Thoughts on Warren Ellis

[winters_night]

Transmet is possibly my favorite comic of all time, i can't get enough of Fell, and I'm (very) patiently waiting for the last epilogue issue of Planetary to come out so that i can finally see Absolute Planetary vol. 2 on my book self.

so i guess what i'm trying to say is that I'm an Ellis fan. any recommendations for his more obscure stuff? (i've already also read Orbiter, his hellblazer run including Shoot, iron man, the Authority, and i'm sure some other stuff thats slipping my mind)

Anyone have any thoughts on Doktor Sleepless? i havent picked it up yet.

[humphrey-lee]

NEXTWAVE is a must read/must own/must make hot sweaty love to in the privacy of your own home, or even out in the park book... Yep...

[jaflanagan]

I remember really liking Ministry of Space, and his one shot, Crecy, from Avatar was pick of the week (http://www.ifanboy.com/archive/pickoftheweek/07262007_crecy.html) this summer, and was just awesome.

[esophagus]

Fell is one of my new favorite books.
Nextwave was fantastic.
New Universal was pretty good, last I read of it.
Transmet is one of the top five series' I've ever read.
Never got around to Planetary.

But yeah, I'm a big fan.

[kwok_talk]

I guess I've enjoyed some of his works and haven't enjoyed others. Not sure if I qualify as a fan or not. Of what I've read:

Love:
-Tbolts
-Fell
-Nextwave

Didn't Like:
-Transmet
-Authority

[flakbait]

I liked Global Frequency, personally. Nextwave was awesome, too.

[cormano]

I got into Ellis just a couple years ago because of his writing online. In fact, I think I still spend more time reading his various web postings than his comics. I haven't read much of his older stuff, but I would definitely recommend Doktor Sleepless. He's been talking about it online ever since I started following him and I really hope he gets a chance to do everything he wants with it, which isn't guaranteed at Avatar. Is this their first ongoing?

He's done some other great stuff at Avatar, including Crecy which really surprised me and was absolutely awesome. Black Summer is great, but at this point, I'd say wait for the trade. Also, his Apparat line, which was four first issues of comics that don't exist. It's collected as The Apparat Single Collection.

I really liked his run on Ultimate Fantastic Four, too which I was pretty different from his normal stuff and more like what you'd expect in Ult FF, rather than what you'd expect from Ellis. It's volume 2 and 3 of the trades, I think.

And everything else that's been mentioned is great, too. I really want to read his Stormwatch/Authority run but haven't gotten to it yet.

[six-gun]

I loved Crecy and would be ecstatic to see him do a follow-up (possibly Agincourt, although that would be the obvious choice) and Fell is a classic whenever it comes out.

That said, I haven't read Transmet and so I'm not all that familiar with the guy's most defining work.

[labor_days]

I tend not to like Ellis' Avatar stuff too much. His mainstream superhero books are hit-n-miss too. But when Ellis is on, he is fucking on.

Nextwave, Transmet, Planetary, Desolation Jones, Global Frequency, Crecy...yeah, that's Ellis when he's brilliant.

[paulsharkey]

Warren Ellis was prob the first writer I ever followed from book to book. All the stuff already mentioned is fantastic but as far as his superhero stuff goes the first go at Stormwatch and his run on Excalibur are gold.

[xyzzy]

I'm a fan of his work. He does a good job with superheroes, but at heart, he's a science fiction writer and his best work reflects that.

[jimski]

Wow.

I mentioned recently in another thread that I'd stumbled onto a Warren Ellis book I'd never heard mentioned anywhere before called Ruins. I guess it came out in about 1995. It is a "Marvel Alternaverse" follow-up to Marvels, and it stars Marvels' Phil Sheldon. It's printed exactly like Marvels, same cover treatment and everything. The premise is that it takes place in a world where everything that went right in the Marvel Universe went wrong. Peter Parker gets bitten by a radioactive spider, and he pretty much just gets super cancer. Mutants are not so much "super powered" as they are "hideously deformed." Etc.

Well, I didn't really know any of that about the book, and since Warren Ellis is a Name and Marvels was a great book I went ahead and tracked down a copy.

Now. I have been accused in my time of being prone to exaggeration, so I want to begin by emphasizing that's not what I am doing here when I say that Ruins is the most purely, perfectly awful printed thing I have ever beheld. Every panel is so filled with hatred and disdain and shit and contempt that you can feel it pulsing as you hold it in your hand. It straps Marvels down on a table and, with a rusty knife, cuts it open screaming without anesthetic and replaces every fibre of joy and wonder with urine, vomit, and bile. I would love to tear it into little pieces, but I want to have it intact in case I ever meet Warren Ellis so I can roll it up and hit him in the balls with it.

It has no plot; it has no beginning, middle, or end. Sheldon just wanders around like Dante at a carnival sideshow, hearing awful awful stories and seeing awful awful things. What's the best part? Is it when Bruce Banner gets caught in the gamma blast and bursts from the inside out, tumors shooting out of his every oriface? Is it when Kitty Pryde materializes in a wall and loses three feet of her intestines? Maybe it's when Nick Fury says Captain America taught him to eat human flesh during the War and then shoots Jean Grey, who is a teen prostitute, who is only in the book to walk up, say, "I'm Jean, the teen prostitute" and get shot for no reason. And then Captain Marvel gets cancer, and all the Kree have cancer, and Wolverine has cancer, and I have cancer, and Phil Sheldon dies of cancer. The end.

Oh, and every time someone has cancer, it apparently happens on their face.

It is repugnant on a level I would not have imagined possible; it is clearly written by the man who coined the term "underwear perverts" to refer to superheroes. Who is now the author of Astonishing X-Men. So, yeah.

I cannot think of any book, movie or TV show with imagery that has provoked such a strong, visceral, lingering negative reaction in me. It's like a self-perpetuating hate engine, making hate out of hate. I mean... maybe Marvel didn't go bankrupt because of the speculator bust; maybe people just read Ruins.

Because I know his fans lurk here, I wanted to give as strong a warning as possible: if you encounter this "book," handle it only with tongs and take it to an open flame as quickly as you can without inhaling.

Incidentally, the few mentions of the book I have found online are inexplicably, crazily, universally positive. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor's_New_Clothes)

[esophagus]

I've actually had this problem with his prose. He is incredibly, disturbingly, negative. I think it also came acros in Transmet, but he did it in a fairly fun way, and built up a universe where the commentary seemed necessary. I have no intention of reading Ruins after each and every synopsis I've read.

[paper]

His best stuff mixes the horrific with a little bit of heart. I love Fell and Desolation Jones for just such a reason. The other stuff, not as much.

I will not be picking up Ruins.

[jimski]

the fact that it's presented as more Marvels makes me want to go back in time with a kayak paddle and smack the editorial staff till they stop moving.

[conorkilpatrick]

His best stuff mixes the horrific with a little bit of heart.

That's exactly what Transmetropolitan does.

[xyzzy]

It kinda sounds funny. Black humor has its place.

[paper]

That's exactly what Transmetropolitan does.

Haven't read a lot of Transmet. One of these days.

[jmstump]

I really dug what I read of Nextwave, too bad so many people disliked that book. I'm also really interested in Fell

[valoharth]

I really dug what I read of Nextwave, too bad so many people disliked that book. I'm also really interested in Fell

If you haven't read it, you should put it at the top of your list. Fell is one of my fave. I also loved Nextwave, I just don't think people got it and I got the feeling it was one of those projects Marvel let him do just so he would do something else they wanted him to do. The only reason I picked up Nextwave is because Ron said something about it and the local newsstand actually had it in so I gambled and loved it.

[esophagus]

I loved Nextwave. My problem with it was that there was like 7 issues of exposition.

[xyzzy]

I loved Nextwave. My problem with it was that there was like 7 issues of exposition.

Wait, really? I don't have my issues in front of me, but I remember most of the early issues as being quick one or two-part stories with a lot of action.

[esophagus]

Wait, really? I don't have my issues in front of me, but I remember most of the early issues as being quick one or two-part stories with a lot of action.You are indeed right. All of Nextwave was good.

I'm thinking New Universal.

[kahunablair]

For me, Ellis is really hit or miss.

Fell and Nextwave are probably in my "Favorite Series of All-Time" list.
His Iron Man and Orbiter were really good.

Transmet and Ocean are, in my opinion, not good.
I looked up Ruins after Jimski brought it up, and I must have blacked it out of my memory. I did read it. My feelings are pretty darn close to Mr. Ski.

[xyzzy]

For me, Ellis is really hit or miss.

Fell and Nextwave are probably in my "Favorite Series of All-Time" list.
His Iron Man and Orbiter were really good.

Transmet and Ocean are, in my opinion, not good.
I looked up Ruins after Jimski brought it up, and I must have blacked it out of my memory. I did read it. My feelings are pretty darn close to Mr. Ski.


I dug Ocean. I thought it was a good little sci-fi story. In what way did you think it failed?

[kahunablair]

I dug Ocean. I thought it was a good little sci-fi story. In what way did you think it failed?
I just wasn't a fan. It had some really good ideas and concepts, but sadly I think that's Ellis' problem.
He comes up with these bizarre and off the wall, awesome ideas, but he can't always come up with a good story to bring those ideas together.

[paper]

I just wasn't a fan. It had some really good ideas and concepts, but sadly I think that's Ellis' problem.
He comes up with these bizarre and off the wall, awesome ideas, but he can't always come up with a good story to bring those ideas together.

We're gonna call this the Ellis/Montgomery problem. :D

[kahunablair]

We're gonna call this the Ellis/Montgomery problem. :D

Actually it's called Blair-ism. I'm definetly more of a concept guy. That's part of the reason I've given serious thought to becoming a Concept artist. No need to actually flesh that crap out. Leave that for someone else to do! That's my motto.

[timber-munki]

I must be in the minority here in that I enjoyed Ruins, must be my British cynicism :), but the 'Alterniverse' label just meant that to me this was Ellis telling a story that he wouldn't be able to get away with in the 616 universe.

There may be a point about it looking like Marvels but, with a title like 'Ruins' it's not as disingenuous a cash in on the Marvels brand as the eminently forgettable Code of Honor AFAIC. There are concepts and ideas in it that whilst been 13 years ago (am I That old :eek:) are still etched on my mind, such as the Kree interment camps, 'a dead space god' or Enchantress as a porn star, which whilst unsavoury strikes me as a reason why I rate Ellis as such a fine writer - he gets into your head. Yes it is downbeat and depressing, but it's only 2 issues long, the only criticism I'd have about it is the change in art style part way thru.

Planetary is an excellent work, personally it was the line in #7 about London been orange at night and never really dark, which as a kid with grandparents who lived in the East End who has vivid memories of London Brick bathed in orange glow from the sodium streetlights and reading Marvel UK black & white reprints in the 70s. Trying to justify to myself that it would be worthwhile getting the Absolute edition.

Never got into Transmet, must admit I kind of drifted away from Ellis in the early 2000s, City Of Silence and his Strange Kiss material read like he was phoning it in quite frankly, seemed to be using tried & tested tropes but nothing really interesting or new. Also Global Frequency, which was a good idea but was too knowing and self-consciously hip for my taste.

Nextwave, is like Shakespeare (but with more punching) however and was a return to form, picked up the HCs because it was just an awesome read. Streamlined glorious super-heros like they should be.

I think he is definitely a sci-fi writer trapped in a super hero world - look at the Ultimate Galactus trilogy or his early Starjammer mini as examples.

[cammyknoxville]

The man is a machine. And he should buy stock in Avatar, because it feels that 90% of the books that come out from Avatar has his name on it.

Right now I'm really enjoying Fell, Black Summer, and Gravel. I loved Transmet, and can't wait to see what he does with Astonishing X-Men.

Oh, and Planetary and Crecy are on my 'To Read' pile.

[henrik]

Ruins are disturbing and great. Equally disturbing is the one-shot for marvel called "Carnage - Mind bomb" drawn my Kyle Hotz. It's a "a grotesque, gothic, and graphically violent trip inside the mind of a serial killer." (Quote from http://www.digital-retribution.com/reviews/other/p026.php if you want a longer review)

He also had a very different take on Dr Druid in a four issue mini called "Druid" together with Leonardo Manco. Released under the "Marvel EDGE" imprint, it was intended as an on-going I believe. It feels more like a Vertigo book than a Marvel book. Perhaps that's why Marvel cancelled it?

[nastro_azzurro]

Warren Ellis made a huge contribution to comics with The Authority. What he and Hitch did with that book set up the widescreen blockbuster design style that you still see in lots of books even now.

[cormano]

I just finished reading his run on StormWatch today. I can't wait to pick up and start diving into the Authority.

[decepticon]

I love Warren Ellis, so many great books by him.
Just those that come to me at the moment that I think everyone should at least try...

Transmetropolitan
His Ultimate FF run was great
Planetary
Ministry of Space
New Universal
Nextwave
Crecy
Fell

...Probably more that I'm just not thinking of. He's one of those writers where I'll try anything he does when I see his name on it. Planetary was RIDICULOUSLY late, but I read it in trades and although the scheduling was awful, it was a great book when read in that format. Loved it.

[mikegraham6]

whatever happened to Black Summer? it feels like i haven't had an issue of this in FOREVER

[meccaed]

Personally, one of my favorite things about Ellis is how he is able to inject these boggling scientific statistics into say, Fell, and have the story keep on moving.

[jimski]

Interesting words from Ellis (http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=1606) on leaving Thunderbolts and creator- vs. company-owned works.

I'm not sure I knew he was leaving Thunderbolts, although it stands to reason.