Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, entertainment, kieron gillen, NYCC, phonogram, The Wicked + the Divine, uber

NYCC: 3/4 Of The Kieron Gillen Panel

Published Fri, 10 Oct 2014 20:30:47 -0500

Jake Barlow writes for Bleeding Cool:

Lets do some maths. What do you get when you add a Bleeding Cool reporter, New York's famous Friday evening traffic and a particularly lazy and disinterested taxi driver? The answer is 3/4 of a Kieron Gillen panel! After opening the creaking doors of the panel room fifteen minutes late and grabbing a seat near the back as everyone turned around to see who the noisy intruders were, I managed to glean this much from the critically acclaimed writer behind the likes of The Wicked + The Divine, Über and Phonogram.

Music is obviously a big inspiration on Kieron's comics, especially Phonogram and The Wicked + The Divine, so it's no surprise to learn that during his youth he was a member of a few bands. One of note during his teenage years was "Phallacy – spelt with a PH…yeah we were classy fifteen year olds." He played a bass guitar he'd named Anastasia. He told of a time where his hair (when wet) would reach all the way down to his ass. This prompted a wave of laughter and demands for footage which apparently does exist somewhere, and 5 years later a girlfriend at the time "certainly shat a lung out with laughter" watching it as Kieron sat with his fist in his mouth. Another recording Kieron had of his early music career was accidentally recorded over with the original Carrie "which I'm ok with, I like Carrie." He occasionally gets the urge to write a graphic novel about his days in a band who all wore suits and had huge arguments on stage like an "overly obnoxious Oasis". He then when on to tell the crowd of one night in a shitty nightclub where he decided he could no longer rely on his band mates and had to focus his energies on becoming a writer. "The irony being that I swapped one collaborative medium for another. Jamie (McKelvie) drives me mad like my band mates drove me mad. I hate collaboration and I love collaboration. I must love it more though, surely!"

Questions from the audience raised the social faux pas of naming the characters in your books after your friends (especially when they're Nazis in Über!…the characters, that is. Not Kieron's friends!) Kieron also touched on respecting the intelligence of his audience by layering his work in a way that leaves puzzle pieces on the board that, with a re-read, might aid readers in figuring out what's coming before it's spelled out in later issues. Speaking of re-readability, he says he tries to make his books fun to read the first time and even more fun the second time with the added understanding, but admits that sometimes he might look back and realise that maybe the work put in to making a book enjoyable on the second read through can sometimes sacrifice the enjoyment potential of the first.

Asked on why Kieron chose the gods that he did for The Wicked + The Divine, he stated he picked them because he liked them, before explaining that, while an atheist, he had experienced a catholic upbringing so a lot of that mythology lingers in his head. He explained that when he was younger, as a fan of Iron Maiden he'd often wondered whether Eddie the Head was more powerful than God: "It was a real theological conundrum. If God and Jesus and all their friends teamed up, could they take down Eddie the Head? Actually…can I pitch that?" which had everyone in the room laughing.

As the questions kept coming Kieron lamented the fact that he had no gifts for questioners, saying that he liked that Image gave away free digital comics for questioners at their panels and attempted to make it up to the crowd by offering a firm handshake which went down very well.

Overall what we got to see of the panel was great. A fun, interesting spotlight on one of comics most intriguing writers and an insight into the way his mind works, his influences and his questionable days as a teenage (almost) pop star.

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