Spoilers, obv.

Perhaps unsurprising, this was a nightmarish amount of work. For once, more of it landed on my lap. It took Jamie longer than we’d hoped – about a week or so, which isn’t a small thing when you’re also doing Phonogram at the same time. Matt was obviously MVP for it. He attacked it pretty hard, and we did a lot of tweaks looking for the effects we were going for.

Me? Took about a month to write the issue. I find myself thinking of something I recall being common wisdom back in the days of games journalism, talking about development. Specifically, that you should only really try to do something difficult in one area at once, especially if it involved innovation. If the rest is stuff you know you can do, you can explore the area with some degree of security. If you try and do two at once, neither can be really completed until both are. It becomes exponentially more difficult, as you’re trying to get these two systems to align.

(I suspect this is a reason why AAA games are often so fucking dull, but that’s not strictly speaking relevant.)

In short: I suspect something like that was happening here, which is why it took a month. The two problems were…

i) can you do an issue entirely comprised of re-arranged panels of previous issues?

ii) can I write a convincing interiority of a complete fuck of a character that people would want to read?

The main problem with the first one is even working out what story I could possibly tell. What images do we have? How can they be re-arranged? And what of my material of the larger story of Wicked/Divine can I actually do with it, etc.

There was also the option that it may not just work. I tried to write it early enough that I was aware that there was time to press eject. If I coudn’t make it stretch to 20+ pages, we could get a guest artist, in something like a guest rapper. If it was really bad, there was always the chance to just press eject and get an artist in (or multiple artists), in a “multiple rapper” sort of set up.

First step was just throwing this stuff on the floor and going through the issue and working it pretty methodically. Later on, I went through WicDiv labelling the appearances of each character numerically so I could reference them, but early on it was just about obsessing over what pictures we had.

(When we came to assemble it, Jamie came over to my house break the back of it, which resulted in a manga studio page full of all the Woden heads, ever, which we used like a palette. It is a very disturbing page.)

Obviously the things which caught my eye were Woden’s helmet, lacking features, could easily support an issue. Cassandra wears nearly the same clothes for the majority of the run, in which case stuff involving her seemed necessary. The problem was Ananke, who needed to be involved in the story, and changes her clothes pretty regularly. She was the limiting factor, and involved the most planning.

Ideas occurred to me. Things that could be used, stretched, warped.

(The script I did was then scribbled on when Jamie was over, with suggested panels to use for Jamie’s editing)

Jamie didn’t just cut, paste and generally edit panels. There is a couple of tiny new things which I’ll point out as we progress. There’s a few closing lines. There’s also bits where it may appear that it’s a new figure, but in reality is actually a frankensteining together of multiple images. In an ideal form, I suspect the only new image in the comic should be the final figure who’s revealed. We didn’t quite pull that off, but we did okay.

Matt came in after the pages were completed and we talked through the concepts of how to do it. He had the idea of sampling the original art of the page it was in, and working it in as a separate layer. You get the hauntology aspect to the book like that. There’s also an element of psychosis to the colours, as they increase in intensity as we move through the book.

While all that was going on, I was trying to get close to Woden. He’s a shit, but I wanted him to have the reality of any of the other characters. There are no monsters. There are just people. If I was going to write a sexist, I had no desire to write one who was a straw man. He believes his stuff for his own reasons. He’s self-aware (but tellingly not entirely self-aware). There has to be a reason to be interested in him, and know why he’s doing what he’s doing, etc.

This basically involved wallowing in shit for the month, just trying out dialogue and trying to conceive of a misogynist that magnifies the very worst parts of me in a fairly internally-coherent way.

Which isn’t an easy sentence to write. I said all the characters were me, and that includes fucking Woden,

Woden is scary. He scares the living shit out of me. I showered hard after writing this.

The whole “ceremonial annihilation of self” is a big part of WicDiv, as I’ve talked before, but there’s bits that I’m going to be glad watching burn.

Anyway – let’s dig into this. I’ll probably include more of the bits and pieces and making of in the trade, as always.

Jamie’s Cover

Like the pugnaciousness of Woden here. The cracking of the knuckles and the fist. It’s a threatening look, obviously.

Grimes’ Cover

Jamie and I basically said “riff on the Norns or the Valkyries or something and see what you end up with.”

We ended up with this.

WicDiv is a lot of fun sometimes.

Intro page

The dedication foreshadows the sample. We were considering having it be “THIS ISSUE IS DEDICATED TO MATT FRACTION AND CHIP ZDARSKY. YOUR MOVE.” but that would only have encouraged them.

Page 1

One of the new drawn pages, and obviously a relatively simple one. In an initial draft, I had the voice coming from off panel, but it involved some cheaty stuff to avoid revealing that the character is also speaking in a distorted Woden-style voice. Like, Woden turned off his distortion half way across the page, etc.

In the end, a sort of implicit conversation was the way we went. I suspect some people will miss Woden is telling the story to someone, but they’d get it in a re-read. This is clearly an issue people will re-read.

(I’d hope most of WicDiv would be that, but this one especially.)

Page 2

Thought it was probably worth telling people this is a remix issue, y'know?

There have been some reviewers who didn’t notice. I suspect this is a reviewing competency test.

Page 3-4-5

Jamie’s arrangement of this was pretty clear and simple. Matt added the idea of re-sampling the pages where they were originally used, and having some of that leaking in. It immediately makes this sequence more berserk.

You’ll see the main technique I used to keep the thing from falling apart – namely, a more authorative narrator than we’ve ever used in WicDIv before. In comics, the push and pull between words and pictures is key. The more weight the words take in terms of supplying meaning, the more the imagery can wander.

(This is really basic stuff, obv – you’ll get this from UNDERSTANDING COMICS, but it’s always worth remembering)

As said, I wrote a lot more than we ended up. There was a lot of Woden rambling and I cut down to what basically worked on the page.

Why start with Kerry’s assassination attempt? In a basic way, when analysing the story, it’s where you have the easiest new information for the reader, picking up a scene where we left it in issue 7. Woden and his Valkyries is the key relationship, and worth re-stating that.

I saw a couple of people say this reminded them of the start of Ellis/Jiminez’s censored Hellblazer comic Shoot, and they wouldn’t be wrong. Fascinating comic.

Immediately we get one of those core parts of Woden that hold him together – that self hatred. It’s an issue which answers a lot of mysteries, but also sets up a bunch.

The head shot blowing a bunch of WicDiv images over the page is very much what the issue is. It’s like mopping up brain matter, this issue.

Page 6

Odd seeing Laura again.

This is one of the clunkier pages in terms of the storytelling – that middle panel is one of the ones where the remix nature of the book is clear. There’s some minor cleaning up work too – a removal of a Minerva, and a stolen pose for Ananke, a slightly off Woden, etc.

With Ananke, we basically sampled an Ananke from one scene in a previous book per scene. This was the Issue 9 with Cassanda one.

Yes, this is a “Woden almost peed inside his suit” joke.

Page 7

And we set up the basic device which made me realise the issue could work, and an unplanned for advantage of the TEAM PHONOGRAM traditional eight panel grid. As we have a fairly standard panel size, a lot can just be used direct, or re-cropped, etc.

(Did I tell Jamie to do scenes with this issue in mind? No. Or at least, not in a way which reached the page.)

Jamie uses 3D models for his backgrounds, as a basis for inking, and that’s used here in parts.

We’re not a comic about THE GOVERNMENT AND SUPERHEROES!!!! (It’s overdone territory and so pretty tedious) but I felt it was worth saying why it’s not an issue. Well, at least here.

One day I’ll do a Carthage story. One day.

Page 8

Nice use of losing the distortions to show a flashback in panel one by Matt.,

The odd thing about much of this issue is that how much it works as an issue. I thought it’d be a lot rougher, more DIY aesthetic… but as far as a remix goes, it’s pretty seamless. I guess that says something else.

Page 9-10-11-12

As a major part where Woden interacted with the plot, I knew I’d want to expand this exchange, and I just let the conversation sprawl out.

I smile at Cass in the final panel of page 9. Bless her.

“The Patriarchy Hurts Everyone” is a memetically sticky phrase which I’ve been thinking a lot over the last few years. Putting it in the mouth of Woden makes it awkward. I suspect Cass’ response would be most feminists’ response to Woden. As in, really? Really?

The most surprising thing about Woden’s speech on page 10-11 is that Cassandra doesn’t interrupt it. I like to imagine her sort of standing there, blinking. Really?

The responses to this speech have been interesting. I suspect I better not comment on that.

In terms of character, at least part of me thinking of Woden was the realisation that a slightly self-aware Woden would obviously despise most MRA sorts, even while acting in a way often aligned to it. He’s not a men’s right activist. He’s a Woden activist. Fuck everyone.

In terms of what stuff went into the ramble, it involved a synthesis of three main sources.

The first would be Laurie Penny’s last book, UNSPEAKABLE THINGS, where the core “Patriarchy is about the Fathers” line of argument comes from. As a book, I like it a lot, and like Laurie generally. It’s well worth buying. Laurie reads WicDiv in trade, and can only imagine her horrified face when she reaches this bit.

(One of the many fascinating things about MAD MAX: THUNDER ROAD is the War Boys. The whole “The Patriarchy Hurts Everyone” aspect is shown incredibly clearly by those poor, desperate to please kids. A lesser film would have made them stooges of the regime. This made it clear they were, in their own way, victims too. Yes, they had privilege above many, but their job was to be used up and die for their father figure, etc. I digress.)

The second was a book about Sexual Selection I read back when I was a student, THE RED QUEEN by Matt Ridley. It’s twenty years out of date, so I wouldn’t trust it, and like most evolution-as-applied-to-humans books, you need to read with a really careful mind, but the whole stuff about Wot Fathers Do When They Get Power was taken from there. Mashing that into Laurie was the majority of the thought here.

The remainder was a moment when listening to a particular moment of horror in one of the recent HARDCORE HISTORY episodes about WW1 (The whole BLUEPRINT FOR ARMAGEDDON SERIES is essential) where I just had a moment of perspective on the whole thing.

Sythnesising the whole lot was really the job, into something Woden could say and maybe even believe – the question of how much is honesty and how much is the pose of honesty is also a key thing throughout the Cass/Woden conversation.

As a larger thing, this is probably a clear bit of how I see Woden – someone who’s read all the tumblr essays, knows a good chunk of the theory and just shrugs. “So what?” Nihilism is an awful position, but it’s also a hard one to argue against.

In terms of craft, the backgrounds are public domain images which can be used rights free. We tried various ones before settling on these.

Page 13

Obviously one of the less fancy pages, very much turned to out of a need to link one scene to the next. Functionality, etc.

Cass has been in many ways the angry moral center of the book, but this page you see her (via Woden’s eyes) in a different light, and a much less favourable one. She’s the person who can handle herself, but I suspect after this, you see how young she actually is more. Also… a writer friend who reads this in advance commented that the issue made a lot of the gods tarnish. They seem smaller. Clearly, that’s deliberate – Woden makes everything smaller, as a petty side of eyes tends to – but it’s a hard one. Seeing Cassandra being played by Woden is hard for me.

Of course, now I’m also scared for her.

Page 14-15

I didn’t know I was including this in this issue until I wrote it. I have a lot of material, and it’s a question of knowing how to use it. When planning it, I couldn’t see a single good reason to keep the murder mystery running any more. It’s much more interesting to close it. There’s something oddly appealing about doing a clues-fitting-together scene in an issue which is literally about fitting shit together.

(Obviously WicDiv loses people at various points, but Jamie and I have been surprised by people not knowing what the plot is any more. The one-sentence version being: “ANANKE IS KILLING HER YOUNG CHARGES. WHY?”)

The Ananke-over-shoulder is a new image. In my plans, I had a different set up, but it’d have been clunky as hell, so Jamie just did a simple outline. Frankly, as simple single line filled in, it almost doesn’t count, does it? I could probably do it. Badly, but still.

“ANANKE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!” makes me laugh for some reason.

Page 16

As I said, the issue was inspired by internet remix culture. I suspect I thought more of the issue would have worked like this, but in the end, I much preferred pushing the plot forward rather than snark.

You know the bit earlier about this issue reducing the gods? This page. Very much this page.

We originally did this in a different font. I SHOUTED FOR IMPACT.

That second panel with Baal strikes me as an excellent T-shirt.

Epic colouring here by Matt. Really like it. Unusual, striking.

Page 17

In the same way as “Wait – I can use public domain images” was done earlier, this page comes from me thinking of alternate ways to use our resources – and one of the resources was Jamie’s 3D Sketch-up models. By taking a screenshot and processing it, you could have an interesting effect. Clearly, the computer-aided-design vibe is appropriate for Woden both as the builder of Pantheon, and because of the Tron-aspect.

Page 18-19

Oh god.

If it’s any help, it’s actually more disturbing in black and white.

When originally planning the issue, I was thinking we’d get a sample from another image book that’d work as a “chorus.” I was thinking maybe a Casanova-talking-to-reader panel, re-used as a refrain, repeating riffs of a similar thing. It was only relatively near starting work the idea of… wait! We can use Sex Criminals! This would close the circle.

It’s also, in Woden’s world, incredibly appropriate – that Woden in our comic in the dance sequence and the pose Chip did with Kieron were identical almost makes it seems like we planned it.

The pages are fucking horrible, and hopefully a lesson in how context works in comics, and how images warp depending on how they’re used, and how arguments that take an image and take it apart in and of itself with no other reference to anything else are fundamentally flawed. What appears playful and joyous in Sex Criminals is turned into this. Comics are read.

These pages were coloured by Dee Cunliffe, who has been flatting for all of WicDiv. Matt suggested Dee did it, in the spirit of the whole remix-structure of the book, and the results are excellent. That drop to the greys on Cassandra is fucking amazing. The pacing across the second page is one of my favourite things in the issue, in terms of “doing what we want to do.” Clearly, it’s grotesque.

(The whole issue is meant to be building in intensity, with these micro-climaxes, before falling away a little. That’s both in terms of visuals and emotional content. By the end… oh, we’ll get there.)

The last two panels on page 18 is one of those slight twists on Woden which are key to him. Trying to get the push and pull of his hypocrisies was hard. The core nihilism of Woden is very much “what do you say to someone who’s educated themselves and still doesn’t care?”

Yeah, still worried for Cass.

Page 20

In the original “script” this first caption was planned to be done on the previous page. Actually… well, “script” is probably over-stating what actually existed. I suspect we’ll show some of it in the trade, but half the time it was very much commission. There were bits where I’m “use these images from this stuff to create a whole new page.” Thee’s other bits where I’m just doing dialogue in the panel, and know we’re going to be picking and choosing from what we’ve got, etc. I mean, on this page, the last four panels were basically INCREASING CLOSE UP ON WODEN, which Matt then amped up with the colouring. The dialogue was more in the script, but I cut a bunch to get a slight change of momentum. Two two-caption panels, followed by two one-caption/balloon panels. That’s a speeding up. Plus the THREE CAPTION PANELS followed by ONE PANEL OF SPEECH.

(Decompression isn’t quite as much of a hot potato as it was back in the 00s, which was always fogged up by some people not quite getting what the word actually meant, and using it pretty much randomly for when they don’t like a story. These four panels are pretty much classical decompression, in terms of choosing to stretch out a moment for increased aesthetic effect. In this case, freezing it and letting us linger on Woden’s temper snapping.)

Anyway – going back to the start of the page. The script for 18-19 was basically a lot of dialogue, and various ideas of how we could work the pacing of the image to create an effect. When I actually did that, we realised that ending with a link to the next scene would actually break the effect of the two pages. We needed that single image to be a punchline…

In which case the first panel here is carrying more weight than is actually elegant. The captions need to do a lot of lifting. Not exactly my favourite solution in the book, but it does the job.

Page 21

Ananke’s not happy face not any more comforting when we re-use it, is it?

Ananke looks a little like some awesome electroclash band in the third panel.

Yeah – this is Matt in virtuoso mode. Matt Wilson for Eisner, etc.

Page 22

“Hey, Jamie – can we make a cylinder of pre-existing Woden heads? Please and Thank you.”

Another page which Matt really brought into focus. Before the treatment, the cut and paste Woden wasn’t quite working in the falling – after the treatment, the repeat becomes a meaningful thing, in terms of actually feeling like a descent.

As I said, as we get near the end, the clean-ness of Woden’s perspective is starting to fall apart.

Page 23

I believe I wrote in the script the finger click to remove the blood so we got to use slightly different faces on the page. I’m not sure if we needed to.

Page 24-25

The first pages I wrote for the issue, as it was basically the thing I was sure which would work, and the key thing in a “I’m sure that Woden’s conversation will lead to here.”

Biggest conversations were in terms of box shapes and colour choices. Making sure the ? Read as one of the pictures rather than a number was the main worry, which basically seems to work. The red holds it together.

Choosing which panel to use for each of the “these people are alive” shots felt particularly cruel. “Where did Inanna look most adorable and hopefuly? Oh, that one.”

Page 26

With the conspiracy theories flying around, I suspect I better keep my commentary here minimal.

As said, this is an issue which closes some previous mysteries. Appropriately, it opens a few more.

Page 27

Huginn (Thought) and Muninn (Memory) were Woden’s two ravens.

And that’s it. See you next month, where we’re joined by Stephanie Hans and Amaterasu.

Oh - and if your comic shop is still open today, you can talk to your retailer to secure a copy of issue 15′s alternate cover. Which is lovely.

Aww.

See you then. Thanks for reading.