Posts Tagged ‘Artifice Comics’

Back to drinking strong, black coffee from the same old familiar Starbucks mug in the morning. I’ve been drinking a ‘green’ blend lately, which, I’m assured, is apparently good for me. It’s not as overtly sweet as green tea latte, but it’s not as sharp as my usual coffee. Musically, I’ve been listening to a lot of Arcade Fire, thanks to a friend’s recommendation, but it’s more the coffee than the musique that has influenced the shape and feeling of the new book.

This isn’t to say however that musique hasn’t played its fair share in inspiring the new book because, in many ways, it’s more about musique and pop culture than anything else I’ve thus far done.

If it sounds like I’m being vague, it’s because I am. The new book doesn’t have a title yet so I can’t properly tag this post and am somewhat loath to go into too many details about its narrative. Suffice to say it is something different, something I haven’t tried before.

Regarding things that I have tried before, it’s looking increasingly unlikely that the planned Artifice Comics novellas will not be happening any time soon. Initially, the plan was to craft four short books designed to deal with issues in AC continuity that I’d like to revisit – Millennium Man’s trip into space and his eventual return, an Artifice Albion ‘movie’ and a ‘year one’ type story dealing with a Bush43 reboot. Right now though, AC can’t really support such a plan and, if I’m honest, I don’t really have the time to commit to it. It’s a shame, but maybe one day the project will be resurrected (again).

It’s not all doom and gloom though. lecteur de tarot’s cover is almost complete, which means that the project will be well and truly out of my hands soon. We’re working hard to get this done before we move back to more civilised areas of the country, after which point I’ll keep you updated on when you can expect the book to hit the shops.

I’m also working on something for September – more on this later.

Until then, please look forward to both the new book and to lecteur de tarot.

And so December in England begins with a downpour, a torrent of rain that leaves a residue of mud on cracked paving stones that the council declines to fix, having already squandered the money on pointless pursuits and cheap fairy lights for the town centre.

There’s a saying in this godforsaken part of the country that it’s ‘too cold for snow’, certainly right now it’s too wet for it, but we can at least bring everything else required for the beginning of Christmas festivities, commencing with a trip to the unedited highlights of last year’s Christmas story languishes still on the jacobmilnestein omake page.

I made a recent decision to remove the years prior as they need a bit of editing and they somewhat ruin the surprise of the forthcoming lecteur de tarot novel (due next year, I have been told). If they had still been there, then I would have recommended them as a perfect entry into the lecteur de tarot story… but it would have been an entry into the deep end, so you might be better off waiting until next year when you are assured a physical copy of the central text to leaf through.

If you’re looking for something more current then I can confess to being hard at work on this year’s Christmas story and that the opening word of the tale is ‘The‘. That’s all I’m going to say on the matter until later on in the month.

In other news, a copy of Mister Watts’ Guardian Force Roboman v1: Let’s Go Robo! arrived here last month with something of a surprise inside. You shouldn’t need me to tell you about it as the contents of Mister Watts’ story speak well enough without need of me trying to sell it. Head over to amazon and take a look inside the book, certainly it’s a title deserving of a place on the shelves of any tokusatsu fan.

Last but not least, the elventh part of The Black Iron Prison is available within the pages of Artifice Comics’ Obento #2. As promised, the series is set in a world where it would be impossible for any of the established Artifice heroes to come into existence. It is a world of cruelty and vindictiveness, a world presided over by the ethics of the four libertines who once holed themselves up in the Château de Silling. The story will unfold over twelve installments presented out of sequence.

I won’t ask you to enjoy it but, if you do read it, I will ask you to understand that this is a cautionary tale with no morals. Their world, extreme and absurd as it may seem, is not far removed from our own.

The Royal Family of the Black Iron Prison

One of the projects I’ve been quietly developing, with no real potential release date yet, was initially a series of shorts for Artifice Comics’ Obento project based around the idea of a world in which the Artifice heroes could not exist. This started with the premise of characters named Johnny Carter, Victoria Darling and Alfonse Saint Libatique as members of a band under the ever watchful gaze of numerous TV Eyes to the accompaniment of a big, sprawling Dog Man Star era Suede soundtrack.

The idea then evolved through a series of twists and turns, becoming not just a world where the Artifice heroes could not exist but a world where no heroes existed, a world of petty cruelties and unspoken abuses wrote large in headlines and met only with unblinking indifference. It became a world forged in parody of our own, its extravagances in reference only to the way we treat both animals and our peers. The Philip K. Dick coined term ‘Black Iron Prison‘, most frequently used in Valis as a phrase to describe the ignorance that surrounded the Earth on all sides, preventing understanding of gnostic truth, came into play and suddenly I found myself confronted with a world of terrible possibilities.

A school established itself upon this world, a king settled upon the throne and a secret regarding the world’s isolation was buried at the heart of its educational institution, and then characters appeared, two boys and two girls, and thus the story began.

One of the great things for me about writing genre fiction is the supporting characters. In a story where the normality of everyday life is counterbalanced by fantastic events, it’s sometimes hard not to find an archetype that doesn’t fit if you look at the world you’re writing in.

At present, I’m currently involved in a romance with the Silver Age of superhero comics, not so much for the individual stories or characters but more for the contrasting feel of those stories when held up alongside the kind of stories that are popular today. Whilst heronaut is set in 1953 and has become fraught with reflection on the reality of what the world was like for the British Empire following World War II, it’s hard to take advantage of some of the styles and tropes of that past era.

It is without further ado then, that I wish to introduce you to Grim Knight Jones as he appears in heronaut chapter two. Whilst this is not his first appearance in the book and whilst a strong line could be drawn connecting him with the character of Jet-Bastard from Millennium Man, this was the scene for me when the character really became one I wanted to write more about:

The dark green Triumph 6T Thunderbird let out a resonating throb of subsumed power as he brought the bike to a halt, silencing it calmly and gently, like a man wishing to pacify a much-loved pet. He swung his leg around and left the bike standing in the gravel car park as he cast his eyes about the lonely greyness abandoned in the middle of the Hertfordshire wilderness.

Before him, an ill painted building of primrose yellow boards and squandered holiday cheer rose up, a metal sign framed before the door and swaying in the autumn breeze. Behind the central café and its weatherworn loneliness stood several trailer trucks, canvas sides decorated with logos for familiar companies the young motorcycle rider had become too disinterested to even read.

With a customary look of derision, Grim Knight Jones turned his attention back towards the transport café, taking long strides across the car park as he reached into the pockets of his jeans and brought forth a carton of popularly branded cigarettes.

The tiny, dilapidated café, several years overdue for a new coat of paint, was located in a pitiful little village along the A10. Grim Knight Jones had travelled down from Aspenden on his bike, joining the snaking road through the desolate dead end village of Buntingford before breaking free of its atrophying orbit and joining the Old North Road towards Royston and King’s Lynn beyond.

He planned to ride the A10 until he reached Cambridgeshire, skirting along the surface of the A14 until he could turn into the city proper and waste time amongst the old scholarly buildings. Prior to such an excursion however, he felt the pangs of hunger, a dry taste in his mouth and a yearning for sustenance that he assumed was physical but couldn’t quite rule out the psychological implications.

Smoke flitted up from the top of his burning cigarette, a wispy vine leading up into the dull heavens above.

The door to the café opened abruptly, revealing three broad-set men, each one dressed in a uniform of grease stained t-shirts, open denim dungarees and donkey jackets.

“You the kid who came in on the Thunderbird?” sniffed the first of the three men, the leader Grim Knight Jones assumed.

He was a short man, dirty blond hair greased into the kind of quiff popularised by Jesse Garon Presley and his square jaw pocked with flecks of blond and black stubble, like pepper and salt upon his worn complexion.

“What if I am?” the younger man answered with false bravado, relieved to feel the reassuring presence of the flick-knife in his left hand trouser pocket.

The relief was short-lived as it dawned on him that, whoever the three bruisers before him were, they were each bound to be carrying knives themselves.

The man with the Jesse Garon imitation quiff smiled again, offering the darker skinned friend to his right a knowing look.

“Well,” he chuckled, “me and my boys here were just thinking what a nice bike it was you had. We were kind of wondering if you wouldn’t mind us taking it out for a spin, just up to Enfield and back or something, nowhere too far.”

Grim Knight Jones felt his stomach flip, anxiety souring to nausea.

“Sorry boys, that bike’s my pride and joy, I can’t just lend her out to any Tom, Dick or Harry,” Jones said, knowing what was coming next.

“Well, that’s too bad,” said the Jesse Garon imitator, his smile fading, “guess we’ll just have to convince you to come round to our way thinking, yeah?”

“What kind of music do you boys like?” Grim Knight Jones asked suddenly, aware of the movements of the bruiser’s two friends as they closed in on either side of him.

The older man’s face creased in a frown.

“What do you mean?” he asked slowly.

Grim Knight Jones offered him a smile and a shrug, looking slowly away.

“Well, me,” he said carefully, “me, I like music with a little bit of a kick.”

Before the older man could react, Jones had lashed out with his foot, knocking the legs out from under him and sending him crashing down into the gravel and dirt below.

Like a true Victorian enthusiast, this week I have mostly been dealing with the depiction of death and the rites of passing. Both TetsuMan and heronaut have featured manifest ‘Death’ with her knowing smile and mischievous nature, and its arguable that, what with both stories being worked on in tandem, that she is the same character in both.

It’s hard to write Death, especially as a feminine character, without either going overboard on the Persephone-like tragedy of her nature or reducing her to a carbon copy of the popular representation featured in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. Originally I attempted to sidestep this issue by incorporating aspects of La Santa Muerte but, if I’m honest, she simply converged with a certain character from Love Amongst Strangers (Again).

The musical context for the writing I’m doing at the moment has been very freeform, without properly being established again. I’ve been leaning towards pop music, one of my many genuine loves but talk of such things is probably better confined to journals that do not possess aspirations of being a professional record of my writing endeavours.

However, should my plan for a story involving David Bowie investigating the Artifice Comics universe ever manifest itself as a viable option, then I dare say there will be a lot about music being written here.

Lately, I’ve been writing a lot of stuff for Artifice Comics, a site that I enjoy a very love/hate relationship with.

I first joined the site in 2001 after seeing an appeal for new writers on USEnet and later, when then site editor, Dorin, felt that he could no longer find motivation to lead the site, I took over editorial duties for several years…with mixed results.

Whilst now is not the time to give a history of my involvement with online shared universe fiction sites, there’s a lot about Artifice that keeps calling to me – just as there’s a lot about the site that endures despite best efforts to kill it off. So, many years after writing my first story there, I’m currently playing around with four semi-regular serials.

The trouble with writing these projects is that it often leads to a sense of claustrophobia for me. I feel that I have to crank them out as quickly as possible in order to stay ahead of myself and that means that I often don’t spare the time to fall in love with what I’m writing. Now that I’m committed to a regular schedule with heronaut and TetsuMan for Mister Watts, I’m hoping that I will be forced to take a break from my crazy 4891 words a day schedule for work on the site and come up with a better plan that can accommodate more freedom.

I really find writing serials more difficult than books, even when the serial has a projected end. Each chapter of a serial is like a thorn I have to pick out with my fingers and each thorn is bigger than the previous month’s. The only exception to this rule has been TetsuMan which has, touch wood, thus been a joy to write.

Whilst brainstorming for directions I could take my work I came up with a variety of notions, some which I think will work, others which probably won’t. The following text is an edited version of an email I sent out to the staff list on the 27th May explaining how I felt a new Artifice status- quo could be developed:

In order to complicate things but with the intention of making things easier, I’m going to suggest that, as well as steering away from concepts/characters that may or may not be touched on elsewhere, the site dateline be shifted up to round about 2015. Even if this means creating another gap, I’m still for it because the space between 2015 and the Artifice ‘present’ of 2007 is big enough to accommodate lots of new things and to use lots of ideas that don’t relate to Pacific City/non-Pacific City stuff and can be exploited over several books.

So I’m thinking, what would the setting of 2015 be like?

Well, my first thought/suggestion is FaceCam – a social networking application that operates, like tumblr, on a sense of immediacy. FaceCam runs from a wireless Blátönn (TM & (C) Burke Enterprises) dongle incorporated into the frames of glasses/sunglasses, the material of contact lenses or worn as an independent earpiece that advances the idea of ‘predictive text’ seen in mobile phones to incorporate a feature called ‘predictive thought’ – this feature automatically takes images of its surroundings corresponding to certain factors such as an increase in heart rate, blood pressure and adrenaline – i.e. if you pass a pretty girl in a red dress, your heartbeat might increase, blood might rush to your cheeks and the Blátönn dongle, sensing this increase, will take a photo of anything in your immediate line of vision, assuming that the change in your bodily functions is a result of external stimuli. This information will then be uploaded to your FaceCam account online and be visible to anyone on your friends list, depending on your security settings.

FaceCam has an addition manual interface but, for the most part, it is sold as a daily, up-to-the-minute record of your waking life.

In addition to this, everyone is on FaceCam. It is *the* social networking app of 2015.

The second thought/suggestion comes in the shape of pop culture. In Millennium Man, it is suggested that, up until her disappearance, Komatsubara Eumi is a very well known talent in both Japan and PC. Following the theme of musical trends and the idea that superheroes are so commonplace that everyday heroes of the past have been reinvented as fictional television dramas (again, MM states there is a drama ‘adaptation’ of Albert Weisz’s adventures on Saturday morning TV), I would like to introduce you…to the band.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you could please put your hands together…for Magenta and the Magicians.

Guitar, bass, drums and sugar sweet vocals, Magenta and the Magicians are the ultimate in pop/rock. Taking their influence from everything from 50s doo-wop to losercore, Magenta and the Magicians are the current music industry’s darlings, outselling their rivals at an unbelievable rate. Their lead singer, the aforementioned Magenta, seems very cautious about preserving her on-stage persona and not mentioning her real name but, aside from that, no one has a bad thing to say about this band. Subscribers to their official FaceCam feed number in the millions.

As an aside, this version of Magenta did make an appearance in Artifice’s recent Anthology 2 special, The Broken, the Beaten and the Damned and, of course, the idea of FaceCam originally appeared in a short story that was intended as part of an alternate history anthology that never happen.

More on that later perhaps.

Where do you go with a character who has staked his individual representation on a solar mythos that everyone now shares – or rather, what happens to Millennium Man when everyone else is also a Millennium Man?

This is the question that has been on my mind for some time now.

At the end of Millennium Man #24, I had a clear idea of where I wanted to go with the story despite feeling that I lacked the mental stamina to continue the book into these realms.

In my mind, it was clear that Michael Manly, the archetypal Superman of the Artifice Comics mythology, should go into space. There were two factors in this decision: firstly, I loved the idea of sending a human superhero into space and secondly, I wanted to pay homage/rip off Alan Moore’s work on Swamp Thing (second edition) #55 – 63.

The idea was that Millennium Man would go out into the cosmos and meet new cultures and races in a series of short stories that would help him grow as a character and rediscover what it is to be human when you’re able to wield the powers of a demigod. I was always a bit sketchy on how he’d return though.

One idea, since put paid to by how TetsuMan now fills the gap, was to focus on Manly’s return in the early 22nd century through the eyes of several pilots enrolled in a ‘Millennium Man Academy’ of sorts. Tension would have been brought to the storyline by the return of Ura God and an invading fleet of his people/followers.

original MM II synopsis from my notebook (page 1)

original MM II synopsis from my notebook (page 2)

The idea never took off, if you’ll excuse the pun.

So, the question remains, what do you do with a character who has built his reputation on a distinct image and style when, slowly but surely, ever other living human being is inheriting that image and style?

The simple answer, I guess, is ‘change it‘.

If Millennium Man was truly supposed to be a reflection of Superman, then the most obvious thing to do with a returning Michael Manly is to invert the comparison and transform him into Batman.

In a world of potential superheroes what kind of personality could possess the strength of character to place himself above others and enforce a moral law upon the world? One of the main themes during the end of Millennium Man was the idea of the ‘saved saviour‘, the man who has been through suffering and emerged with an understanding of what pain is and how he can prevent such things from happening to others. In a world where the rules have been changed completely, it might be that the saved saviour may also need to set himself up as the silent judge charged with ensuring the world continues without falling into chaos.

So, if the analogy sticks, what would Manly need in order to swap his role as ’super man’ for ‘dark knight’? Well, gadgets are a good starting point. Any technological theme is a good selling point for young readers and gadgets are always good for keeping the action varied and excited. You want modified Siege Engine power armour – you’ve got it. You want a jet that can transform into a car – again, you’ve got it. All of these kind of gadgets are often the icing on the cake to an action story, the style to progress the narrative. There are literally a million ways you could go with things like this.

So that’s technology covered. What’s next on the list? How about the Batcave and an ever trusty butler/confessor figure? Easy – how about Lundunaborg and Artifice Albion’s Joseph Dodgson? So far so good.

But what about the villains, you might ask? Well, that one’s the easiest of all.

In my experience, this type of story always benefits from a mix of new characters and old. In the case of the latter, these former characters always have new window-dressing so as to make them slightly more distinct and mysterious, a puzzle to keep the reader wondering how ‘X’ got from A to B in the gap between the new material and the old.

In the case of Millennium Man, the choices are obvious – firstly, an antagonistic new blonde haired Mysteria in her 30s, secondly, a former heroine turned villain, her personality shattered by her own ‘death’ and accordingly divided into male and female personas. I’m sure that there’s no need for me to use names here.

So, in conclusion, if all of this took me an idle five minutes thought whilst making tea, there really is no excuse for why these characters aren’t still amongst us and why someone isn’t pushing forward with new ideas and new angles to showcase the various ways in which they can be portrayed.

It really is as easy as all that.

I want to talk to you about a spoiler for Love Amongst Strangers (Again)…but I won’t. Suffice to say, it is extremely gratifying for me to finally be writing a character who is not exactly in A Nation of Shadows but appears a lot in the back-story of those events.

This week I passed the 100 page mark on the lecteur de tarot novel. I’ve been getting very anxious about the shape and feel of the book (and how very different it is from Sophistry) for some time but I’m somewhat reconciling myself to the fact that this isn’t the kind of story that can be told in one sitting.

Prior to work on the book, I’d written 27 other lecteur de tarot stories, all of them slowly building up the storyline. The first story in the series was completed at exactly 00: 44: 46 on the 15th December, 2002 as a habit of Christmas storytelling borrowed from my brother-in-law. Since then the series has overlapped a lot with whatever else I’ve been writing, making the central card game my prop of choice for magical explanations in genre fiction. Because of the nature of this, the lecteur de tarot book has become something of a ‘big screen movie’ version of a familiar TV series thus there are a lot of cameos from characters in those 27 stories and, in slightly altered form, from a variety of other stories I’ve penned over the years.

Hopefully all of this won’t be too confusing for new readers and the story of Maus and his friends travelling from the village of s’Hertogenbosch on their adventure will be exciting and interesting for people who aren’t me and aren’t as familiar with the various characters of those 27 stories.

Thus, in order to tempt you, I’m going to post a fragment of a scene here:

Her shrill cry echoed through the trees, tears streaming down her cheeks as she sat uselessly upon the forest floor, sobbing with all her heart.

Joan Winters, like many other children of Orthen, had resolved to restore Eoz and free the Mononoke king, Martin Strauss Mousk from the enchantment of the evil Empress. She had travelled thus in the company of her sister, Charley, into the forests, battling against prowling crocotta and subterranean lindworms along the way.

Both sisters, no older than 12, wore heavy plate armour the like of which was suggested in certain cards of the basic and hero decks but only reached full fruition of form in the advanced knight and associated dragoon classes.

Unlike the soldiers of Cale Corporation, the knight was more a noble progression of the hero deck, a set of additional cards that focused exclusively on mêlée weapons and sturdy, metal armour, leaving no room for magical trends or skill.

It had not been the most traditional path for two girls from Orthen to follow but, ever since they were young, Charley, the older of the two by almost a full minute, had been insistent on becoming a knight. Joan had followed because she wanted to safeguard her sister’s dream but, in actuality, she possessed little skill in combat.

The fact that she had managed to progress beyond hero level was testament more to her perseverance than her aptitude in hand-to-hand combat. Thus, when she had found herself separated from her sister and lost amongst the forest and when, upon being confronted by a curious bear in a trailing red winter scarf and a wide-brimmed Cavalier helm and challenged to a ‘nose fight’, Joan Winters’ first reaction had been to burst into tears.

The bear, a short character with gingerbread coloured fur and heavy Borametz leaf gauntlets, had frantically tried to pacify the girl following his initial challenge. He had apologised again and again, waving his paws manically, offering half-eaten bars of chocolate and sticky sweets and had attempted to explain that he was very sorry and, due to the nature of her armour and the obvious fact that she was a knight, like himself, he had thought that she might be interested in fighting. He then continued to apologise about how wrong he had been and implored her to stop crying.

There was a sudden explosion of movement and a second girl came bursting through the trees, her face red with exhaustion and her expression one of anger and panic.

Quickly the bear turned to face the new girl, noting their similarities of features as well as the differing hair colours but before he could explain himself, his words were drowned out by a fresh bout of wails from the girl sitting before him.

“You!” Charley Winters cried, pointing a finger directly at him, her eyes fierce with anger, “Get away from my sister, you heartless útlagi!”

The bear waved his forepaws frantically and shook his head.

“My dear girl, you are quite mistaken!” he protested, “I assure you I am nothing of the sort. In fact, if you’ll allow me to just introduce myself, I shall soon…”

He stopped abruptly, staggering back as he parried a blow from the older girl’s trusty sword with his own rapier.

“How dare you attack my sister? Don’t you have a heart?” Charley swung the sword again and, again, the bear staggered backwards.

“Please, my girl, if you’ll just let me explain!” he protested.

“Explain what?” she hissed angrily, “Explain how you were going to steal her money and cards? Is that what you want to explain?”

“No, not at all, I simply…”

She lunged forward again, her fair blonde hair spilling out over her shoulders and her blue eyes full of anger. Their swords clashed once more and the bear struggled to hold her back with his own thin fencing blade.

“Please, my girl, this has all been a terrible understanding, you must understand…”

The opposing knight lifted her side again and slammed it down not once but twice, the metal screaming as its weight collided with the other’s blade.

The shorter Mononoke staggered again and then fell to his knees, blinking his dark eyes in desperation and struggling to find some way in which he could disarm the girl without hurting her for long enough to explain the situation.

As for those other 27 stories, I’m still hoping to compile them, together with some other material, as a short story collection but we’ll see how that goes. In relation to the events of the lecteur de tarot novel, I’m already convinced that I’m going to return to the time-frame of the book and write a side-story featuring different characters.

As I say, it’s not the kind of thing that can be told in one sitting, but rather a story that develops by continually overlaying new elements and new fiction.

Hopefully all of this will seem inspiring rather than daunting. It’s on days like these that I truly doubt my ability to communicate effectively.

Music is an important part of my life, possibly one of the most important aspects of my life. It has been there since I was a child, the familiar crackle and hiss of the family record player and the skip of the occasional line or beat in worn LPs. I wrote my first book almost entirely with headphones on and, ever since then have found music to be as significant part of my writing rituals as it is any of my other daily routines.

As I have grown older, many elements of the regime by which I write have been stripped away, I’d be tempted to say ‘refined‘ if I believed that, but in truth I don’t. Nonetheless, I still find it important to listen to music whilst writing, not all the time and not every time but I often find that the right song can set a scene or inspire an emotion with much better results than diving into something cold.

This type of writing is the second form that I find the creative act dresses in. It’s a little less inspired, a little less eager to confess its words onto paper than the spontaneous grab for pen and paper or the quickfire feed of paper in the typewriter or click on the mouse but it’s no less important.

As the weekend just gone was bank holiday, I took time to begin the first part of heronaut, a project I’ve promised to Adrian Watts for PSP’s Astonishing Adventures. The soundtrack for most of this has been a combination of My Chemical Romance’s The Black Parade album and After the Goldrush by Neil Young – a fact that is evidenced in the prologue’s faux!Young lyrics.

The Love Amongst Strangers (Again) project has so far consisted of a variety of Paramore songs from their two studio albums, the Veronicas and a very specific song by American Goth revival band, ThouShaltNot whereas the playlist for the pretentiously titled lecteur de tarot side-story, 『天国のお嬢様』 has acquired two very specific Aly & AJ songs from their Insomniatic album and even a track from the original High School Musical.

These are still early days and, as I’m first admitting my obsessions with music here, I hope to go into detail later about the ’soundtrack’ of heronaut as it evolves, along with a possible breakdown of the library of tokusatsu songs that were used in my stint on Millennium Man.

By way of comparison, lecteur de tarot’s playlist is over 4GB of mostly orchestral music.