join judges from several other Mega-Cities (including the son of Irish judge Joyce, from “Emerald Isle”) as part of a transfer program to pad out the city’s drained forces.

Pax is shown to be exceedingly competent from the get-go, and the story is even narrated entirely from her journals, through which we learn, among other things, that Dredd seems to have taken a slight shine to her. The main plot involves a Judge Gwendolyn Kilgore, who’s returned from taking the Long Walk into the Undercity to ask for help in taking down a mythical Troggie gang boss called the Goblin King. Fairly standard action strip fare, mostly used to showcase Pax’s skills and to introduce Joyce. But it is certainly interesting to read the former’s thoughts on Dredd and MC-1 in general.

Hershey comes back for another round of workplace awkwardness in “Prey”, by TC Eglington and Karl Richardson (1855-1857, November ’13), although she seems to have grown accustomed enough to crack jokes about it. And that leaves us right at the doorstep of the first of a three-part epic by Rob Williams and Henry Flint: “Titan”.

This first part, which ran from progs 1862 to 1869 (January-February, 2014), kicks off with the news that all contact has been lost with the judges’ penal colony in the eponymous moon of Titan. Without an army to bring any possible rebellions to heel and unwilling to destroy the whole colony before getting all the facts, Hershey sends Dredd and a team of space marines to Titan to recon the place and see what’s going on in there. But after a seriously messed up landing and a couple of betrayals, Dredd finds himself alone and at the mercy of the masterminds behind the convicts’ uprising: former Chief Judge Sinfield, and former Wally Squad Judge Aimee Nixon.

Nixon, of course, was one of the main characters of Williams’ own Low Life serial. An undercover judge on the edge, she eventually quit the department and joined the Hondo City Yakuza in a bid to save her sector from a gang war, but was brought back by her partner, Dirty Frank, and put in an iso-cube for a debriefing, her intel supposedly keeping her safe from Titan. But after Chaos Day, her and several others were shipped there anyway, breaking their deal and leaving her even more embittered and vengeful. Her appearance here is quite the surprise, but makes sense considering the creative team. As Williams’ time became more focused on the main Dredd strip, more characters from Low Life would begin appearing there in guest spots. We’d already seen a hint of that in the last epic.

Back in the plot, once she realizes who she’s got in her hands, Nixon begins negotiating with Hershey. Unlike the last revolt (“Inferno”, all the way back in part four of our retrospective) the inmates here only want to be given Titan as an independent colony. But meanwhile, Nixon has also begun torturing Dredd, trying to break him down to make the man underneath the stoneyface come to the light in hope that his desire for revenge will overcome his loyalty to the law. It’s all a bit “The Killing Joke”, as Nixon seems intent on proving that every judge, even the toughest of them all, hides a human being inside, full of human desires and emotions -- just like she had.

But ultimately, Dredd proves to be too tough a nut to crack, and even when the only survivor of the marines sabotages the colony and Aimee and co are forced to evacuate towards Enceladus, Dredd still refuses to destroy their escape ships, ruining Aimee’s plan to destroy him by making him break the law. The former judges escape, Dredd survives to fight another day, and everything works out alright… for now. Overall, “Titan” is a fairly intense start that goes to some surprising places, but it also does rely a bit too much on a foregone conclusion, which is Dredd not choosing revenge. It’s also pretty funny that this makes it two epics in a row that include a scene of a female judge antagonist arguing with Hershey over a monitor. Wonder if that will be the real trend?

Also of note: Flint seems to have some trouble keeping Hershey’s eye color consistent, since they were blue back in “The Cold Deck.” Or maybe she just has a box of contacts.

We take a breather with a Judge Sisulu side-kicking it up in “Squirm!” (Carroll and Nick Dyer, 1870-1872, February ’14) and then we’re back with Williams and Flint for prog 1873’s “Fit” (March ’14). An epilogue to “Titan”, the story has Hershey send Gerhart, an SJS judge with an axe to grind who was with Dredd during the ill-fated mission, to check on Dredd for any lasting side effects of his experience on the colony. The most interesting part of this one-off for our subject is the very last page, where Gerhart notes that, owing to her history with Dredd, Hershey is ultimately ready to follow him anywhere despite this ongoing cold war between them, which zeroes in on a particular wrinkle in their relationship. For all their mutual posturing and disagreements, ultimately both Dredd and Hershey are fueled by a strong sense of duty towards the city. But while Hershey is worried by its continued day-to-day survival, Dredd is increasingly driven by his vision of a fairer, more human society. In an overly simplified nutshell, Hershey cares about the city, but Dredd cares more about the citizens. And despite her barely being present in it, the next story is one of the strongest examples of this seemingly irreparable schism.

Running in progs 1874-1878 (April ‘14), “Mega-City Confidential” marks the return of John Wagner to the strip, accompanied by Colin MacNeil. A delightfully bleak conspiracy procedural, it ends with the reveal that Justice Department has been taking advantage of the post-Chaos Day rebuilding projects to install covert surveillance equipment in millions of homes, accumulating information that is then parsed by human operators to seek out any signs of criminal activity that may necessitate a not-so-random house search. But when one of those operators escapes and turns whistleblower, Dredd is forced to defend the secrecy of a project he himself had grave misgivings about, calling it “a rare mistake” from Hershey. And once the secret is out, public outcry forces Justice Dept to roll the project back, but not before jailing the operator and probably having the journalist responsible for the leak murdered. Light reading, this ain’t.

That sounds familiar. Also, while not named, this might be Judge Stalker.

On its own, the story works as evidence of Dredd’s growing disgust with the dehumanization inherent to the judicial system, and his own discomfort as a cog within a machinery that seems increasingly prone to falling into these excesses. As such, Hershey’s error of judgment is mostly an afterthought, but I do find it’s interesting to put it within context. The Chaos Bug attack, for example, relied heavily on privacy and subterfuge, so it’s easy to see why Hershey, who’s trying to keep a dying city alive, would be tempted to go forward with something -- anything that could prevent something like that from happening again. It’s a steep change from when Hershey was considered the most liberal of all the candidates for Chief Judge, but makes sense given her own personal development and the circumstances of her return to the position. As she’s grown older and her situation direr, she seems much more open to sacrificing the liberties she used to champion for the sake of keeping people alive. So in a way, her character development has taken on a polar opposite route to Dredd’s.

Wagner stays a little longer for “Shooters Night” (art by John McRea, 1879-1882, May ‘14), which nets us an unnamed female judge and a small Hershey cameo at the end. Then Carroll returns with Nick Percival for “Traumatown” (1883-1887, June ‘14), a story about Dredd being haunted by a near-dead Psi’s vengeful spirit that features a veritable cavalcade of female judges: Pax and Hershey guest star alongside new Psi-Judge Lewis, and there’s even a funny little cameo by a Judge Parkhouse, clearly named after long-time 2000AD letterer and unsung heroine Annie Parkhouse. After that blowout, we get a small med-judge appearance in 1890-1891’s “Student Bodies” (Wagner and Boo Cook, July ‘14) and a new crisis for Dredd and Hershey in “Cascade” (Carroll and Paul Marshall, 1894-1899, August-September ‘14) as the Lawlords, a race of brutal alien overseers whom Dredd had already faced in a previous story, attempt to take over the city. The story features a Judge Reyer who dies trying to stop the attack early on, and unfortunately, Hershey’s role in it is mostly just glowering a lot while Dredd saves the day as usual.

Up next we have the return of Judge Beeny in Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra’s “Block Judge” (1900-1909, September-November ’14), where she assists Dredd in bringing a troublesome block to heel. But although it’s great to check on her progress as a judge, there isn’t much character development to be found here, and it’d seem Beeny is on the track to becoming another Dredd sidekick template. Wagner, however, has bigger plans for her, although as mentioned before, the big turn will happen in the Megazine.

The story also has a couple of guest appearances from Hershey, as Dredd for once acts very tactfully around her, asking for her help in keeping a couple of crime lords locked up for incredibly petty crimes until they can uncover more evidence. As usual, a common enemy does seem to unite them well enough, although Hershey can’t resist calling Dredd out a little on his criticisms. But for a moment, the old team is back together, with Hershey making sure Dredd is able to do his job as effectively as possible.

Another nameless female judge shows up in Alec Worley and Leigh Gallagher’s “End of the Road” (1911, December ’14) and the year closes with a return appearance by Judge Lewis in Carroll and Karl Richardson’s “The Ghost of Christmas Present” (prog 2015, idem). And if things sound like they’re finally settling down a little, don’t worry, because our last stop of this post features the biggest return of them all...

“Dark Justice” (progs 2015-1921, January-March 2015) was famously born out of artist Greg Staples’ desire to paint a classic Dark Judges story. And although John Wagner had admitted to basically having run out of ideas for them, he was happy to go back in after seeing Staples’ test sketches. The end result is a visually stunning mini-epic with an otherwise fairly standard plot, as Dredd and Psi-Judge Anderson team-up to hunt down Judge Death and his pals onboard a deep space colony ship. Not much to say character-wise about this one, as both Dredd and Anderson seem to revert back to their early 80s action hero selves, filling the story with wisecracks and one-liners as they batter the fearsome foursome. Anderson does get to shine pretty brightly on this one, pulling Judge Fire’s spirit out of Dredd’s mind and revealing that her past experiences with Judge Death have allowed her to develop a slight immunity to his powers. In the end, the superfiends are ejected and left drifting in space while our heroes await a rescue, and there’s not really much else to say.

One thing that is noteworthy is that Staples used model and cosplayer Lauren Integra Fairbrook as his model for Anderson in “Dark Justice”. Which makes sense, considering she’s the official Anderson model for Planet Replicas and has featured in the Judge Minty and Strontium Dog: Search/Destroy fan shorts. In fact, there’s even a reference to an “Lauren Integra Cosplay Ground” in “Mask of Anarchy”, a previous Dredd story.

And as an extra bit of trivia, Planet Replicas’ official Dredd model is… Greg Staples himself.

In our next episode: two epics! Two thousand progs! And... The End?

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kierongillen · 7 years

Text

Writer Notes: The Wicked + The Divine Christmas Annual #1

Spoilers, obv.

There's a backbone of Specials which I consider essential to WicDiv's plot. This is one of the main reasons we've ended up putting the Specials trade into the schedule before the last trade in the series rather than after it – as fractally as WicDiv is structured, this is information you should know before the end rather than after it.

They also work off a weird time-switched aspect – so they're read at the time of publication (for single readers) and also at the latter point in the story (for trade readers). In other words, they're revealing different information and to different import depending on whether you read them as they're released or as they're collected.

Which is an interesting challenge.

The Christmas Annual is the first Special which doesn't work like this. Looking at the schedule, we thought it healthier to add an extra month to the gap between arcs. The next arc is six issues, as is the one after that. We decided to add another special, and then saw what would be fun to do.

This was a boon for me. The problem is never not having enough material, y'know? The difference between something I'd like to do and something that is essential I do is narrow. Jamie had the idea of going back to periods we skipped and showing some of their key moments. I initially kicked against it a little, but when the thing I was trying proved too hard to make work, it seemed the simplest thing to do for me, and seemed a cute gift to the fans in a year that's been pretty fucking brutal.

(That we rarely get happier than bittersweet speaks to me, really. All happiness is tinged with sadness. “I love you” is married to “and one day we will all be dead”.)

But it was also a fun time. We got a gang of our favourite people together and did a bunch of short stories. Most of all, I got to write a bunch of people I haven't written for a while. I've missed them.

How were the stories chosen? Rapidly! The main limitation was not choosing anything which would spoil anything in Imperial Phase: Part Two. The Specials are designed to be spoiler-free for any trade which isn't released when it's released. We also wanted to show a bunch of kissing and similar social activities, as for a book which has as much emotional and sexual stuff driving the characters, there's relatively little on panel.

I wrote 'em, showed them to the gang, and then we worked out who we could ask to draw them. I was expecting I would remove several of them, but they all ended up going in, with tweaks in some cases in the story's focus. In terms of the characters selected, I definitely paid attention to characters who had relatively little screen time – so, Lucifer, Inanna and Tara.

Jamie's Cover

Using a bought Photoshop filter, this actually a lot more work than Jamie was expecting. It is wonderful though. It is to my eternal regret we never actually arranged it as a Christmas Merchandise thing. This is a delight to me. Really, we're aware that Jamie doesn't do many playful covers, so this was an opportunity we grasped with both hands. For all the iconic drama, there's also a playfulness to WicDiv that doesn't always show up on the covers.

Kris Anka's Cover

It's a Christmas Annual in the mode of a British Annual – in that these are annuals released at Christmas rather than having Christmas as a major theme per se. Anyway, despite all that, Inanna and Baal in hot make-out beneath the mistletoe is an absolute joy. I am pleased we get to do this.

IFC

The main editorial note to Designer Sergio was “Tackier! Tackier!”

The photo was taken in North London cocktail bar “Every Cloud.” Jamie is probably drinking some manner of Old Fashioned. I think I'm drinking some kind of Buttered Rum-containing cocktail. Chrissy draped the only decorations she could find over our heads.

1-6

Kris Anka! Jen Bartel helped out on inks on this as well, due to time constraints. Kris is currently on a Marvel Exclusive, so we had to get permission to do this story. Marvel said yes, so thanks to them enormously.

Yes, if you examine the timeline, Valhalla was certainly erected quickly. And yes, “Erected quickly” is a major theme in this story.

It's one of the lighter stories in the issue – obviously delineating what we know about Baal to this moment says a lot, and the same for Inanna.

I tried to write the scripts to the artists, but I also was interested in leaving it open for them to express things in their own ways. Generally speaking, I let the artists choose how to show the characters in a sex scene, as I want to see their own interpretation. It was a delight to see Kris go as far as he did here.

We did wonder whether we'd be okay with showing hard cocks. We're told that hard cocks are fine, but ejaculation is the problematic limit. I'm glad it's not an issue. This is a hot scene, but it's primarily a romantic one.

I love what Matt is doing with the panel on page 5 – the pinks and purples of Inanna here.

Baals expression on the first panel is very funny, as is the confidence in panel 3 of it.

7-8-9-10

There's seven stories, but several were just two pages. We realised the best way to do it would be to group the shorter of the long ones with the short ones so all collaborators get 5-6 pages each. This makes it much easier with trade royalties down the line, and organising 5 artists (plus colourists and flatters) is a significantly easier one than organising 7 (and their associated collaborators).

This is the first of the stories coloured by Tamra Bonvillain. I've never worked with Tamra before, but we loved her work, approached her, and she said yes. Thanks for joining us on this journey.

The artist here is Rachael Stott, who is probably best known for her Doctor Who work, but is about to do Motherland for Vertigo with Si Spurrier, which looks excellent.

There was quite a lot of careful balloon work here, to try and guide the eye and provide the necessary exposition (or really, reminders – all this is building upon or just showing events that have been alluded to earlier.) The eye-guiding is key – for example, due to a minor quirk of the first two panels, the Shard is hidden by the column which means that the view in the second panel feels instantly wrong. We end up disguising the shard with the dialogue so it's far less noticeable.

This event is alluded to by Lucifer in issue 3 of WicDiv.

The penthouse is the one we see in issue 1, which I presume is rented by the Pantheon for their purposes.

Writing Lucifer after all this time was a pleasure. Well, pleasure may be the wrong word. She's herself, and she's always very able to show bits of herself. Lucifer says things that no one else in the cast does, which is obviously one of her huge problems.

Yes, the first panel of page 9 did make me think of an OBJECTION! style WicDiv Phoenix-Wright-esque game.

The panel is also a place where we really had to do the work to put this in continuity – the obvious assumption would be that Baal is pissed off about Lucifer sleeping with Sakhmet, which is only really a minor cause of WTF-ness.

That Lucifer explicitly fucked with Baal and Inanna was hinted at early in WicDiv and made explicit in WicDiv 23. Inanna didn't consider the relationship exclusive, as he doesn't see why anyone would automatically assume a romantic relationship is exclusive. Inanna's great weakness is not always realising that everyone is like him.

The “You're a bad person” ties off why Lucifer and Sakhmet never slept together many times, also mentioned in issue 3. Sakhmet, I suspect, just doesn't like the complications and drama. She is deeply averse to complications.

The last three panels are classic comedy steady-angle shots. That the sprinklers aren't visible led to adding an alarm sound at lettering, to avoid the possible assumption that Baal made it rain indoors or something.

Reading this I find myself thinking about Lucifer in the Special versus Lucifer in the Annual – in the sense that we're seeing her much more humanly, which is leaning into what makes her comic (and awful). The last three panels are not ones you could imagine in The Faust Act, as seen through Laura's star eyes. Nice fucked off expression in the last panel from Rachael.

11-12-13-14-15

Chynna Clugston Flores is just one of my indie comic crushes. Blue Monday is basically one of those key links between 90s and 00s comics. Bryan Lee O'Malley pitched Scott Pilgrim as Blue Monday meets Dragon Ball Z. We pitched Phonogram and Blue Monday meets Hellblazer. She's a wonder.

As such, writing for her was a dream, and I was explicitly writing for her. While this is much more rigid in terms of panel shapes than Chynna would write for herself (the steady angle on the two people in the front seat is very much me trying to write a sort of claustrophobic talking heads kind of set-up) but I'm really exploring a very Chynna type place.

I've been thinking of Dionysus as a “Umar” for a while. When thinking up Dio, the image of writer Umar Ditta leading the Thought Bubble dancefloor was definitely in my mind, and I thought it'd be fun if they share a name, despite being very different dudes. (Not least that Umar could bench Dionysus now.) I asked Umar, and he said yes, so Umar he is. His first comic Untethered has just come out, and is well worth your attention.

This is the second sort of story in the special. One is just showing some key things which impacted the rest of the book, which were usually sexy funtimes. The other was showing some key relationships in the pre-pantheon lives. We've said that Dio was a friend of Baph and Morrigan, but never actually showed what that meant. It was good to get it here.

For those studying the timeline, this is the same day as Hazel become Amaterasu. It would also be the same day Dio takes a photo of Morrigan, and Cameron sits in the tunnel waiting for Morrigan. Busy day!

If I call out my fave Chynna moments, we're going to be here forever. Cameron with his sign on the rain is a joy. Honestly, this is such an odd thing – it makes me imagine what a Blue Monday set in the Midlands would be like.

There was a panic when page 12 arrived and I thought that Chynna had (for some reason) reversed all the seating orders in the car and had the car riding on the wrong side of the road. This is obviously a disaster, because the only way this story works is the characters' speaking order is based upon where they're sitting. But then we realised that the page had been flipped in the dropbox for some reason. Phew.

The quote is from Young Avengers 13, which came out a week or two before this arrived. Yes, I know.

(The question who wrote YA13 in this universe, when Kieron Gillen's career ended with Phonogram: Rue Britannia, is open.)

Page 13 was designed to be a mood break of the lived-in autobio, and Chynna really goes for it, in terms of the leaves and the panel breaking. Not using techniques in the whole piece makes them especially meaningful when they turn up. Tamra also did wonders in the colouring, going for the spooky autumnal reds, teals and purples.

(Tamra and Matt basically split the issue near 50:50.)

This is definitely a more Morrigan way of publicising gigs rather than standing outside shitty clubs and passing out flyers.

The WHAT!? panel is everything I could have hoped for.

The “Oh god. He puns. Morrigan fucked a punner. A wet punner's in my car.” immediately made me feel that I'm trying to channel a Warren Ellis character.

The off-panel MOTHERFUCKER is also a delight.

16-17-18

Emma's one of my favourite people, but I haven't worked with her since a B-side in the second issue of Phonogram: The Singles Club, with a Kate Bush short story. (EDIT: Plus in the Young Avengers Afterparty, which I’d blanked. This is the second time that’s happened to an artist from that. Which, given the time period I was writing that, is unsurprising). So it's lovely to get back with her, and she does some of my favourite work in the Special. Do go and have a look at her Breaks, which she draws and co-writes.

When Tara has had so little panel time, trying to work out how to approach her is key – and Emma manages to find a place which is clearly her, but also informed by Tula's iconic take. Matt also brings us much of those choices to the page in the colours.

It's useful, as this story almost acts as a prequel to issue 13. It's essentially the first time Tara pitches what she wants to do to Ananke, a moment which is at least alluded to in 13.

I wrote the story originally as two pages – specifically, the last two pages. I talked about it with Editorial Assistant Katie, and she noted it's a shame we never actually see Tara happy ever. Which struck me as true, and a problem – at least in part this Special is about showing different sorts and times of happiness. So I added the first page, which is my best pitch for Tara at her most positive. This is the unspoken stuff that's under the surface in issue 13, and Tara talking about the drive is one of her main bits of happiness. I talk about how the cast are all me in different ways? Tara definitely includes the part of me which never feels better than after having written something I think is good. I've certainly done the “if get a disease which means I have six months to live, have I got time to finish writing WicDiv?” maths.

Much like issue 13, I wrote considerably more captions than are used on the first page. You write it like a diary entry and then edit to the core.

I always say that an artist can make the script their own, and that I try to write to the minimum number of panels. Of all the artists in the script, Emma's the one who added most panels. This looks great, and is very much a part of her style.

Quick call-out to Clayton in the second panel of page 17: that tiny string of notes positioned either side of those captions is beyond perfect.

The last page is all kinds of sad. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I'm pleased with how the masks work on the page.

19-20

Second Rachael story. She's an enormous Lucifer fan, so was very excited to do this.

This is as simple as the stories get, in terms of a tiny yet meaningful continuity insert. This was there already, but I felt underlining it and reminding people of it at this point in the narrative is meaningful for obvious reasons.

(I had things I wanted to do in Imperial Phase II which I never found space for – or when I did find space, felt off and wrong.)

Writing Laura captions again after all this time was definitely a thing which took a while to find again. But I liked it.

(Spangly New Thing has captions to the fore again, for various reasons, so them as a formalist element is certainly on my mind.)

21-22-23-24-25-26

This absolutely was formative Indie Crush mode. Carla Speed McNeil's Finder was one of my initial loves when I came into comics in the early 00s. It's just astounding stuff. I'd suggest starting with Mystery Story, I suspect, but there's two big omnibuses of it, and I'd recommend just getting them. She's continuing doing other Finder stories alongside her work elsewhere.

It was originally 5 pages, but Carla suggested an extra page. I'd deliberately left an extra page space in the issue, in case anyone wanted more space... and Carla grabbed it. Good work.

When writing this, I was thinking of Carla's storytelling... but I also realised that a part of Carla's storytelling is to warp and make her own. Seeing what she would do with my script was a big part. I wanted the Carla magic applied, and she did – the extra page is a big part of that.

Notice how Tamra uses the palettes to distinguish the two different settings. Eleanor in the dark and Hazel in the light seems pretty useful, right?

That Lucifer and Amaterasu were friends and knew each other were one of the elements of the background I never had a chance to really run with, for obvious reasons. In the same way as I wanted to do some Dio/Baph pre-scenes, doing a Lucifer/Amaterasu: The Early Years appealed.

H's fanart was mentioned in issue 15, I believe.

As much as it's a dual story, it's really more about Lucifer. Amaterasu may not even appear to really aware of how much she's been slighted in the story. Or maybe she is? It is Eleanor's perspective. This is also the first dialogue we've ever had as Eleanor, rather than Lucifer reporting Eleanor. The resentment and anger is so much cleaner, the saying the unsayable aspect with less glitter.

Hazel is right. Eleanor is mean.

Adding a page appealed for various reasons, but at least part of it was that it's the only in-story chance to see a Lucifer performance. There was an alternate cover in the first arc, but it's not the same – though it's probably the same performance. We've talked about her Brixton performances before, and this is there. This would be a gig that Laura saw, as previously referenced.

The last page (and final panel of page 5) is a take on a scene that's already on canon – specifically, the story as reported in the WicDiv Magazine Special.

The last-minute panic of the issue was Jamie realising we'd forgotten to have Amaterasu’s facepaint on her in the final panel, so that was a quick patch from Tamra. Phew.

The “I'm sorry” panel is A+.

As an example of the Carla Speed McNeil of it all, the last montage of shots is her addition, which brings a visual closure to the sequence.

27-28

Back with Emma Viceli, with a missing scene after issue 8. The actual core details were alluded to in issue 10, but this actually takes us there. If you remember, at this point Inanna and Baal are no longer in any way romantically involved, but fucking the best friend of someone you were with is almost always drama. The purple and red colouring seems to make that be the subtext there.

We checked Laura's age here repeatedly, to ensure she was 18 in these images. It would be actively illegal if we messed up.

Clearly my fave thing is the call back to issue 4's PLAY IT COOL gag.

This issue's structure came after all the art started coming in. It's a mix-tape curation – in terms of what's the best order to take people on a journey. Things like Kris' story being first seemed obvious – his was the alternative cover after all, featuring Inanna and Baal, which makes it a de facto lead story. That this story is furthest along in the timeline made it a suitable end, plus that we open with Inanna/Baal. The real thing is that it's a story which ends with something resembling a concluding beat. “This is going to be complicated” feels like something that ends an issue in the way that many of the stories don't. I suspect the only other credible option was Chynna's story, with Dio/Baph riding off down a motorway. What feels like it could be an ending? What feels like Closure?

IBC

The titles were all added in the last minute, when we realised the best way to actually discern which story was which for the credits was to actually give them a title.

SUMER LOVING was miscorrected to SUMMER LOVING at every stage of production, and had to be changed back every time. There is no love for Sumerian humour in the modern comic market place.

Anyway – off for the season now. The Imperial Phase II trade drops in January, followed by The Wicked + The Divine 1923 special in February and the new arc in March.

Thanks for reading.

#WicDiv #the wicked and the divine #Kris Anka #chynna clugston flores #carla speed mcneil #Rachael Stott #Emma Vieceli #tamra bonvillain #writer notes

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sportsminorityreport · 6 years

Text

New Football League updates: June 9th 2018

The XFL has announced Oliver Luck as their Commissioner. He is a very good choice for three reasons specifically valuable to the XFL.

First, he is a huge name in college football circles. He was a high profile AD with a great reputation at West Virginia and then had a high profile job with the NCAA. He was a mover and shaker in the NCAA circles. People know him. His reputation speaks for him. He brings a real level of credibility with the masses that frankly Vince McMahon did not have with the football crowd.

Want to convince football fans that the new XFL will be a sober variant of the old XFL? Hiring this guy is a good start.

Secondly, his experience is in college football. I don’t know how much Luck will help in this regard, but this is the right kind of hire considering the XFL is starting a year behind the AAF. They will likely have second choice of these post graduation players when they start.

The AAF is almost all NFL guys. (Luck spent time in NFL management, but he’s more than that. ) They have displayed a myopic NFL view. They are going to suck up a lot of the NFL training camp fodder players. Now that may or may not be an issue. The AAF is calling itself a developmental league and appears to want all of their better players to leave for the NFL.

Will they block those players from jumping to the XFL?

If they do, the XFL may have to look harder at the colleges for talent. Which brings us full circle. Having the right college minded guys could really help the XFL dig up college talent. Luck may not be a great help in this regard, but hiring guys with collegiate ties is conceptually smart.

Finally, Luck used to run the Houston Dynamos. He has experience with this XFL level of attendance sports team.

Now can you really make it work with rosters this large, at this attendance levels, and this few games...? If the model actually works, Luck is a great candidate to try to make it work.

Their competition’s --- the AAF’s --- announced Teams and Locations

The AAF has announced 7 of their 8 locations and their coaches. Here is the data from Wikipedia.

With one slot left, at least 2 of the top 3 DMA markets will not be served in year 1.

They have not signed Tim Tebow, Collin Kaepernick, or Johnny Manziel.

I am going to grade this data and see where they stand across a wide range of areas. Most of it is opinion stuff, but I’ll say why I grade them there.

Now some of this may be premature. They may chose team names for example. I am trying to only grade what work has been done.

Brand Names

First of all...the naming convention for the teams sucks. I get that soccer does this, but they are a different fan base. Football fans like team names that reference a mascot. Now the AAF may be saving that for more press conferences, but I would argue that is self defeating. You really want to announce the team names as soon as possible and start churning out revenue producing merchandise that makes fans more likely to come out to your games.

These names do nothing to excite and are hard to market, so F’s all around for wasted opportunities.

DMA “value”.

DMA is a Designated Market Area. It was used extensively in the age of broadcast media. It denotes how big of a population footprint a broadcast signal for a station in a city carries. The way to think of this is when you would buy an ad on say a Dallas TV station, you want to know what cities get that station. The country is divided into 210 DMAs. So in this regard DMA is still important for advertising as buyers want to hit a certain region.

The #1 DMA, the NYC DMA has 7.3M TV households. It is my “A+”. LA is #2 with 5.5M. They are my “A”. Chicago is third with 3.5M. “A-”. The next 7 DMAs are in the same neighborhood --- 2.4-2.9M. They are my “B” grades. The next 24 DMAs run from about .9-1.9M. They are your various “C” grade DMAs.

For the most part, NFL teams come from these markets.

The answer “why?” should be obvious.

I rate .5-.8M household DMAs (basically DMAs ranked 35-62) as “D” grade DMAs. That is, they are generally below average in pro football advertising value. Years ago when the USFL had expanded to 18, Donald Trump, owner of the New Jersey Generals, snidely commented that 4 teams should be contracted. Later ABC would tell a consulting company hired by the USFL that they would not lose any broadcasting value if the USFL contracted 4 of their teams. These are the markets where a team can be supported at the gate but they don’t have much of a TV value.

Now this is a VERY quick and dirty look. Some markets have a lot of money to spend. Some don’t. Some advertisers like specific markets. The Big 12 survives because people in the region like beer and trucks a whole lot. UT and OU sell a lot of those ad slots, but in general, the size of the market is a very relevant thing if your intent is to have TV pay you big money.

Stadium Quality

Admittedly this is a very arbitrary thing. If I was doing this properly I would visit each stadium inspecting all the facilities...How many luxury boxes? What state are they in? How much concession space is there? Is there sufficient restroom space? Are they clean? etc...

But I am thinking in terms of fan experience in general. Georgia State is using a stadium that up until a few years ago was a solid pro baseball stadium. The facilities are solid as far as fan enjoyment, but in many ways it is still half a stadium and a bit frankensteinian at that.

Feel free to question any of those grades that you want to.

Appropriate Seating.

Now this includes both the quality of the seating as well as the total capacity.

Lets be real here. The AAF doesn’t have much to sell. The USFL had a ton more. Even in year one, you had four USFL teams that could have won 6-8 games in the NFL. The AAF has no quarterbacks of note. Really their only asset to sell to fans is Steve Spurrier.

On top of that, I am getting the vibe that they will be more like the UFL than the XFL in terms of paying for talent. (By that I mean lesser salaries, not that they won’t pay them --- as the UFL ultimately failed to pay their players at the end.)

What I am saying is that the AAF will not draw old XFL numbers.

15K per team is fairly likely. With that in mind, how many of these stadiums will appear cavernous, ruining the game day experience ala the LA Express in the LA Coliseum?

If the AAF doesn’t have a plan to tarp large parts of their stadiums, I think this will kill this league.

Buy some tarps, gentlemen.

Head Coach Ticket Value

Like everyone else, I was blown away by the signing of Steve Spurrier to coach the team in Orlando. Great Hire. Spurrier has ties in the region and has the personality to press flesh (is that still an ok term to use?) to sell tickets. The dude is OLD so he may not have the energy to do a ton of that, but he will be worth his salary.

I thought the AAF would repeat that thinking with their other coaches... Not so much.

How can I put this nicely...Their other coaches are not exactly fan favorites. Some have burned bridges. Some are not media friendly. Some are stiff. And one is mostly unknown. AND none of them are especially great in their regions.

Dennis Erickson? The guy who jammed Idaho to go coach in Arizona where he was mediocre? Now I gave him some credit as he did help Utah right the boat for 3 years and legitimately has SOME value in Utah, but he’s no Spurrier....

Tim Lewis was the secondary coach in Atlanta for 4 years. If he was the coach of Atlanta, I’d get it more...

I’d understand Childress in Memphis as he has spent basically the last decade in KC and Chicago, but Atlanta? Where is the connection there?

The AAF is going to need their coaches’ brands to sell tickets. I don’t see it.

Head Coach Coaching Value

This is where things start looking up. Almost all of their coaches have some skins on the wall. Sadly almost all of those coaches look like they have fallen off a bit. Still, if everyone is a little off, maybe the fans don’t notice?

I gave poor Tim Lewis a D because we don’t KNOW that he can be good. That doesn’t mean he won’t prove to be the best of the lot.

This is about grading the apparent quality of the hires a lot more than the quality of the coaches as coaches. This is more about how well the management appears to have spent their money.

Grade so far

This is a cumulative average of how the league MANAGEMENT appears to have done so far in setting things up.

I think that really you wanted 8 B’s and no D’s. You didn’t get any B’s and you got two D’s.

I have long questioned the merit of being overly NFL-centric with your thinking in building a league to compete with the NFL and to me that comes out loud and clear with their hiring. With the exception of Rick Neuhiesel, who apparently begged to get in, these appear to be NFL guys who weren’t going to be allowed back in and an NFL assistant who maybe thought he’d never get a shot to run his own show.

At best, it appears to be NFL groupthink. At worst, it stinks of homey-hookup.

Bottom line thinking has to start at some point unless they have a lot more money backing them than I think they do. (Unlikely with the reported salaries).

It doesn’t appear that this collection of cities is going to be especially media relevant, so revenue is going to need to come from the gate. How are these coaches going to sell teams devoid of star talent?

A positive note for the AAF

It is compelling to look at the map at wiki.

There is an obvious clustering of regional teams. Now maybe...just maybe...that will lead the two regions to fall in love with the teams and experience (gasp!) travelling fans that might bump up ticket sales.

I think this may be an accidental benefit rather than a planned one.

The most likely scenario for this placement is that the AAF is trying to seal off warm weather sites. These are sun belt locations. The USFL feared bad weather destroying game day attendance. You lose a few games revenue to bad weather and it wrecks a team’s budget.

If the AAF does not have much TV money to speak of, they would share the same bad weather fear.

Additionally as the AAF and XFL both share a seemingly identical business model, this would likely force the XFL to look to other markets. The AAF picking these sites may be about forcing the XFL into more challenging locations.

I know which markets I would chose if I was the XFL and this would be a blessing.... But...If I was the XFL I wouldn’t be making a MINOR league that is Quixotically chasing the sliver of NFL fans who don’t love football enough to overlook a 2 minute protest prior to the game starting.

You think those guys are going to be loyal fans of low quality minor league football?

It seems foolish.

Just saying.

It will be interesting to see if they are too smart by half.

A final note on the XFL

The XFL has apparently reached out to 30 cities as potential sites for their 8 initial teams. Among the locations “confirmed” to have received inquiries so far are Houston, San Antonio, Cleveland, Kansas City, St. Louis, Los Angeles, and Orlando.

San Antonio is a good site for a team if the teams are not mickey mouse, less so if the league is dogged about being minor league. The fans are hungry for serious pro football to come to town, but might not come out for a truly minor league product.

Final Word

I would still love to be a consultant for either of these leagues. I think I could really help either one’s odds of survival. I have suggestions for each.

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aion-rsa · 8 years

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INTERVIEW: Spurrier Talks Legion TV Debut and His New Series Godshaper

Simon Spurrier plans on mixing equal parts deity-altering abilities, epic-level worldbuilding and social commentary in his new four-issue series “Godshaper,” illustrated by Jonas Goonface. The April-launching book published by BOOM! Studios takes place in a world where everyone has their own personal deity, except for Ennay and his fellow Shapers. That leaves them at a distinct disadvantage, but doesn’t stop Ennay from hanging out with equally partnerless god Bud and playing mind-bending music.

In addition to the new series, the writer’s also looking forward to tonight’s premiere of Fox and Marvel Television’s Legion” on FX. Spurrier saw just how interesting of a character that David Haller is, and showcased him in a starring role in the pages of “X-Men: Legacy” from 2012 to 2014. Having written Legion’s most recent adventures, and some of the only other story’s with David Haller as a lead character, he’s excited to see the new direction taken with him on the small screen.

RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Supernatural Symbiotic Spiders Run The World in Spurrier’s “Weavers”

CBR News talked with Spurrier about what makes Legion an “instantly relatable” character, constructing the world of “Godshaper,” integrating music into comics and what exactly a “Godshaper” is.

“Godshaper” #1 main cover by Jonas Goonface.

CBR News: I like a title that immediately raises a question or gets me thinking. With that in mind, what is a Godshaper?

Simon Spurrier: Haha, glad you like it. As titles go it’s definitely an eye-catcher, and — if nothing else -– hints that you’re about to enter a world unlike our own. Which, OMG, you so are.

Worldbuilding’s definitely one of the things I’ve accidentally ended up being known for — see “The Spire” or “Six-Gun Gorilla” — but the big thing I want to say up front is that this is a story about two broken vagrant outcasts who, by traveling together, complete each other. A character-led rascally buddy-comedy roadtrip, in other words. Which just happens to be set in an amazing alternate-universe.

In what ways does the universe of “Godshaper” differ than our own?

It’s a universe where every human being has a private, personal god of their very own. Like, literally present and visible, constantly in attendance. These gods serve all sorts of practical functions. Part bodyguard, part super-powered servant, part bank account, part status-symbol. They’re literally the most important parts of this society. The bigger and more powerful your god, the more important a person you are. It follows that people are really vain about what their gods look like, and what super-skills they have.

So far so odd, right? Well, it turns out that there are in fact some people — like, one in a thousand — who don’t have gods. And they lead pretty sucky lives. They’re literally incapable of participating in wealth, they have zero social status, and no super powers. These guys are at the bottom of the heap.

The one thing they can do – and nobody really understands why or how this works – is that they can reshape and reconfigure other people’s gods, like molding wet clay. A new look, a new color, a new powerset. They can barter these skills for food and shelter. The upshot is that “Shapers”, as they’re known, are constantly hated but always in demand. A true servant underclass.

“Godshaper” #1 incentive cover by Sonny Liew.

  What is the human-god relationship like for most people in this story?

Gods have two major roles, and a whole bunch of minor ones. First and foremost, your god is a sort of bank account. The bigger your god is, the richer you are. When you want to buy something you simply pray to the seller’s god: it expands, yours shrinks. So this is a very visual version of our own capitalist culture, where wealth is constantly on show and people literally worship money. Secondly, your god fills the niche that modern technology occupies in our world. Combustion, transport, lighting: anything that makes human life a little bit easier. These things simply don’t work in the Godshaper universe. The laws of physics are kaput. They broke sometime in 1958, and nobody knows why.

Luckily, the gods showed up to fill the gap. The richer you are, the bigger your god and the more super powers it has. Maybe it can starts fires, freeze things, send messages hundreds of miles, turn into a vehicle, whatever. So, again, this is capitalism writ large: wealth equals the means to get shit done. Hence, power. Naturally enough those two principles have bred a whole host of secondary cultural nuances. If the gods have replaced technology then you start to wonder what war looks like in this world. Or crime. Or sport. Or justice. Or music. Aaaand, same token, since gods have replaced wealth they quickly come to be stand-ins for showy ostentation, y’know? They’re status-symbols and fashion-accessories.

The big trick here is that if you want to change your god’s look, to keep up with the trends, or more importantly if you want to switch-out one of your god’s super powers for something more useful, then you’re gonna have to call a Shaper. So Ennay and his fellow Shapers are really just a new take on something which has been present in pretty much every human society ever: a disenfranchised and reviled but overworked underclass. They’re vital to the smooth running of the world, and without them the whole house of cards comes crumbling down. But, in order for capitalism to work successfully, these penniless pariah-slaves have to remain loathed and disempowered. Basically, the world in “Godshaper” tells us a lot about our own.

 The story follows the exploits of Godshaper Ennay and the human-less god Bud. What kind of trouble do they find themselves getting into as the series kicks off?

Ennay’s attitude towards the rest of the world is, unsurprisingly, a pretty big part of his character arc. As I mentioned, Shapers are incapable of owning money but are in constant demand for their skills. I like to think of Victorian servants, y’know? Vital to the upper-classes, but regarded as dirty and shameful and forced to use the back door. Needless to say, Shapers get a lot of shit in the normal course of their lives.

But the nature of Ennay’s skills means that he’s frequently in a position to either save or sabotage the lives of the people around him. So you can imagine the kind of scrapes he’ll get sucked into. Petty villainy versus acts of altruism. Bitterness or heroism. Criminal or crime-fighter. And bubbling-up into the foreground is a whole bunch of madness to do with organized crime, organized religion, and all-out holy war.

As for Bud — he’s a mystery. Gods literally can’t exist without worshipers. Bud should’ve faded away long ago. But the little guy seems happy enough, and isn’t in any hurry to discover how or why he’s so different. Sadly for him, the world is about to focus on that mystery very closely indeed. One of the reasons Bud and Ennay have become such close friends is that when they’re together they can just about pass for ordinary. One human, one god. The moment they’re apart, things can — and frequently do — fall apart.

“Godshaper” #1 interior page.

Music seems to be important to the characters in this story. What are the challenges of integrating an aural artform into a visual medium like comics?

Without getting too formalist and wanky about this, I’d argue comics are the perfect medium to present speculative takes on otherworldly sound. One simply switches the ear for the eye, and lets the reader’s imagination take over. Comics, remember, are already hardwired for this sort of sophisticated synesthesia; swapping time for space and sound for text with every panel transition, speech balloon and onomatopoeic sound effect. Better yet, the music featuring in this comic comes complete with a whole underground cultural scene to go with it. Hence: glorious visuals.

Super-quick history lesson, brace yourself. One of the unexpected upshots of the arrival of the gods in the late 1950s was that popular culture totally stagnated. (Yes, before you ask, literally everything in this story is commentary of one sort or another.) The world’s stuck in this endless vanilla version of a 50s aesthetic, with limp-wristed rockabilly trends and squeaky-clean stars using their gods to produce safe, middle-of-the-road, synth-muzak pop.

Luckily there’s a vibrant underground scene. It’s a counter cultural movement called “cantik.” It’s raw, chaotic, hypersexual and very angry, where performers rely on their voices and their bodies to make music — rather than their gods. As its detractors put it: “an unholy racket.” Part punk, part poetry, part jazz, part something totally new. Gatherings occur in secret, on the outskirts of bumblefuck towns in the midwest.

Ennay’s a cantik performer – a damn good one. In fact the main thrust of the series is his race to get to San Francisco to play in a big cantik festival. He spends his entire life wanting to known – and respected – for his music. But all people ever see is his godlessness. Commentary, commentary, commentary…

What made you want to create this series with Jonas?

Actually — boring answer, sorry — the seed-idea arose in isolation. One of those crazy high-concept gigs: what would it be like if the world ran on metaphysics instead of physics? What would an outcast look like in that culture? I approached BOOM!, they found Jonas. And oh holy hell, thank goodness they did. He’s kind of come out of nowhere, at least as far as my radar’s concerned. Within literally moments of starting to sketch he’d single-handedly established the look and tone of the world and its godly inhabitants.

I think he’s going to be a very important talent in this industry. “Godshaper” is one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever seen.

“Godshaper” #1 interior page.

In other comics news, “Legion” debuts this week. You wrote that character extensively in X-Men Legacy. Have you seen any of it yet?

As of writing this, no. Just the trailers and teasers, like the rest of you. Got to say I’m pretty excited, though. It looks like a wonderfully creative and — I normally hate this word, but it fits here — quirky take on some of the themes we explored in the comic. The show makers seem to be treating the material (specifically: mental unwellness) with a touch that’s both light and deep, which I fully endorse. For me the biggest gauge on its success will be whether the comedy elements constitute punching upwards or downwards.

RELATED: Spurrier Explores Legion’s Familial “Legacy”

Is it surreal seeing this character you worked on so long translated to live action?

Based on what little I’ve seen…? Honestly, no, not especially surreal. I think the human brain is exceptionally good at compartmentalizing and rationalizing fictions, so it can absorb value without tripping-up on awkward details. It’s why we don’t mind that Batman appears in a dozen different books, with different costumes and continuities, in games and LEGOs and movies and ’66 flashbacks and so on and so forth, all at once. They’re all great stories in their own right, and as readers we understand on some secret level that we’d ruin the whole lot of them for ourselves if all we ever looked for is the places they don’t match up. It’s why we don’t care that the details of the movie-Avengers don’t perfectly tally with the details of the comics Avengers, or the same character seems to have slightly different motives in their solo book versus a team book, or yadda yadda yadda.

Basically as consumers we’re sophisticated enough to accept stories on their own terms. And I think, as comics fans, we’re probably a step ahead on that too, having spent our lives performing the subconscious equivalent of pretending not to notice every time a reboot or retroboot conflicts with our understanding of a character’s life.

Which is the very long-winded way of saying that my David Haller was not precisely the same as the one who’d appeared in comics beforehand anyway. They’re linked, they share ideas and histories, they’re even abstractly the same, but they exist in separate narrative mental territories. Therefore I have absolutely no problem seeing the TV version in the same light: enjoyably linked to the comic-book work, but a clearly distinct entity.

You obviously saw plenty in the character to carry a series, but how do you think that will transfer into the world of television?

I think there’s just so much you can do with a character like David. Not just in terms of the things he can do and the plots he can generate, but the sheer volume of thematic weight he can carry. He’s a youngster with almost godlike power, whose single greatest enemy is his own brain. That’s the sort of amazing conflict-setup which works as an allegory for pretty much any struggle, internal or external, any of us has ever faced. Instantly relatable. That’s character gold.

“Godshaper” #1 interior page.

“Godshaper” #1 descends on April 12 from Si Spurrier and Jonas Goonface.

The post INTERVIEW: Spurrier Talks Legion TV Debut and His New Series Godshaper appeared first on CBR.com.

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kierongillen · 8 years

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Writer Notes: The Wicked + the Divine 25

Spoilers, obv.

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.

#WicDiv #the wicked and the divine #writer notes

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