bad signal
WARREN ELLIS
If you're a superhero comics fan who follows the online
news sites, a legitimate question right now would be "What
the fuck is Warren Ellis playing at?"
Lots of people have unhelpfully forwarded me comments from
message boards this week: comments like "fucking hypocrite,"
"fuck Ellis," and my personal favourite, "hairy man-whore."
I prefer "testicle god," but there you go.
As regular readers know, back at the start of the year I was
deciding how this year should go for me. Those of you who
went and read my interview with Rich Johnston saw me thinking
out loud. Those comments included:
"...Right now, it feels like 2004 will be my last very active
year in American comics. This isn't a big splashy fuckyouall
I'm-retiring I-won't-play-Bond-again you-won't-have-Dick-Nixon-
-to-kick-around-any-more kind of thing...
"...At this stage, re-invention really means either going back
and becoming a corporate agent again, producing work in the
only genre the remaining stores seem to support and probably
placing close to the top of the mid-list -- or going and
finding something else to do. As several of my friends have
pointed out to me more than once, going back to superhero
comics would make me a lot of short-term money and boost my
visibility massively. None of which is necessarily a bad
thing. But right now (and this could change tomorrow, I don't
know) I feel like going the other way, finding something else
to do and taking myself out of the game completely..."
I think it was a few weeks later, after an email from Mark
Millar, that suggested to me that I could do all of the above.
At the time, I was working Plan B -- over the next few weeks,
I should be making announcements of work from two major
companies I haven't published with before about two big
creator-owned original jobs.
Millar emailed to basically ask for my help. He and Bendis
had gotten overbooked, the only "give" in their schedule was
ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR, they were totally stuck and needed
help immediately because artist Stuart Immonen had come
available early.
At this point, you probably need to bear in mind that I've
known Millar and Bendis for years. I was probably one of
the first well-known writers to tell people that Bendis was
a genius, back when he was doing AKA GOLDFISH. I got Millar
THE AUTHORITY, and, as I said he would at the time, he eclipsed
me in moments, to the point where (as predicted) a lot of
people don't even know I *did* THE AUTHORITY. I don't know
that I'd take a bullet for them, because if they were shot I
could steal their wallets and run off, but woe betide anyone
who fucks with them on my watch. These are the good guys.
So Millar lays all this out and says, "It's a science fiction
book." Now, I did write a superhero book last year -- not
going to say what or for who, it's not out until the last
half of this year -- because I felt like trying it again, to
see if it was still hard for me (and it was). But sf, I
can do.
And you don't leave your friends in the lurch. Which is the
main reason I took the job.
Moreover -- and this is the adjustment point for people who
think they know me -- I'll do what I like.
Sure, people are going to call me sellout and hypocrite. And
hairy man-whore. I lived with that the first time around,
when I left creator-owned work in the Nineties, post-market-crash,
to go to Marvel and build an audience. I'll live with it
easier this time.
For one thing, the audience I've got goes to bookstores or
Amazon for my books, or are occasional visitors to the 200
or so comics shops that actually stock my stuff. The other
2000 stores in the Direct Market are superhero comics stores,
and so constitute their own distinct audience. It's a funny
schism -- there are an awful lot of TRANSMET readers who aren't
even aware of, say, PLANETARY, and even fewer aware of, say,
STORMWATCH, or even THE AUTHORITY. GLOBAL FREQUENCY was never
covered by magazines like WIZARD, but the MIT Media Lab did a
huge thing on it.
For another thing, I'm going to be publishing more than 500
pages of original creator-owned material this year, which is
more than pretty much anyone else in commercial comics. That
includes, according to current plans, two original graphic novels.
And I've got a network TV pilot being shot that's based on
something I created and own. And I'm writing a novel.
So, you know, if you want to call me a hypocrite, I want to
see your 1300-page original creator-owned political sf graphic
novel. I'm kind of secure about this. Moo hoo ha ha.
Funny: I don't remember anyone calling me a sellout when
I did HELLBLAZER.
It's the superhero thing, of course. I don't like most
superhero comics, and I don't like the way they've dominated
the marketplace. But, as I've said at length over the last
couple of months, the superhero comics stores have made their
choice. And, really, so have many of the creators. You can
either produce work for that market, or find a way to do the
comics you want somewhere else -- working directly with the
stores that support other material, or finding alternative
avenues.
All this put me to thinking, and I came up with a new plan.
For 2004, I'm going to do both. All of it. Like I said above
-- my last very active year in American comics, I think. And
it's going to be very active, yes. I'm going to produce work
for the superhero comics stores, and the full-service comics
stores, and the bookstores, probably internationally and
possibly for the web.
I'm 36. I can spend a year on a stunt like this.
Because it amuses me to, and because it amuses me to fly in
the faces of those who think they know me, because I'm free
to change my mind about anything and because I'll do what I
fucking like. Heh.
For those keeping track: I'm 8 scripts into JACK CROSS, three
scripts into DESOLATION JONES, more than halfway into STEALTH
TRIBES, still working on the annoyingly complex script for
PLANETARY 22 -- which is probably trying to do far too much,
but 19-25 (approx) are intended to be much denser than 13-18 --
and into my third ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR script.
-- W
(COLOPHON: no, none of this is for bloody comics news websites.
Permission is NOT granted to reprint.)
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Kind of a loser isn't he? |
