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lennyguitarman · 2 years

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Final Reflection of the Process

The reason I decided on this track 'Uncle Timmy's Probation Number' was that I wanted to do an original, and I had performed it Live and in the studio before; but I have developed a lot since I initially wrote this song during college - technically on guitar as well as comfortability with production - and I wanted to showcase that as well as prove it to myself that I could do it. Choosing this song also ties into my SMART target of putting a band together and being in regular rehearsals, a SMART target which I achieved.

My contribution to the final products were: planning of the entire project, organising rehearsals and studio time, I didn't write the lyrics or the vocal melody however I did compose all the guitar parts, bass parts and initial ideas for the drums. The drums, bass, and second guitar parts were all changed slightly to suit the musicians playing the parts, these were welcomed changes and no compromise was made. We recorded all of the parts that were used at Small Pond Studios, in the Studio Recording I tracked all of the guitars, Toby did bass guitar, Mia did lead vocals, Lulu did backing vocals, and Tom Body did drums. I mixed and mastered the song myself with some input from my production tools tutor Jack Kingslake, and Stu Brewer gave me some pointers for mastering. I was musical director for the band at every level aside from performance techniques, I worked through small details like phrasing of parts, dynamics of the whole band etc.

During this module I have learned so much about the basics of production, I knew how EQ, reverb worked and how to use them, but I struggled with the why you should use them and the process of what to do when mixing, I didn't know where and why you would use compression but this is something I learned in class here and I'm so much more comfortable with production now; this module has set me up for the rest of my degree. I have enjoyed all of my lectures this term. Aside from production, my pre-production and technical development classes have been the most fun. Filling the gaps in my knowledge with musical theory during tech dev lessons have amplified the techniques I already know and made me confident in my abilities where I was unsure before - for example understanding intervals and what arpeggios are. Learning where I can use different modes has really effected how I practice in regards to my lead playing, I now implement different chord sequences into my practice to target certain modes.

I have learned that I don't always 'follow the rules' when it comes to my writing frequently borrowing notes and chords from outside the key, or changing key but this is refreshing and interesting to listen to rather than a load of nonsense. I also learned that I am capable of using a DAW to create demos for my band/other musicians that I collaborate with.

My planning of the project was effective, I ran into some issues with other musicians not learning repertoire and missing planned rehearsals, but at every point I looked to myself to ask how can I help the situation and acted accordingly. I had to replace the drummer but I did everything in my power to make it work and there were no hard feelings. An important thing I learned was that no matter how much you plan, unforeseen circumstances will occur and I shouldn't stress when these happen, just make sure I have given myself adequate time to get things done.

I could've improved this process by having a writing session with Kieron Pepper earlier in the term so that when recording came around we didn't make any changes. I also could've used a local drummer to speed up the recording process but I decided he was worth the wait from previous experience. I also didn't really carry out much research only in terms of production techniques during my class, I definitely could've learned more about music theory if I allocated more time to my technical development class material. F

rom the mixed studio recording I am very proud of my use of guitar techniques, as well as the production on the track. In the live performance, I am so happy with how my performance on stage came across, comparing the final piece to all of my LPW classes there is drastic change. I am unhappy with the fact that the recording is different to the live because I wasn't able to organise myself and the band well enough to get the new drums recorded for it. Also in the live performance I fumbled the tapping section of the solo. If I was to repeat this project I would've started making an effort with my performance earlier rather than week 6/7. I also would've been wary that the structure of my original might change and to record without extensive planning. I only showed my mix to one person who I'm not close to emotionally and they really liked it, they suggested I make the lead guitar less piercing and I was able to remedy that before submitting it, it gave me confidence that their only quarrel was some EQ; it shows me I'm on the right path.

Overall this project has been extremely fun, I have learned a lot in many areas and had the opportunity to show off my technical skills and prove to myself that I can make something and share it.

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maxwell-grant · 3 years

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What do you think of the way "Immortal Hulk" works as a continuation of the theme of El Sombra ?

(I'm linking to my series of posts called "Downfall of a Dark Avenger" on Al Ewing's El Sombra, and it's eventual relation to Naoki Urasawa's Pluto, here to provide context: 1, 2, 3)

(Spoilers for Immortal Hulk and the El Sombra trilogy, and also Naoki Urasawa’s Pluto)

I don't think "Immortal Hulk" is a straight-up continuation on the El Sombra trilogy or that it exists in reference to it, at least not in the way it exists in reference to the entirety of Hulk's existence as a character. But every writer, every artist, every creator, ends up cycling and recycling ideas and themes that speak to something deeper about their perception of the world. I'm thinking about this piece Kieron Gillen wrote on issue #5 of DIE, where he talks about a pet theory of his that every writer at heart has one true genre, or mode:

I'm a fantasy writer. I tweak reality into explicit unreality to better talk about reality. It's my major mode.

This is one of my pet theories - as in, while everyone is flexible, most writers have a core genre they gravitate towards. Brubaker is at heart a crime writer, as is Bendis. Ellis is a science fiction writer. Remender is too - though the lurid pulp side of it. The tell is "what does this writer do when they're doing a creator-owned book?".

As in, if you remember the limitations of the two main superhero universes, what comic do they write? It's for this reason that despite all his wonderful work on Thor and Conan, I think of Jason Aaron as a crime writer.

I think there's some truth to this, although I think "mode" is a better way to put it than "core genre", and while I wouldn't be able to pin-point exactly what would be Al Ewing's, when it was time for him to really say his piece on the foremost Monster Superhero of comics, a character defined first and foremost by a mind-shattering duality and their transformations into beings of unimaginable violence, righteous vengeance and unfathomable power, to rectify the wrongs of the world even at the damnation of their own soul?

Whether intentionally or not, he was bound to create a connection to a previous time he created a character who fit that description to a T, even putting aside all the times Ewing frames El Sombra as hellish in ways that would later echo in Immortal Hulk. Even the respective character arcs for El Sombra and Hulk:

Initially docile men with troubled family backgrounds (Diego, Bruce Banner), being reshaped by tragedy (The Nazi invasion of El Pacito, Banner’s childhood) and traumatizing memories related to said families (Diego’s brother cursing him on his dying breath, everything with Brian Banner),

and following encounters with supernatural forces (The Desert, The Gamma Bomb), reshaped their fractured selves into fantastic, unkillable, horrifying beings of calamitous vengeance (El Sombra, The Hulk) set loose upon the evils of the world,

and even despite the righteousness of their cause and how vile their targets are, they also undertake experiences that show us the readers the toll this has taken on their souls, and their surroundings,

while frequently encountering characters with varied stances on what they’re doing, as well as malevolent counterparts working at the behest of their enemies (The Blood-Spider, Xenmu), and ultimately encounters with forces bigger and scarier than even themselves (Lars Lomax / The Leopard Men, The Leader / The One Below All),

on their quest to defeat for good the ultimate evil in their lives that are to blame for their creation (Hitler, Brian Banner / The One Below All), but ultimately, their missions don’t end the way they expected, as suddenly all their mighty vengeance and righteousness falls short (El Sombra finds Hitler a dead brain and thus his life’s purpose stripped away by natural causes, the Hulks don’t get the answers from The One Below/Above All that they needed to put an end to their eternal suffering), and then they eventually make a decision that eventually causes a breakthrough in clarity:

El Sombra mindlessly attacks the Leopard Man while wailing that he wants Hitler to be revived so he can kill him, and so devoid of purpose and unwilling/unable to find a new one, he’s given a new life as a brain in the ultimate death machine, a life he embraces without reservation, to achieve his final purpose in the cosmic tapestry of the work as Pluto The King of Robots. Savage Hulk chooses to forgive The Leader in spite of all that he’s done to hurt them, choosing to try and break the cycle of violence between the Hulks and the Banner-Sterns families, while Joe makes amends with Jackie, and this causes Banner to walk out with a newfound resolution.

There’s also points of comparison you can also draw between these two, and Naoki Urasawa’s Pluto, and I actually believe that the latter is more likely to have been on Ewing’s mind at some point. But in short, with all these similarities I listed, the main difference between El Sombra and Immortal Hulk, the difference that the entire story for these two hinges on, to borrow terms from the story itself, is that El Sombra / Pluto uitimately chose this,

where as Hulk (and Naoki Urasawa’s Pluto, at the very end) chose this.

#replies tag #al ewing #the hulk #marvel comics #immortal hulk #naoki urasawa #pluto #btw thanks davidmann for recommending DIE

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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The Book of Boba Fett: The Surprising Marvel Connections

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The Book of Boba Fett picks up the threads of the bounty hunter’s untold adventures in the years after Return of the Jedi, paving a new, unexpected path for the fan-favorite rogue. While most Star Wars fans expected the Mandalorian gunslinger to once again embrace a life of crime, no one could have predicted Boba’s big career change from bounty hunter to Tatooine’s newest crime lord.

But this is actually a Boba Fett story decades in the making. After all, writers were already hard at work continuing the book of Boba just mere months after he took a tumble into the sarlacc pit in 1983. Many of those early stories took place in the pages of the classic Star Wars comics published by Marvel in the ’70s and ’80s. It’s no surprise, then, that the new Disney+ series has already established several connections to Marvel comics, both new and old…

The Sarlacc Pit Escape

Boba escaped the dreaded sarlacc’s stomach almost as soon as he fell into the pit. On Dec. 13, 1983, just months after the release of Return of the Jedi, Marvel published Star Wars #81 by Mary Jo Duffy and Ron Frenz: the (now non-canon) story of how Boba survived his gruesome fate but found himself right back in the belly of the beast (literally) by tales’ end.

The issue takes a much more lighthearted approach to Boba’s escape. Instead of punching and burning his way out of the monster’s digestive system, the sarlacc burps out Boba, sending him flying into the sands above.

Like in The Book of Boba Fett, it’s those pesky Jawa scavengers who first discover an unconscious bounty hunter. But in this case, they confuse him for some sort of droid or cyborg, so they pack him into their Sandcrawler. He later has a run-in with Han Solo and Leia, who are trying to rescue Artoo from these same Jawas. Fortunately for Han, Boba is suffering from amnesia and doesn’t know he’s staring his mortal enemy in the face. Because of this, Han decides to try and rescue Boba too, but when Leia says the scoundrel’s name, the bounty hunter suddenly remembers what happened to him and shifts right back into kill mode.

The story ends with Han and Leia escaping the Sandcrawler as it goes crashing down into the sarlacc pit, dooming Boba once again to be slowly digested over 1,000 years. Don’t worry, he’ll get out again…eventually.

Black Krrsantan

Boba’s story isn’t the only way in which The Book of Boba Fett pays homage to Marvel comics, though. That fearsome Wookiee bounty hunter introduced in “The Tribes of Tatooine” as the Hutt twins’ bodyguard? That’s Black Krrsantan, a character who debuted in 2015 in Marvel’s Darth Vader #1 by Kieron Gillen and Salvador Larroca, and who has become one of the foremost bounty hunters of Disney’s canon Original Trilogy era.

That first issue of Darth Vader begins Black Krrsantan’s story in the months after A New Hope, when the Dark Lord of the Sith is trying to hunt down the rebel who destroyed the Death Star. Already working for Jabba the Hutt alongside Boba Fett, Krrsantan is sent by the crime lord to aid in Vader’s search.

Krrsantan also fought old Ben Kenobi on Tatooine in one of the “From the Journals of Obi-Wan Kenobi” stories from Marvel’s Star Wars by Jason Aaron and Mike Mayhew. In issue #20 (2016), Krrsantan comes face to face with the Jedi Master after kidnapping Owen Lars, Luke Skywalker’s uncle. Guess who won that fight.

He’s had run-ins with Han Solo and Chewbacca in the comics, and even helped stop a plot to assassinate Emperor Palpatine in the pages of Doctor Aphra, which is where he’s appeared int he comics most recently.

With his arrival on The Book of Boba Fett, Black Krrsantan becomes one of the few Star Wars characters who has made the jump from comics to live action.

War of the Bounty Hunters and the Hutt Twins

Marvel’s War of the Bounty Hunters crossover event, which takes place just months before Return of the Jedi, provides a key piece of backstory critical to understanding the full scope of the power struggle in The Book of Boba Fett.

In that story, the Grand Hutt Council, the group that rules over the galaxy’s most powerful criminal organization, betrays Darth Vader for complicated reasons we won’t get into here. And when Vader discovers their treachery, he does what any Sith lord would do: he slaughters them all — except for Jabba, who was the only Hutt smart enough to remain loyal to Vader and the Empire. By the end of the Marvel series, Jabba is truly the last crime lord standing, at least within the Hutt Cartel.

Jabba’s death in the opening act of Jedi really does seem like the final nail in the coffin for the Hutts’ iron grip on the underworld, but we learn in The Book of Boba Fett that isn’t the case. Jabba’s twin cousins have come to Tatooine to collect what they believe is rightfully theirs, and are undoubtedly happy to kill Mos Espa’s new daimyo to get it.

In a way, the arrival of the twins is as much a continuation of the Hutts’ story told in War of the Bounty Hunters as well as Jedi.

Hoojibs

They may not look like much but they’ve got it where it counts. “The Tribes of Tatooine” brings the little telepathic rodent-like species known as Hoojibs to live-action Star Wars. Native to the planet Arbra, the Hoojibs first appeared in Star Wars #55 (1981) when the Rebel Alliance arrive on their home world in search of a new base after barely escaping Hoth. In the David Michelinie and Walt Simonson story, the rebels help the Hoojibs reclaim their home by defeating a monster named Slivilith.

While Hoojibs are considered very deep cuts today, they were staples of ’80s Marvel comics. One Hoojib, the extremely cute Plif, even traveled with Luke on many of his later adventures! Plif later became a New Republic senator in the non-canon Legends continuity.

Clearly, Plif was having a better time than the Hutt twin’s Hoojib is on The Book of Boba Fett…

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veliseraptor · 5 years

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I saw somewhere an idea that Loki TV should play with comics and have 2012!Loki jumping to a dimension and meeting his old evil self, so Loki would be both the protagonist and antagonist of his own show. I love the idea but I'm not familiar with comics so I don't know what/how evil Loki got but I think you do? How do you think post-Avenger Loki would react to seeing himself old, bitter and evil (I heard he was madness and destruction)? Self-reflect or laugh "so this is how it is"?

Oh, I really hope they don’t do it. And I say this as someone who is a really big fan of that storyline in comics. I just don’t think it makes as much sense in the MCU, or at least couldn’t be done as well.

The reason that storyline worked as well as it did in the comics is twofold: one is the way that it is a commentary on the nature of superhero comics and how much they resist character development - how much they tend to over time bend a character back into an “original” mode (in Loki’s case, a major Thor antagonist). If you want to read 8000 words about this, it’s here; for brevity’s sake I’ll just quote from my conclusion:

In my notes for this article, I wrote “can people change? Not in comics!” As a rule, that is true. In more recent years classic villains have been allowed to grow more complex and move out of their traditional roles – Magneto and Emma Frost, mentioned above, fit that category, though both have a longer history of sympathetic portrayal than Loki. However, the general rule over the nearly sixty years of Marvel publishing history is that characters fit a certain mold and will return to that mold.

Writing from within those limits, Gillen and Ewing confront them, challenge them, and draw attention to them. Invocations of story and storytelling, the power of writing both literal and figurative, draw attention to the fictional status of the characters, who are, furthermore, aware of the conventions of their genre and acting against – or with – them. Loki in Journey Into Mystery attempts to tear out the captions to stop his nightmare; Loki in Agent of Asgard narrates in mythological, Eddaic mode to capture the essence of the gods. Narrative, and the awareness of narrative, drives them both.

The MCU doesn’t have that same force - while it has its problems with character development, it doesn’t have the same history or weight behind them.

The second problem, though - and this is actually my bigger problem, because even without that specific thematic resonance you could probably still tell a good story - is that that particular story relies on Loki being in a specific place in his redemption arc. He is, at that point, well on the road to Working On Being a Good Person, and genuinely believing that he’s making progress and doing pretty good at it. That’s what makes the confrontation with his evil alter ego (who is...an interesting figure in his own right, but that interesting part would probably get lost in translation because it is very ~comics!~ in a way I think general audiences would be reluctant to accept*) so potent: it’s Loki thinking he’s doing better, trying to do better, suddenly being faced with his worst fears for himself.

The Loki TV series is apparently taking Loki from the point in Avengers after he’s been beaten, before going to Asgard. That isn’t a Loki who is in any way interested in trying to be or do better. That is a Loki at his lowest point, angry and bitter and lashing out at the world around him. That Loki, facing another (even nastier) Loki...it’s a very different dynamic, and without so much of that contrast, I don’t think as compelling of one. Because I do think Loki would just be like “yep, that tracks.” And maybe there would be conflict, but it would be much more likely to be the “I want something that you also want” type of conflict than the “holy shit, this isn’t what I want to be, also our desires are fundamentally incompatible with each other” type of conflict.

And that’s just not, at least for me personally, as interesting.

(YMMV, of course. But I tend to think when Loki is confronting himself as his own worst enemy, the more contrast between the two versions, the more potent the conflict and the more interesting the potential.)

Also I just trust Al Ewing and Kieron Gillen about 500x more than I trust anyone at Disney, so there’s that, too.

---

*To give you the shortest possible explanation - it is an alternate timeline Loki who went through his full redemption arc, realized that no one cared he had changed, went full evil but kind of agreeably so to recreate the status quo with Asgard where everything was back to “normal” (evil Loki, hero Thor fighting him), and then jumped timelines to try to bring up the timeline of his going dark, but also possibly to make a better timeline, it’s complicated. Maybe that was accidental, maybe not?

Again, it’s very ~comics!~ and therefore I don’t think something that Disney would be likely to put in a TV series for general audiences. They’ve done some weird stuff now, but really nothing that weird.

And if they just made it “Loki went evil because reasons” then that kind of loses all the interesting parts of that Loki as a character, imo.

#anyway this got very long and probably isn't what you wanted #sorry anon!!! i just have a lot of feelings #loki's a goddamn mess #loki trashblogging #i need a meta tag that isn't my opinions tag but for now #lise has opinions #just so i can find this again #anonymous #conversating

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kierongillen · 6 years

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Writer Notes: The Wicked + the Divine: The Funnies

Spoilers, obv.

I suspect this will lean a little shorter than usual, partially because it’s more an editorial, sitting back position than any other issue of WicDiv and partially as DIE is out tomorrow, and there’s a lot of plates I’m keeping spinning.

But let’s see, eh?

Last year, when we did the Christmas Special, doing a comedy special was the other option. We decided to keep that in the can, simply because I was trying to visualise what on earth it would be like. Would I ask people to write stuff? Would I write it all? Could I somehow get The Wicked + the Canine to fill the whole issue? We went for Jamie’s idea (which required less conceptual engineering, so was easy, despite being more actual writing work) and saved this for the end.

Which is nice. End of school party, right?

Jamie/Matt’s Cover: Jamie and I have a piece of performance twitter, where I make puns and he pretends to hate them. Okay, that’s not true at all. He hates them, as is only right, as they are designed to be hated. When we have Skype calls, and Chrissy and I sit beside each other, when I drop a pun, Chrissy makes a face which… well, Jamie’s wants to grab it as a gif. It’s quite the thing.

Anyway – a variety of responses to puns. The pun is, I suspect, the best one I’ve dropped on twitter. One day I’ll write an essay on What I Do With Puns. But not today. It didn’t get a ludicrous number of retweets when I dropped it (and deleted my whole stream, as I do sporadically – don’t worry, I store everything before I do). It had an afterlife though being reblogged on tumblr (I think last time it was about 130k interactions), used in big websites’ pun round-ups, put on T-shirts and straight up stolen and tweeted by other people.

So let’s stick it on a cover, and show the variety of responses to it. Of course, Baph would like it.

I really like what Matt did with the colours here as well.

Margaux Saltel’s cover: Margaux is great. I got to know her distantly when C was editing superfreaks, and actually got a chance to hang properly at this year’s thought bubble. She’s got a real playfulness to her art, which this fascinating design sense. Adorable big dog staring at the reader was the first thing I thought of when planning this issue, really.

IFC

Intro page to explain what’s going on, with pop-comic design by Sergio, headlines courtesy of C. If you haven’t read it, give it a scan, because I big up all our collaborators.

How did we decide how to ask? Far too many options. Our comic friends are very funny. We tended to ask people as it occurred to us, see how many pages they wanted to do, and then work out how many pages we had left

The Wicked + the Canine

I lured Erica into this by basically promising her to draw six pages of as many dogs as she liked. Write for your artist.

The pun was basically to amuse Chrissy, and grew into a story. I thought it could be longer (and it could have) but realised it’s best to cut it short – the backbone of Ananke as trainer, and the dogs as untrainable pups, is basically the core of it. Plus the big kick in seeing everyone done in dog form.

I threw some ideas into the mix of how the dogs could be differentiated (For example, Sakhmet as a cat and Woden as clearly-not-a-puppy in a cone of shame) but really left it to Erica to draw whatever dogs she liked. I actually suggested they all be Labradors, but Erica wanted to stretch and play, and it’s all wonderful. The worry is in terms of race-coding the dogs, which is something we avoided.

I think my favourite is Baphopup.

The white-background and “get in the sack” is a wonderful bit of cartooning. How the lack of background stresses it all.

That it was basically done to make C laugh means that it’s part of a history of my dog based comics, which also includes the Christmas issue of Journey Into Mystery, where Loki has to give away seven hell-hounds. I think Thori is the character I co-created for the Marvel Universe who has had the longest life in terms of being used by other people. Adorable sweary murderous puppies can’t go wrong.

I’m pleased that people seemed to like it. That it’s a six page story where the joke is “Evil old lady doesn’t throw trusting pups in the river” is not exactly family comedy special material. I suspect if you’ve stuck along with WicDiv this far, you know what we’re like.

This is also a story which implicitly spoils the book, in terms of Ananke being a shameless manipulator of the pups. A lot of the stories are similar, which means this is a comic designed for relief of those who came along for all the issues.

The Wicker + the Divine Lizz Lunney is one of my favourite British cartoonists, and whole fierce scowl has petrified me for the decade or so I’ve known her. Lunney hadn’t read much of WicDiv before, so we lobbed her the PDFs, and found something fun to mock in terms of how ludicrously call-back-y we are.

Go support her stuff. She’s great.

The Lost God

Chip’s just a phenomenon, and his rising career across the last decade has been basically the most delightful surprise in the period. Immediately I have to swallow the urge to do the usual “Because he’s rubbish” chip-baiting joke, which says a lot. Chip is so much fun. That he’s both one of Marvel’s biggest, most interesting writers now and half of one of the most popular and definitive indie comics of the period is something else. Like, he’d be a legend if only for his internet jokes. That’s a footnote now. Amazing.

Anyway – we meet the first Kieron and Jamie version. Chip’s one is delightful – the over-tortured pun is on the money, but the real joy is Jamie McKelvie’s Hellboy-esque hyper-developed single arm. Every time I look at that, I laugh. Plus the accent. Marvelous.

“Wossat?! Time paste this nob, innit?” is just poetry.

Gentle Annie Vs The World

Talking about poetry…

Chrissy is WicDiv’s editor and also a poet, and has done some indie comics before – as well as co-editing the anthology Over The Line, which is an introduction to Poetry Comics. This isn’t that. This is her just channelling her loathing of Gentle Annie’s obfuscatory nonsense, and I love it so.

Clayton and Dee step in on the art duties. It was Clayton’s idea to drop in the Scott Pilgrim parody Annie at the top, which is very cute, and implicitly shows the modes he can work on. The realism of each scene, and the sense of place is great. Also, the Banshees poster in the doctor’s office is hilarious.

Making A Difference

This is fun. Romesh is a proper famous comedian, and digs WicDiv, so thought it’d be fun to write for the medium. As his script was coming together, I thought of Julia Madrigal’s Giant Days issue, and realised it’d fit well. She had to do it on her trip to Japan, which involved some hilarious jetlag.

Dee’s doing some powerhouse things here with the purple-white lighting too. That’s hyper-strong.

“Fresh Prince of Baal Air” is a hell of a line, in passing, and I think this may have the prize for the darkest punchline of the whole issue.

5 Things Everyone Who’s Lived With Sakhmet Will Understand

I loved Hamish’ Pantheon, which is a playful but entirely accurate retelling of Egyptian myth. Hamish also won this year’s Russ Manning Promising Newcomer Award, so clearly should be doing something else rather than being talked into playing around with us lot. Thankfully, he didn’t.

I think my favourite moment is Persephone’s glance up as Sakhmet walks across the keyboard.

18 Go Made In Wiltshire

Kitty and Larisa have done a bunch of stuff, but I have to put a special plug for where I first met them – TAYLOR SWIFT GIRL DETECTIVE: SECRETS OF THE STARBUCK LOVERS. It’s illustrated prose, and utterly delightful, so was honoured to have them along.

This is all an accurate and extensive skewering of what we’re doing, with a not-perfect Scooby Doo mash-up. I did try to talk them out of including all the characters, as that’s so much work, but they could not be stopped. This meant that working out speaking orders was the main formal issue to worry about.

Now, there’s lots of mockery of me in this issue, but reducing Laura down to “Everyone is so hot! Let’s make out with them!” was absolutely the I Feel Called Out Right Now moment. She’s more than that, right? Right?

While the “WicDiv is a scooby do plot” complete with “Evil old man reveal” is lots of fun, the bit which makes me laugh every time I flick through is the “I would have got away with it if it wasn’t for you meddling ki—” “Oh, fuck off.” Oh, Lucifer, Never change.

Enquiring Minds Want To Know: What’s Your Guilty Pleasure Song

Cover-artist Margaux joined by the irrepressible Kate Leth. I’m really into how the two play together – Kate wanted to cut things tight, and the “Short moment” illustrated with Margaux’s warmth is fascinating. Like, have the two other Norns ever looked more delighted and engaged than they are at the end of page six?

In terms of Kieron and Jamie baiting, Grumpy Jamie in full Captain Marvel Gear and me trying to write an essay in any given space is fun and mean (which is how we like it). And I’ve just realised that writing more about this script would only be underlining Kate’s point, so I better stop.

Secret Origin

I wrote it, and offered it to Jamie. Really, the point of the specials is to create a space in the schedule so Jamie can get ahead, but he couldn’t resist this one. It’s cathartic closure, at the least.

Choosing the puns was tricky – I realised it had to be a chain, so chose this one which amused Katie West, which was tweeted when visiting them in Edinburgh. So I was in range of punching.

As always, this is Jamie expression masterclass, and a little self-mocking of my tendency to go full clockwork in my story universes is fun. I hope so anyway.

28 pages of comics, which is quite the thing. I don’t suspect we’ll be making much (if any) money from this issue after paying everyone, but that’s fine. It’s a party, innit?

Oh, it was nearly 2000 words. It’s never short, is it? It’s never short.

WicDIv 40 is out tomorrow (December 5th), which starts our final arc, “Okay.” Hope you enjoy it.

Thanks for reading.

#WicDiv #the wicked and the divine #writer notes

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