Quick Facts
Biography
Kieron Gillen (born 1975) is a British comic book writer and former computer game and music journalist. He is known for his creator-owned comics Phonogram and The Wicked + The Divine, both created with artist Jamie McKelvie and published by Image Comics, and for numerous projects for Marvel Comics, such as Journey into Mystery and Uncanny X-Men.
Career
Journalism
Gillen has worked for publications such as PC Gamer UK, The Escapist, Amiga Power (under the pseudonym "C-Monster"), Wired, The Guardian, Edge, Games Developer, Develop, MCV, GamesMaster and PC Format, among others.
On the web, Gillen was a founder of and major contributor to the PC gaming site Rock, Paper, Shotgun and a games reviewer for Eurogamer. He is notable for his manifesto for New Games Journalism, more simply the model of new journalism applied to videogames journalism. In 2000, Gillen became the first-ever videogames journalist to receive an award from the Periodical Publishers Association, for New Specialist Consumer Journalist.
He has been invited as a guest speaker at games-industry conferences. He is a fan of the work of videogame developer Warren Spector writing positive pieces on Spector's games, most notably the Ion Storm produced games Deus Ex and Thief: Deadly Shadows. In September 2010, Gillen declared on the website Rock, Paper, Shotgun that he was leaving full-time games journalism to better devote his time to comics writing and his contract with Marvel.
Comics
Gillen has written for both print and online comics. He has worked for Warhammer Monthly and Chaos League. Since 2003, Gillen has collaborated with artist Jamie McKelvie on a comic strip for the official PlayStation Magazine UK, entitled Save Point. His 2006 project, described by Gillen as "my first real comic" is another collaboration with McKelvie, the pop-music urban fantasy Phonogram. Veteran comics writer Warren Ellis has dubbed it "one of the few truly essential comics of 2006."
The first issue, published by Image Comics, went on sale in August 2006, the first series ran for six issues. The second series ran for seven issues, and was launched in December 2008. A third six-issue series, The Immaterial Girl, exploring the character of "Emily Aster", is planned for August 2015.
On 14 April 2008 it was announced he would be collaborating with the artist Greg Scott to expand the Warren Ellis's newuniversal mythos with "a story about killing the future" set in 1959 and he wrote Crown of Destruction, a Warhammer Fantasy comic. The Phonogram sequel "The Singles Club" started in December 2008, a series of one-shots, all about the same night. He got a new assignment at Marvel with a Dazzler story and a Beta Ray Bill one-shot and mini-series.
His workload at Marvel increased in late 2009. At HeroesCon it was announced he would be writing a Dark Reign tie-in with the Dark Avengers: Ares mini-series. During the 2009 Chicago Comic Con it was announced that Gillen will collaborate with Steven Sanders on a new ongoing series known as S.W.O.R.D from Marvel Comics.
Gillen had a run on Thor, following J. Michael Straczynski, from issues No. 604 to 614. In late 2010 he started his own ongoing series, Generation Hope, an X-Men spin-off that leads on from the end of the "Second Coming" storyline. Gillen continued on this title until issue No. 12, being followed by James Asmus.
After collaborating as co-writer with Matt Fraction on Uncanny X-Men beginning with issue No. 531, Gillen became sole writer of that title starting with issue #534.1 in 2011. His era of the title saw the Fear Itself event, and a renumbering to No. 1 in the wake of Schism, and it ended in a crossover with Avengers vs. X-Men with issue No. 20. He wrote a five-issue miniseries AvX: Consequences, dealing with the aftermath of that event.
In 2011 Gillen returned to Marvel's Asgard, with a run on Journey into Mystery (the original name of Thor, continuing with its original numbering), starting with issue No. 622. This run finished with No. 645 in October 2012. As part of the Marvel NOW relaunch, Gillen will be writing two books – Invincible Iron Man (again taking over from Fraction), with art provided by Greg Land, his penciller on Uncanny, and Young Avengers, with McKelvie.
He has written a series for Avatar Press called Mercury Heat(comics), and a series for Image called Three, about the helots of Sparta, planned for 2013.