Vetoed at the Krakoan Council
i had a crazy plan, perhaps too crazy
Listen closely, children, for this is the truth. It is the story of a woman named Tini Howard, and her first meetings in the X-office.
Back in 2018/2019, when I was at the first initial X-Men meetings with Jonathan Hickman, Gerry Duggan, Ben Percy, and editors Jordan White and Annalise Bissa, I learned something about myself that I’d always sort of known:
I prefer stories and art that feel…a little difficult.
One of the most exciting things about the new era to me was that it felt foreign, strange. The things that ended up unnerving a lot of longtime fans - nudity, necromancy, open floor plans - really excited me. I love to read hard sci-fi and I love when there’s a vague reference to something I may never fully understand. That sets my brain alight - and I felt encouraged to bring that energy into the room. The idea of fusing that with the X-Men, who with their space travel and genetic science easily lend themselves to harder sci-fi - I was in. Few things satisfy me more than the cerebral feeling of welcoming that I get once I’ve unraveled things, so I very much wanted to give people things to unravel.
This is maybe not a trait of mine that everyone shares! It rose its head shortly after Jon introduced the Krakoan language. While it’s actually more of a replacement cipher with a few linguistic tricks than it is a true language - that’s what I loved about it. It wasn’t anything that anyone with a bit of dedicated time couldn’t crack with a little effort. (More on that later.)
So my pitch? To increase the sense of a foreign land populated by mutants that humans could experience from afar but not be part of…I wanted to do all of the ads in Krakoan with absolutely no English.
It was instantly pointed out to me by the folks at Marvel that this was a bad idea. An advertisement for a new era needs to be welcoming, encouraging, a sign that that readers can and should jump in. And I get it. To my credit, as a former retailer, I believe my immediate response to the raised eyebrows leveled my way was something like “oh come on, we’ll tell the RETAILERS what’s going on!” After all, they place the orders, they get to know a bit more about the puzzle.
But the puzzle! The puzzle of it all. In my mind, there was no better way to stoke the fires of early adopters, no better way to set the tale of the mutants and their foreign land. You’re seeing things not meant for you. For me, that’s catnip. But not all fans are the same, and the professionals in the room informed me we wouldn’t be doing it that way. Which, I get. I do. I was alight with the recklessness of power. And Jonathan did encourage my desire to give Apocalypse a mutant name unpronounceable by humans and even made us a little glyph for it.
Which is ultimately why I had such a great time in that room. Few things have been more fulfilling as a creator than sitting in a room with a bunch of my favorite writers and pitching my weirdest, craziest ideas. It was a room that encouraged that, and for that I’ll always be grateful, and remember it as one of the most rewarding and fun times of my entire life so far.
By the way, I get asked a lot how to pronounce Apocalypse’s name. The real answer is you can’t if you’re a human, and it’s not like a strict physical thing, it’s a linguistics thing. If you catch me on a day where I’m silly, you get the stupid answer, which is this:
Also, I was right - you all cracked the Krakoan alphabet within two hours of its release anyway.
But god, I love when art is hard to get to, a mystery. Nothing intrigues me more - I’ve always loved the impossible, the improbable, and ARGs, and I think the worst part of a horror movie is when they explain what’s causing everything (unless it’s really, really good.)
When we talk about making art for people like ourselves, I often laugh. I love art that’s arcane, weird, unsettling. I like the kind of things that a lot of people find frankly, upsetting. I like to feel like things are hard to find, hard to understand. I love outsider art and outsider music, I love the things I was maybe never meant to see.
This was my impulse with all that stuff - and I’ll continue to feed that impulse more in other work. Maybe, in retrospect, the major relaunch of one of the world’s most iconic franchises wasn’t the best place for me to want to play outsider artist, after all.
But I tried!!!!
HAPPY-BIRTHDAY-HARLEY
HARLEY QUINN #38 is out this week!
It’s the beginning of a whole new Gotham-focused arc where Harley gets back to her roots - studying criminals and wearing spandex. If you’ve been looking for more adventures of Harley in Gotham, join us here!
If you didn’t pre-order at your local shop, I encourage you to buy from one of the many awesome brick-and-mortar shops that stock comics! Like Third Eye Comics in Baltimore, MD, a national favorite.
TALKING TO STRANGERS
This week, I did an interview with DC.COM’s amazing Jules Chin Greene where I talked about Catwoman, Harley Quinn, Dungeons and Dragons, and Grant Morrison (speaking of my urges to be weird and arcane…) Jules asked great questions and I’m extremely happy with how the interview turned out.
WONDERCON!
I’ll be at WONDERCON in Anaheim, CA this weekend - Saturday and Sunday only. I’m sticking around my table, signing books and selling them if you wanna get caught up! Here I am last year at Wondercon’s DAWN OF DC panel:
Will I be irritably talking with my hands, sunglasses atop my head? CERTAINLY! Just at my table instead of on a panel. Come see for yourself.
A few bullet points of things I’ve been really enjoying lately, that you might like too:
Jacob Geller is a favorite YouTuber of mine. His most recent video, Art for No One, might be my favorite. It touches on a lot of the topics I discussed up at the top - art that is difficult to view or obtain - so if that tickles your fancy, definitely check out his essay at the link. I think he’s got a book open for pre-order too.
I watched War for the Planet of the Apes and it’s one of the best action movies I’ve seen in a long, long time. Is it the third sequel in big studio franchise remake, full of CGI apes? Yes. Did I find myself a full tilt simian sympathizer watching it? Also yes. Again - the kind of risk it takes to make a Hollywood movie with no human leads like this (short of the villain) takes enormous bravery, and I absolutely adored the results. A movie that’s better than it has any right to be.
Yes I saw Dune 2, it was brilliant, let’s give it up for Giedi Prime the Rick Owens planet, if you would like to talk about Dune 2 in the comments that is encouraged
I made a really robust binder for my latest Dungeons and Dragons character. I kind of want to share that with y’all but I’m not sure how many of you are tabletop gamers. Let me know if that’s something folks would be interested in and I’ll send it out.
LASTLY - those of you part of the original wave of yearly and Founder subscribers should have received your rewards packages by now! If you haven’t, let me know, and I’ll fix that.
Stay weird, talk soon,
-TH 3.26.24 13:42
It's me, I was one of, if not the, first people to break the Krakoan cypher! (I'm @StAdkison referenced here) https://comicsxf.com/2019/07/19/dedicated-x-fans-crack-code-reveal-the-titles-of-the-dawn-of-x-books/#google_vignette
Love this post, Tini. <3