Hey
So, over three years ago I moved my mailing list from Substack to Buttondown. I did it for reasons - mainly, a bit of side-eye at where the company was, and figured I’d be better paying for my own hosting. But I kept the substack open as an advert to where I was now, and folks would click through and join me.
Now, that may have happened, but what also happened is people have just joined this list. In fact, a whole lot of people. Substack is really good at the internal recommendation system point people from one list to another.
So some of you are surprised that I’m mailing you from here again, and others are wondering why the hell I’ve been so quiet.
Basically, I thought it’d be a good idea to do an occasional mail here to point folks over to my real list. Click here and sign up. It’s neat. I only send one out when I have a book out or there’s some active news you should know about. Or there’s an essay burning a hole on my brain.
However, you may need some convincing, so I figured I should do a quick pull together some of the random things I posted in the last few years. It may even be useful for people already on the list, as they may have missed some of this. You can browse the archive to see what an average week look like - it’s basically plug, links, context, capsule reviews and a workblog.
Have a nose at these, and if anything takes your fancy, sign up here.
COMICS
Five Craft Things Which Comic Pros Regularly Do Which Make Me Wince
My feelings about launching Creator-originated books in 2023
How I use page turns
The original character drama map for DIE
The Gillen/Mckelvie paradigm for reviewing comics by teams
A review of Where The Wind Blows, reposted circa Briggs’ death
RPG STUFF
My Principles to make you a better RPG player in any game
A very long review of Trophy Gold
Running a Campaign Pep Talk For DIE RPG
Interviewing Jim Rossignol about the Teeth RPG
OTHER STUFF
My 2022 Tracks of the Year
The covering letter the 21 year old me sent to the Melody Maker
The complete playlist for Al Ewing, Sarah Gordon and my clubnight
Me feeling sad about garden foxes
Sign up link one last time? Why not.
See you soon.
Kieron Gillen
London
12.10.2023
Thanks for this! My reason for using Substack for these newsletters instead of email is that they don’t get lost amidst my other emails and I just like the interface better. I know there are ways to make the email experience better, but I just don’t have the patience.
Anyway, just my two cents on the matter! I’ll definitely check out some of the links in this one. Looking forward to more!