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Warren Ellis and slash - hmmmm......

Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?

13:48 / 19.02.02

So, having realised that I have never really been to the WEF, and that apparently it contains a lot of high-quality conversation in the Barbelith stylee, I trogged on over and found this little gem in a discussion of "Smallville" from the great man himself.

I've caught bits of a couple of episodes.
There's a corner of the web that must be DROWNED in Clark/Lex slash fiction already.

One sequence I caught had them blatantly watching each others' lips as they talked (which was just the actors making sure they got their cues right during a lengthy conversational scene), which must've had that grotesque part of the audience/fanbase squirming in their sofas.

Eh. I don't intend to make an effort to catch any more.

To explain his point, he later described slash as "writing about Kirk and Spock fucking", then posted an erotic picture of Kirk and Spock. That he just FOUND, all right?

Um...is this, does anyone know, the same Wareen Ellis who slightly tweaked the characters of Superman and Batman, put them in a slightly tweaked JLA and had them become lovers?

Or was that a different Warren Ellis?

13:54 / 19.02.02

Men looking at each others' lips?! Bet it was even more hetero-squirmy in slo-mo. On widescreen. In the dark.

It's enough to make one grow a beard...

Matthew Fluxington

13:55 / 19.02.02

Good point - I also think that calling slash writers 'grotesque' was quite a bit over the top... especially when, as you point out, he's one of the best paid slash writers in the business...

Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?

13:55 / 19.02.02

I know what you mean. Just the thought of it makes me want to go and touch some WOMAN's tits. With my claw.

Regrettable Juvenilia

13:55 / 19.02.02

quote:Originally posted by The Haus of Deletia:
apparently it contains a lot of high-quality conversation in the Barbelith stylee

Who on earth told you that?

But seriously, "it's okay if I do it" seems to be one of Warren Ellis' golden rules, applied almost across the board (so to speak). It doesn't really affect my enjoyment of his work, such as it is. But it does make visits to his forum somewhat bad for the blood pressure.

13:58 / 19.02.02

quote:Originally posted by Ganesh v4.2:
It's enough to make one grow a beard...

<peers around for kooky>

And put on weight...

yawn - thing's buddy

14:04 / 19.02.02

...and write tired wank like planetary.

I

will

not

yield

.

Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?

14:10 / 19.02.02

Now you've done it...

But seriously, since Ellis seems to specialise in appropriating other people's characters, either with a bit of a haircut/"reboot" (Jack Carter, Axel Bronze or whatever he's called, Fu Manchu Hark, and so on) or just by grabbing them (Sherlock Holmes, Dracula, the Invisible Man), is he, as Flux implied, essentially writing sci-fi/fantasy/horror fanfic? Note particularly his habit of inserting "Mary Sues" - Pete Wisdom and Jenny Sparks spring to mind.

Or, frivolously - anyone fancy a collaborative work of slash involving Bo Duke and "Warden Elfish", a baldy, beponytailed comics writer on secondment to the Hazzard County Sherrif's Office?

[ 19-02-2002: Message edited by: The Haus of Deletia ]

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:12 / 19.02.02

Hmmm. Planetary is actually the only Ellis title that fully lives up to the hype, for me. I'll concede that a lot of this has to do with John Cassady's art, and that the last couple of issues haven't been the best (let's not even get into a discussion of the schedule), but even so... It seems to really play to Ellis' strengths. One of which is taking established themes and ideas from geek culture and making them seem fresh and exciting again - ironically something that Smallville can also be said to be doing.

15:27 / 19.02.02

...must... resist... urge... to bash... warren... ellis....

(makes saving throw)

of course, just because he expresses it in a belittling way, doesn't mean Ellis is wrong...

Here's a link to 328 pieces of
smallville fan fiction, much of which is clark and lex eroticism....

[ 19-02-2002: Message edited by: gridley ]

Our Lady of The Two Towers

16:27 / 19.02.02

Yeah, but then that's because Lex and Clark are the only characters in the show. What else are they going to do, Pete and Whitney slash? Lana and the dull girl who writes the paper? Ma and Pa Kent slash?

Mmmmm, Ma Kent...

But on the subject of Warren Ellis, I try and pretend he doesn't really exist, because whenever I read anything of his that isn't a fictional comic book I want to clock the arse with a big plank...

20:21 / 19.02.02

To my understanding of this topic:

slash fiction = fan fiction?

Ellis is a smartass well-paid hell of a hack writer. Once in his CIA column he said the TV series 'Sliders' was something 'abortive' (it was not top notch TV, but hey). And we have Authority second arc full of concepts from the series. And so on.

The same applies in the relation Star Trek = Switch Blade Honey. Okay, I write fiction (not fan fiction) and I know sometimes a new idea is just an old one done *our* way.

But his public bash of some concept and the subsequential overworking of same concept to make it his own way could be less public. Maybe he would even make more money and we wouldn't think the guy is short on ideas.

And I like most of his work, BTW.

Regrettable Juvenilia

07:56 / 20.02.02

quote:Originally posted by I Love Vortex09:
Once in his CIA column he said the TV series 'Sliders' was something 'abortive' (it was not top notch TV, but hey). And we have Authority second arc full of concepts from the series.

You know, I don't think the makers of Sliders invented the concept of (hostile) alternate realities...

16:28 / 20.02.02

Of course they didn't. Even the concept (for the way is was done) in Sliders reminded me of Zenith. And the Sliding Albion arc in Authority reminded me a lot of Sliders' Kromaggs.

Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?

06:51 / 21.02.02

I find it rather more disturbing that he found time to create a Universal Theory of Sliders and then decided to share it with the world. He must have been its audience.

10:15 / 21.02.02

Presumably 'Sliders' is reassuringly free of mutual male lip-observation.

10:26 / 21.02.02

quote:Originally posted by Ganesh v4.2:

<peers around for kooky>

why?

10:29 / 21.02.02

Because someone mentioning the word 'fatbeard' in conjunction with the Warren Ellis Forum and its afficionados has sparked ructions in the past. Or am I misremembering?

I'm sure beneath those moustaches, they have lovely lips.

10:34 / 21.02.02

oh, that. that was haus casting aspersions about my thursday night friends before he'd met them, and i wanted to set the record straight that although some of them are known to visit the WEF, it was mostly either to gather news about comics, or to point and laugh at the sycophantic fatbeard nerds -- much like us lot.

i have an intense dislike of most of the WEF's content and members, but i am fiercely loyal about my friends.

Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?

10:40 / 21.02.02

quote:Originally posted by Ganesh v4.2:
Presumably 'Sliders' is reassuringly free of mutual male lip-observation.

All I remember of "Sliders" is that there was a woman in it who looked uncannily like my friend Jojo....

10:54 / 21.02.02

I really liked the idea of 'Sliders' (because I'm a sucker for the whole parallel-reality conceit) but only watched a couple because it's sheer American-ness put me off.

That and the way the guys checked out each others' mouths. Dirty.

Regrettable Juvenilia

11:13 / 21.02.02

I seem to remember Sliders tried to go Dark and Epic in one of its later serieseses. They killed off the fatbeard professor, introduced a new female regular (who may have been a Feisty Sex Kitten, I don't remember), and had the good guys chasing a dimension-hopping pschopath, and being chased by evil dimension-conquering evil people... It wasn't bad.

11:17 / 21.02.02

The first bit of Sliders was ok, when they were going to parallel worlds that were only tweaked by one little thing. Later on they had these worlds where everything was different, like the world where magic and dinosaurs exist together in harmony. My brother was, and is, the biggest fan of this show. That and Quantum Leap.

Oh, and Ganesh, you were right the first time. They didn't look at each others lips on Sliders. But they did write bits of the script on each others crotches.

11:47 / 21.02.02

Tsk. When you are ready to have a serious conversation about Sliders, you have my email address...

Elijah, Freelance Rabbi

14:46 / 21.02.02

ha ha ha ha ha
funniest typo ever
Ganesh:
quote: parallel-reality conceit

i think that puts ellis in a nutshell really

14:59 / 21.02.02

<thread rot>
Originally posted by gridley:

quote: (makes saving throw)

Bwah ha ha ha haaaaa.

Only laughing 'cause I didn't make mine on Sunday night and got frozen in place.

</thread rot>

zoom.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

15:54 / 21.02.02

But wasn't the evil reality-jumping psychopath Roger Daltry?

16:35 / 21.02.02

quote:Originally posted by Elijah Non Grata:
ha ha ha ha ha
funniest typo ever

Um, it wasn't a typo: "conceit" was what I meant...

16:39 / 21.02.02

quote:Originally posted by Elijah Non Grata:
ha ha ha ha ha
funniest typo ever

ha ha ha ha ha
silly ignorant monkey

16:44 / 21.02.02

Thankyou, dear.

Listen to your father!

23:41 / 21.02.02

gonna indulge in a little ellis-bagging here, can't resist.

Planetary 14 comes out, or whatever number it is where it's set in australia with the big spiderthing over ayers rock. except throughout the comic it's spelled "ayres rock". which is wrong. so I email warren to let him know so that he can fix it up somewhere down the track and he tries to tell me that BOTH spellings are acceptable, and then goes on to tell me about its aboriginal name, uluru, as well, as if to prove that he knows much much more about the subject than me. Given that I live in Australia, I'm already familiar with the whole uluru thing, but I didn't bother to mention it to him because it didn't seem relevant to the issue at hand. He grudgingly admits that he might change the spelling for the trade.

Now, Ayers Rock is actually named after a guy called Ayers, right? so there's only one spelling, which is the one that's spelled the same as the guy Ayers' name. So I send him the Northern Territory Government homepage with the right spelling and naturally didn't get any response from that. Can't wait to see the trade.

He's a git. can't admit when he's wrong. cos he's never wrong.

that said, I derive a lot of inspiration from his prolificacy. If he can do it, so can I.

m.

Haus about we all give each other a big lovely huggle?

06:28 / 22.02.02

Yeah, Planetary has just been zooming off the blocks. He's just one prolific fucker...

With fiercely heterosexual but oddly motile lips.

08:04 / 22.02.02

i should clarify - I meant that big list of "this year's projects" that he's been bashing over people's heads. he makes it sound like most of 'em are written and waiting for artists or publishing deals. me, i've got a huge backlog of ideas that need to be put into action, as in they need to be written, and every time I see ellis' big arse list I think if he can do it so can i.

is all.

m.

13:44 / 22.02.02

Well, like I said, he is well paid, that's why he does it a lot and he knows when not to use just the right number of ideas on a story to make his check worthy. Some have already said he saves too much. I mean, Morrison is not afraid to spill all his mad ideas on a comic. I don't know..

As for Sliders, I was big (almost geeky) fan of the series. The problem was production interferecence (Sam Peckinpah's nephew as I recall was a stupid motherfucker) that led most main actors to leave one by one. It had incongruencies with it's own parallel-reality concepts, but had its good moments.

Bits of the fourth season (produced by pretty boy third rate actor Jerry O'Connel himself) were rather funny, good sci-fi with social commentary (as were the fist two seasons).

In the end of the fifth season they just went all the wrong way (both production and plot) and the characters finished the series rather stuck and without 'getting home'. Sad ending just like 'Quantum Leap'. And yes, it was Roger Daltrey who played the military pyscho.

And now you know why I use 'Vortex09'. =/

BTW, in one episode, O'Connell kisses a female parallel version of himself, so...

[ 22-02-2002: Message edited by: I Love Vortex09 ]