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Underground > Comic Books >

CRECY by Warren Ellis

21:49 / 02.08.07

Well drop my trousers and pull my chain, this is something brand new from Warren Ellis and it's good. I mean, it's fun to read his inconsequential corporate fetish suit wanks and I enjoyed PLANETARY as much as the next nerd, but CRECY is spectacular. Ellis has a nasty, bloody, mean little mind and it feels like it's on the wrong channel when he's tapping the superhero vein, but project that smarty pants, sarcastic nastiness back into the past and suddenly what he's churning out goes from second gear to fifth in a flash.

Too much historical fiction is sentimental and decorous. Whenever I see a period movie much brain stamps its tiny, little feet and screams, "Where's the shit? Why do they have all their teeth? Did anyone born before 1960 ever get an erection?" Ellis' CRECY (sorry, can't do that funny little accent mark on my keyboard) is an all-cussing, all-bleeding remedy to that sorry state of affairs.

This book is non-fiction and mostly consists of remarks addressed directly to the reader, but every time I start to get tired of the "sassy" 'tude of the narrator he finds a choice turn of phrase or someone gets an arrow through the eye and it's like having your palette cleansed with a cool, cloudy glass of bile: nice and refreshingly nasty. The art is sort of a tangled mess to start with but its similarity to all the "Young Explorers" history books for children that I browsed as a little kid adds an extra layer of probably-unintended blasphemy to the whole affair.

The history is good, and has a shamelessly jaundiced point of view which has the effect of suddenly making it seem alive. Neal Stephenson's BAROQUE TRILOGY and Alan Moore's FROM HELL both fit nicely into this genre of history as science fiction. As Moore once said in an interview, "If you were suddenly transported back into 19th Century London you'd think you were on another planet."

If only there weren't so much cussing, CRECY would be required reading for Sixth Graders: a little oasis of obscenity as they trudge through inappropriately boring European History texts. As it is, it's a treat for anyone who cares about comic books and killing people. Which is all of us, after all, isn't it?

22:56 / 02.08.07

You know you had me a little interested, but one of the things I've grown exceedingly weary of in Ellis's writing is the "smarty pants, sarcastic nastiness" that you allude to.

Don't get me wrong, I'm up for a down and nasty historical tale with mud and shit and piss and Ellis is capable of great things, but he kind of has a lot of Warren Ellis ticks in his writing that raise my hackles as I'm reading. He appears to have developed his own style to the point of self-pastiche. I want to read well-constructed and engaging narratives with well-rounded characterisation, not a comic that reads like it has been written in the style of Warren Ellis.

But yeah, I'll have to have a glance at this when I am next in the local comic shop.

23:54 / 02.08.07

I agree that the Ellis ticks get tiresome - I think anyone's ticks can get old pretty fast. But I think with CRECY he's managed to marry his style to subject matter where the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. The ticks complement the subject matter and the subject matter greatly reduces the ticks. I was pretty surprised, to be honest.

01:10 / 03.08.07

On the basis of the preview of this compared to his recent work for Marvel, Warren Ellis should ONLY be allowed to write corporate fetish suit comics or whatever the kids are calling them now. Basically, Warren should ... You don't care very much about this do you? About his antics. The sexual hangings ... As if 'Penance' was simply an innocent trope.

Which in a strange way, maybe he is.

Maybe he is.

02:54 / 03.08.07

I loved it, but I imagine if one is often peeved by Ellis' style, then CRECY might not be the book to pick up, as the narrator speaks in a modern voice.

Regrettable Juvenilia

07:59 / 03.08.07

On the basis of the preview of this compared to his recent work for Marvel, Warren Ellis should ONLY be allowed to write corporate fetish suit comics or whatever the kids are calling them now.

I couldn't have put it better myself. "Ello mate, I'm a peasant from the PAST. Cor blimey if I don't hate those fackin' frog-eating frogs. CANT. I just said CANT, some people might not be able to cope with that but we say CANT all the time in England, we're fackin' 'orrible we are, oi oi, be lucky, AVE A BANANA!"

No American Eagle ongoing, no credibility.

12:06 / 03.08.07

Seriously? I mean, I get what you're saying about the narrator speaking in a modern voice but for me this is so much more enjoyable than that fake, stiff Shakespearean gibberish most characters in period pieces launch out of their mouthes like they're chopping wood.

No one can come within spitting distance of accurately depicting speech patterns of folks born before the advent of recording technology and I'd rather the author err on the side of having them speak in a more modern fashion, complete with point of view and verbal anachronisms because at least that destroys what I think is this horribly corrupting misperception people have that folks in the past weren't as smart as us. A misperception greatly encouraged by that "My lady, I rode many leagues to arrive here before you and stand in your bush to humbly beseech you to show to mine eyes the moon that rises over your ivory shoulder," stuff that you normally see.

ONLY NICE THINGS

12:20 / 03.08.07

No one can come within spitting distance of accurately depicting speech patterns of folks born before the advent of recording technology

Ink is a recording technology, and one which had existed in some form or other for quite a while before 1346 and Crécy, old chap. Still, even when Ellis is selling ludicrous cockney to American tourists, he has his moments. Is the preview online?

12:26 / 03.08.07

Ink?

Touche'!

Regrettable Juvenilia

12:27 / 03.08.07

Here's the first three pages and a couple of other bits, at Scans Daily.

Regrettable Juvenilia

12:32 / 03.08.07

It might help destroy the horrible corrupting misconception that in 1346 people had points of view different to those of a self-aggrandising and over-compensating would-be comics hard man. (Which, when I'm reading his better work, seems like an unfair way to describe Ellis.)

Also, Grady, surely the whole "they swear and they are covered in mud!" approach to depicting TEH PAST is just as well-established and cliched now as any other?

12:51 / 03.08.07

Well, anything runs the risk of becoming a cliche if it happens more than once. But like I said, it's a matter of personal preference: I happen to prefer this cliche to the other cliche.

Also, I think one of the things that elevated this, or at least added a new spin to the cliche, for me was the extreme xenophobia of the characters/mouthpieces. One of the things I love about history is how hateful most people were towards anyone who wasn't exactly like them. If you didn't come from my village you were stupid/dangerous/probably inhuman. We've decided that that's unacceptable behavior nowadays, as have most people who write historical fiction, but casual racisms and xenophobia are, to me, always the hallmarks of someone who's really feeling the era they're writing about.

Regrettable Juvenilia

13:25 / 03.08.07

But... it's not casual. In the first three pages, it is very very clearly not casual. It is mannered.

ONLY NICE THINGS

14:02 / 03.08.07

Well, that's fine, isn't it? Different people look for different things in their historical fiction. Grady is looking for things which aren't historically accurate, but which feel historically accurate to him - modern-day dialogue and rampant xenophobia against the French.

The modern-times approach - seeking to make things more _psychologically_ immediate by reducing strict realism and making the dialogue more immediately approachable, is part of a spectrum that probably ends in the highly stylised modernity of something like "A Knight's Tale", but might more credibly be represented by T H White. That's a different sort of realism from the careful recreation of dialect. Ultimately, how good the writer is at whichever approach he or she chooses is probably more important in terms of whether the work is any cop.

14:38 / 03.08.07

THAT'S what I was trying to say. I think I am dum because someone had to say it for me. And, just for the record, it's not rampant xenophobia against the French that I enjoy. It's rampant xenophobia against anyone. There's nothing I like better than real estate hate.

18:34 / 19.08.07

Finally saw this in the store and read it -- and I thought it was pretty strong all around. Very entertaining, and I liked that Ellis paints the Brits as 'terrorists,' talks about how their style of warfare in this instance was 'evil,' yet then says 'hey, we are just defending our land from the countless times the French have invaded it' --- but basically, it paints a portrait of EVERY country/culture as selfish and wanting to expand, grab more land for itself and its people, economy, etc. etc.

Beautiful art, too.

I thought it was notable that the story doesn't mention the famous 'origin of the British F-you hand symbol - you know, the one that in America means 'peace' and which we've all heard countless stories about how the Brit version comes from some famous ancient battle where the archers had their fingers cut off and the opposing army jeered at them holding up their two fingers in defiance. or something like that.' I can't be the only one who has heard of this, right?

19:59 / 19.08.07

it might not be mentioned wolfman, but it is bang all over the cover innit?