#three comic

THE "WAIT! SURELY I OWN THIS ALREADY? OH, IT'S CHEAP, I'LL HAVE ANOTHER ONE" OPTION

You're probably aware of this one. Wot Team Phonogram did next. Gods as Pop Stars and Pop Stars as Gods, etc. Has done worryingly well, and is doing impressively in the end of year lists. Also, award winning.

This collects the first five issues of the series for a bargain $10, so I suspect is a good price to give to friends you're trying to make join our cult. Issue 6 is out this week, so if someone wants to jump aboard, it's a good time.

You can get it from a specialist comic retailer online like TFAW (US), Forbidden Planet International (UK) or Page 45 (UK). Alternatively, there’s always book retailers like Amazon (US/UK).

THE "ACTUALLY, I QUITE FANCY SOMETHING SELF-IMPROVING AND HISTORICAL (BUT WITH STABBING)" OPTION

This is us doing straight historical fiction, basically telling the story of three helots on the run from their Spartan masters. I'm still quite proud of this one. This inversion of the Thermopylae story is ludicrously over-researched, and I suspect would be the sort of gift that'd appeal to anyone who likes historical fiction at all. It's $15, and includes a mass of historical footnotes and a conversation with our historical consultant, Professor Hodkinson of Nottingham University.

It's available from comic shops, obv. Here it is at Midtown (US), Forbidden Planet (UK), Page 45 (UK) and there's always book retailers like Amazon (US/UK)

THE "IT IS THE SEASON FOR BLEAK EXISTENTIAL DESPAIR EXPRESSED VIA THE MEDIUM OF SUPERHEROICS" OPTION

The first two volumes of Uber came out in softback. Uber is a WW2 superhero story, which basically takes the whole thing incredibly seriously. It's fundamentally a "Germany invents the bomb first" story, but using the metahuman metaphor. It's as much as a War Story as anything else, and is interested in economics, R&D and a complete a total failure of human imagination. It's a gun-metal grey scream.

If you're interested, I'd recommend picking up the first two trades. That's basically a year of the book, and by the time we reach the last issue, the book's made its position pretty clear. It also works in a HBO-series kind of way. I occasionally think Game of Thrones when thinking of Uber, in that it's a look at a society at war, and pays attention to all sides.

You can get it from comic shops. Here it is at TFAW (Vol 1/Vol 2) and Page 45 (Vol 1/Vol 2) plus places like Amazon (UK - Vol 1/Vol 2. US - Vol 1/Vol 2)

It's about as far away as Young avengers as any two books that are abstractly in the same genre can be. Fraction did wonder what sort of whiplash I gave myself writing both of them at the same time.

Talking about Young Avengers...

THE "MONEY > SENSE, ACTUALLY, NO, THIS LOOKS LOVELY I MUST HAVE IT I MUST" OPTION

And for those who are looking for something a little more luxuriant and fancy - and this is the season for luxuriant and fancy - Marvel have just released an Ominbus of our run on YOUNG AVENGERS. All 15 issues are collected, in an over-sized hardback format. It's $50 RRP, and astoundingly pretty.

You can get it from your local shop, or online retailers. Here's TFAW (US), Midtown (US) and Forbidden Planet (UK). Also, general retailers like Amazon (US/UK). There's also two covers for it, one pictured above, and the other with O'Malley's excellent cover.

And that'll do for now. Hurrah for comics, especially mine.

Cover Once again, lovely stuff from Ryan and Jordie. In terms of actual design, it’s one of my favourites. I’d be tempted to use it for the trade, but it doesn’t quite sell the story’s theme.

Page 1 Having one of your protagonists kill a dog on the first page is something I worried about a bunch. It involved stressing intensely to lean into the viciousness of these hunting war-dogs. Killing Lassie on the first page of your book is rarely a good idea.

End of page ellipsis page link. I’m interrogating my own use of ellipsis in dialogue at the moment, and still not entirely sure where I’m going to end up with them.

Page 2 Obviously, one man facing 300 is the core image of the series, as shown on the cover.

Page 3 Really like what Ryan did with the rush of men in the first panel. The semi-ironic-undercutting dialogue of the captions isn’t something I’m too fond of – by definition, it reduces the seriousness of the scene – but it felt necessary to reintroduce the situation, and as it’s Terpander speaking…

Page 4 I did a lot of research for this comic. Did I mention that? I may have mentioned that.

Three’s a heroic action comic, but it still leans towards the realistic side. I’ve given Klaros a whole bunch of advantages in this fight – the footing, the armour, the lack of armour of his opponents, etc – to sell it. I was thinking a little of the Axeman of Stamford Bridge with this sequence.

Page 5 Nice on the first panel too here. Well done, Ryan. Well done to you.

Shutting the fuck up in the first half to just live in that moment. You’ll also notice how relatively compressed this is. There was much to do in this issue, and even though we added pages, it’s all tightly wound.

Page 6-7 Also shown here with the duel between Tyrtaios and Klaros. The actual fight is a page, including both characters receiving finishing wounds (though we only get the reveal of Klaros) on Page 8. Page 7 leans to the emotions of it, which is pretty much reminding us of Kleomenes relationship with the Spartan and why his death is especially meaningful for him.

Page 8 Strictly speaking, I suspect there’s an analysis of THREE that would argue I fridged Tyrtaois. Depends how you’d define fridging, really. If it’s any character’s death being used to forward another character’s emotional arc, then sure.

To be honest, I’m ambivalent to a definition that strong. Gratuitous death of a prop character with no life outside of their relationship with the lead to give cheap and nasty motivation for that lead would be my preferred one. The problem with a definition as strong as the first one is that it’s basically in denial of the fact people care about other people.

Page 9 Lots of notes to try and make sure that Terpander acting in disguise here is buyable. I do like how increasingly obviously bitter, hate-filled and genuinely dishevelled he is.

The exact number of Helots at Thermopylae is controversial. Some people place it as much as a 1000. I went with the most conservative number – as in, each one would have a Batman. Terpander’s line doesn’t say that there weren’t more Helots than Batman, however.

You have no idea how hard it is to not stick a Batman joke here.

Page 10 I suspect the a-story-stops-an-army beat is a very me beat.

Panel 6 – nice teeth.

The last panel involved the last major over-thinking I had to do in Lettering. As we see later, more than one Spartan actually is involved in the task. Should I stress that here? In balance, we decided no. It made it ugly, and I could trust people to follow it.

Page 11 Callback to Terpander’s cunnilingus boast of issue 1. That’s some clever structural writing right there. I’m so classy.

Page 12 You know what having too much dialogue looks like? The third panel.

The border skirmishes is a historical invention, but one that doesn’t require too big a leap of faith, I suspect. This is very natural.

Helots burning a holy grove on the order of Spartans is an idea I got from the research, where Kleomenes I ordered it to finish off a bunch of his enemies. Then when priests refused to purify him in a later ritual, he had them whipped. By Helots.

Page 13 I wasn’t completely sure whether I’d ever actually tell the whole of Klaros’ story. In the end, I decided that, yes, I had to. I’m a less is more writer generally, but sometimes more is more.

SNOG!

Damar’s role in Three is the trickiest one for me, the one I’m most aware that I’ve let myself open for (justifiable) criticism for. You could argue that the entire role of Damar in the plot is to have sex with Klaros and then give birth to some kids – that it’s a complete essentialist vision of a female character. While I think putting that it that strong is ignoring a lot, there’s enough there to write a piece if you wanted. I was aware of this from the start, and tried as much as I could to give her agency throughout. There’s problems there – Terpander and Klaros are extremely unusual helots, so she’s forced into the role of the everyhelot role, and the voice of the most widely held Helot virtues, etc – plus the fact that while THREE kicks against the mythic arch-plot at various key points, it still is an archplot, which can push people into these awkward roles. And the thing is… one of the key bits of THREE is that Damar is, generally speaking, right. Macho bullshit is macho bullshit. Saying all this, I haven’t seen anyone argue the “Damar is sexist” position. In fact, I’ve seen people argue the contrary, which did make me feel a little better.

(If I was writing THREE for the screen, I’d have made Damar the PoV character. I suspect if I was writing THREE as a single-volume GN I’d have done the same, hand-in-hand with moving the plot balance around.)

Anyway – Damar telling Klaros “get over yourself, we’re going to die, and I want hot kisses” is part of that.

Page 14 Good mood movements through the night here. I know Terpander in the third panel is basically trying to stay alive a little longer, but it does make me think he’s thinking “I wish I was shagging people right now, you bastards.”

Page 15 Damar making another choice, to state the obvious. In some ways, I suppose, this is her meeting Klaros half-way. Hmm.

Page 16 Craft note – after all the cramming, notice the slowing again. We’re building towards the climactic duel. Of course, we undercut it, but it has to be sold as such.

Page 17 Klaros is right. We know very little about Kleomenes II.

I originally wrote this, thinking a relatively small boulder being dropped. Ryan thought the chance of it hitting Klaros was too small, so drew it large. I worried that selling the idea it was possible for one dude to move it was too much. Ryan added more dudes. And then I start worrying about tweaking that line earlier in the issue.

Comics!

Page 18 Originally Jordie went for a red splat under Klaros. We went to brown, because of the mud, and that amount of blood suggested Klaros wouldn’t even be twitching later.

While this is undercutting a heroic moment, it’s probably worth noting that this mirrors the myth of Thermopylae pretty closely.

Page 19 Originally wasn’t written with an explicit mention of Agesilaos, but talking to my editor we decided we needed to reintroduced him now for the epilogue scene to make sense. Agesilaos looms over much of the early part of THREE – issue 2, especially – and has been the absent presence and architect of all this woe, but in single issues, I suspect most people would have forgot it. A later reminder of who he was, and why anyone may care is probably a good call.

Page 20 Slow slow slow slow slow.

Page 21 The “corpse of spartan mistaken for helot” ending of THREE was part of the initial plot download of the whole thing. Basic humanistic we’re-all-the-same-in-death weaponized.

Talking about reintroducing things, I suspect we should have shown the body of Nestos earlier in the issue. I saw one reader confused by it, not having remembered the whole of last issue. That sounds sarcastic, but isn’t meant to be. If it’s a monthly comic, after all.

(Actually, I did mention Nestos and the armour in the short paragraph synopsis at the start, so I suppose it was introduced.)

Either way – won’t be a problem when it’s collected, but still annoying.

Nice lying by Apolex in Panel 4. The whole “Spartans are reliant on helots for all tasks other than being a warrior” aspect is something that is in Spartan Law, but for it to be this extreme required some careful consideration. Spartans actually could hunt, so abstractly means they could have knowledge of this stuff. For our story, with our themes, it was better for it to be the other way. If a system is boasting about how all its citizens are only warriors, they probably should be aware that causes a bunch of problems.

Yes, Nestos never mentioned that one of the THREE were women. Do you think Nestos would have said he ran from a woman?

Page 22 I really like this page. Just great mood work by Jordie.

Page 23-24 And the mood changes instantly with the scene change. While those who are following all the greek names will recognise where this is, the meaning of it is delayed due to the teasing out of the captions. Quite like that.

Going to larger three-panel pages was an attempt to create a sense of slowing pace as speaks to an ending. Ending a book called THREE in three-panel pages strikes me as appropriate too. Was it deliberate? I suspect not.

I originally had a different main story end, with Damar reaching the Sparta/Messene border, and looking out towards Mount Itholme. The whole “Damar gave birth to the kids from that one night” beat was actually buried as subtext in the outro text at the end. Putting aside the border stones weren’t there yet (so she wouldn’t have known) and the distance to see smoke was too far, I tweaked it in a “FFS, GILLEN! JUST TELL THE STORY!” moment. It’s an archplot mythic structure. Don’t run from that.

Page 25 I originally had the date here, but decided it would be confusing both for people who remember what year this is taking place in and those who didn’t as well. For the latter, because they’ll just go huh generally at seeing it. For the former, because this scene is actually a couple of years later than the rest of the story. Yes, Agesilaos is away as a mercenary during the period of the main story… but this anecdote is from him serving as a mercenary to another Satrap.

Page 26-27 The anecdote is lifted from Plutarch’s Lives. It’s pretty much 1:1. They proceed to mock him about it. Down the line, he switches sides in the war. Don’t blame Agesilaos much, really. They really were pricks.

Lovely image too. When I hit the story in Plutarch, it did strike me as the ideal way to sum up the “end point” of Sparta.

I’ll be inserting a black page on the left of this for the trade, to make the final image be a page turn.

Page 28 I have a soft spot for text pages at the end of stories and films.

Page 32 Hey, The Wicked + The Divine. That sounds great. I’ll definitely be sure to pre-order that.