SunMonday Substack Comics Rack: Worlds/Moons-Building
Some Notes on 3W/3M, the Worlds-Building Project of Jonathan Hickman, Mike Huddleston, Mike Del Mundo, and a bevy of creatives
Hi… you’re getting this Sunday Substack Comics Rack… on Monday. Or maybe Tuesday. Sorry for the delay. Got waylaid. All work no play.
After a brief rundown of some notable Substack Comics bits, today I want to reflect on what I call (to myself, in my head) the “Worlds/Moons-Building” going on at 3W/3M, as we are treated to more and more of the creation process.
But first…
Substack Comics Neeeewwwwwsssss
STARSIGNS Surprise Drop! Saladin Ahmed’s Copper Bottle surprise-dropped a first chapter of STARSIGNS, by Ahmed and Megan Levens with Kelly Fitzpatrick (colors), Shawn Lee (letters), and Heather Antos (editor). Wow! What a comics debut. Copper Bottle had been mostly silent for a while, which built anticipation for me as a fan of lots of Saladin Ahmed’s past collaborations.
STARSIGNS was a previously unannounced project, and the 9 pages we got of this opening were a great, ahem, SIGN of what’s to come. It’s gorgeously drawn by Levens, whose past credits include “Spell on Wheels” and “Buffy” comics. Fitzpatrick also shows off some vibrant color work. Ahmed also announced, in that first surprise drop post, that Copper Bottle comics will be free for all, and the imprint will look to feature creators of color.
I’m excited to read more and happy to be supporting.
Along with BLUE BOOK stuff, the James Tynion IV-led “Empire of the Tiny Onion” has continued putting out ancillary DEPARTMENT OF TRUTH: WILD FICTIONS material, for those of you into that sort of thing. (Not me! Shriek!)
Last week, I reviewed DARKEST NIGHT by Molly Knox Ostertag, which had released two beginning sections. The third (1.3) came out this week… and we’re in a rhythm! Good stuff.
Likewise for ND Stevenson’s I’m Fine I’m Fine Just Understand, where the latest entry “Becoming” is wonderfully, artfully reflective about body, gender, and self-acceptance. Fast becoming my most meaningful Substack comics read each week.
Chip Zdarsky continues PUBLIC DOMAIN and, with Kagan McLeod, KAPTARA, both of which I’m finding work really well in this alternating weekly format. And meanwhile, if my boring reviews of Substack Comics aren’t doing it for you, the Stegman + Cates comedy duo at KLC dip into the review game, starting with witty chatter about Zdarsko.
If you’ve been holding off on reading those regular installments of Jeff Lemire’s FISHFLIES, now is the time. 1-10 released this past week, marking the end of Book 1, which Lemire says they will package up and pass on to us in that easy-readable PDF form soon. I think I’ll probably do a deeper-dive extended review of FISHFLIES Book 1 next week for the Sunday Substack Comics Rack, okay?
Worlds/Moons-Building Notes
As a teacher, sometimes I have to assign tasks I know some students will LOVE to sink their teeth into, even though I would be the kid in the group project drafting off my partners’ speed.
“Design an Island Where…” “Imagine a Society Which…” “Organize a Government that…”
The future city planners and civil engineers in my class (and the ones that SHOULD be, if not for systemic barriers) get excited, working out sewage systems or economic models for fairer distribution or alternatives to the prison industrial complex. Meanwhile, my eyes glaze over and I nod and smile. “Sounds good to me!”
I'm tempted to say that some of us are into the details of world-building, while others are more interested in the thematic, emotional, or character dimensions of stories… but that’s exactly the kind of fixed-mindset categorization that I tend to dislike. When I resort to it for myself, it’s often an excuse for NOT-learning.
So I’m confessing. Initially, I was dazzled by the promise of the imagination and artistry of Jonathan Hickman, Mike del Mundo, and Mike Huddleston being deployed for 3 Worlds/3 Moons. And each contributor they brought aboard was also a thrilling addition: Tini Howard, Ram V, Al Ewing, Sasha Head, and then artists like Jason Howard and the newly announced Stephen Green. What an assembly of creative greatness!
But as the first litany of posts came out, laying out details of family trees, economic systems, religious sects, the mining of khor (??)… even that first super dope-looking “Duels” comic drawn by Jason Howard… I found myself greeting them with those same glazed-over eyes when my students would describe, in wonderfully meticulous detail, all the nifty jetpacks and innovative bureaucracies they had invented.
But please understand… it’s not because I don’t think this is the stuff that matters… it’s because I DO SEE and BELIEVE this IS the stuff that matters. Not by my intuition or natural personality. Not at first blush. But through study, through labor, through learning.
I’m a teacher who became a semi-sociologist/anthropologist. I’m an older sibling who became a student of human development. I commune easily in emotions and relationships, but I get dressed up and roll up my sleeves for understanding systems, institutions, and ecologies.
It’s just… THREE worlds? AND three moons? Sigh… I’m just tired. 😮💨
When it’s time to roll up those sleeves and engage with my students’ imagined worlds, few things are more telling or interesting. So it’s time to get into that flow. Immerse. Here we go.
[ Concept. Process. ]
Says Hickman:
THREE WORLDS THREE MOONS is a concept universe. And we mean this in exactly the same vein as a concept album, where all of the individual characters/stories/things we create together add up to be part a much larger whole.
We also wanted this to be a completely transparent process, where each of you has a front seat -- and in some cases, a good bit of input -- in the primal process of creating a storytelling universe.
-Jonathan Hickman for 3 Worlds/3 Moons
Even though the splashy headline was Hickman departing as “Head of X" at Marvel for 3W/3M at Substack, what intrigues me is the collective improvisational jazz band universe creation idea. It seemed like HoX/PoX was a culminating exercise in Hickman’s accretion of creative power in building worlds/nations/status quos that other creators could dance in, full of intriguing, norms-shattering concepts. But it seems the constraints and catastrophes of corporate comics, distribution demands, solicitation schedules, etc made the freedom of self-Sublishing (that’s my new word) much more appealing. And here we are, 3 Worlds / 3 Moons.
What we’ve bought into, as the Substack-subbing public (the “Sublic”?), is the witnessing of these creative riffings, this coming together of individual brilliance into an interactive remix.
The fascinating thing to me about this endeavor is the extent to which PROCESS has become CONTENT. There’s no Charles Xaviers and Jean Greys to hitch our curiosity wagons to, no much-beloved fictional IP universe with fifty years of adaptations, not even a tease that 3W/3M will tickle our political biases or futurist alarms. Just… come and see as we keyboard gods cook up a universe.
Systems: Perplexity
Pretty early on, we were treated to posts like Ram V’s rendition of the economic systems of the three planets and three moons, and then Hickman’s extended commentary on each of the proposed system ideas for the worlds and moons. Ram V’s ideas are interesting: Syndicalist arrangements. Tightly controlled theocracies. The destabilizing prospect of magic. Downstream effects from interplanetary imbalances because of the outsized value of the mining of KHOR, a high-value element in 3W/3M not unlike the spice in Dune.
But what’s interesting and unique to watch is the dialogue between Ram V’s ideas and Hickman’s extrapolations into potential stories. Sequentially, starting out with constructing these worlds by soliciting these gifts from V, from Tini Howard, from Al Ewing, and so on, and THEN constructing stories from the generative corners of these overlapping world systems is not the way I usually envision storytelling.
But that’s why I’m not Jonathan Hickman.
In the comments, some careful, attentive readers weigh in on the finer points of succession or bank credibility or KHOR half-life. Every now and then, a comment pipes in that sounds like my reaction: “Cool! Thanks. This looks like it’ll make for some dope comics. Somewhere down the line. Soon. Right? Soon?”
As I was saying above, it takes a certain kind to squint through these notional world-building ideas to hold in our heads these multiple worlds and begin speculatively spinning out the intergroup power/knowledge struggles and secret smuggling networks and extrajudicial espionage arms that will make for fun comics scifi. But there it is, right before our eyes, Hickman teasing those from these (some would say) arcane details of these worlds systems.
When artists like Del Mundo or Huddleston render sample costumes of this sect or that tradesworker, this cluster of ships or that island dwelling, it’s fun to imagine these tidbits of imagined visual reality sprouting up from the junctures of those systems and the potential story sparks from them.
Still, I wonder if there’s a little bit of the vibe when lots of musicians get together but haven’t played together before. No one wants to be “that guy” who starts blasting their own horns and eating up the whole soundscape. So the whole cadre of musicians, each tunes up with little toots and scales and runs of brilliant hints, but all somewhat timid, nothing quite resembling a full song yet. Everyone waiting and watching for that bass drum beat.
The A/V Club
One of the initially puzzling things going on at 3W/3M was the non-content content. Many of these Comics Substacks have featured live-draws, chat events on Zoom calls, printed interviews, podcast episodes, things like that. 3W/3M held a Grant Morrison conversation and plans one with Brian K. Vaughan. Super cool content… but not yet comics?
For those of us really interested in seeing comics art, even happy to get some process pieces or backmatter type conversations, this stuff could all be great, even if it felt.. ancillary. Until we could get some comics, anyway. For me, the most puzzling piece was the Worlds Worth Watching series of posts, where the 3W/3M creatives seemed to be watching movies like Children of Men and Dune together and holding live-chats about them.
In theory, the idea sounds like a super good time and really pretty special. Watch great Scifi, side-by-side with some great Scifi creators, and get an inside glimpse at how they get collectively influenced by a bunch of seminal influences. It really does feel like a privileged peek.
But on the other hand, as a bunch of messages that pop up randomly in my overcrowded inbox amid electric bills and work emails and climate action petitions, and without much comics content which we thought we were signing up for, “Worlds Worth Watching” could start to feel to my cynical side like “Why’d We Waste our Wages?”
I called that cynicism to task and made an effort to join in live for a viewing of Dune in the comments, and it did feel really special, sincerely. Hearing what creators observed, the jokes they quipped, the depth of their comparisons of Dune adaptations and significance of story and portrayal choices was… well, it was a great time. The other live-viewers also proved to be a smart and thoughtful bunch.
I’m not prone to find fellowship among internet anons. But I have to say, watching Dune with 3W/3M added to my sense of optimism about participatory and interactive cultural production. These creators are intentionally nestling themselves, through this Substack experimentation, among a community of their supporters and readers. We’re being let in at the ground floor of exciting creative reappropriation and remixing.
That feels… amazing.
Duels. With my brain.
We’ve gotten some beautiful images and tantalizing ideas. But the (by now tired) refrain from me about this whole Substack Comics experience has been, “okay, it’s nice… but where are the comics?”
So what can we say for the comics we HAVE gotten from 3w3m.substack.com?
Looking at “Duels”: We’ve got assassin classes. We’ve got Heir and Fayrii. We’ve got coinage and succession battles and a moon prominently floating in the Heir sky. And we’ve gotten… a trailer. Hints of a story.
Like the first issue of “Decorum,” which I poured over again and again for the incredible art, trying to make sense of the storyworld… I felt at a loss. To be honest, I felt stupid. Like when I tried to learn to appreciate what 14 year old Me was staring at in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, straining hard at my own sophistication while in reality probably just getting DuChamped.
Is it better for me, this dumbhead, to have tried and failed, or to never have tried at all? My Berkeley doctorate, those years of puzzling through Derrida and deCerteau, and I’m still the blinking white guy “Excuse Me?” reaction GIF.
So I’m not grading any of this work, not with anything but an “Incomplete,” or “Too early to judge.” Lots of intrigue. Lots of earned faith. But still… waxing and waning, and waiting.