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You're on Global Frequency

  
  

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Regrettable Juvenilia
15:32 / 15.05.02
"I think of Global Frequency as ‘rescue fiction’." - Warren Ellis.

And it's about time someone came up with the idea... I know it's what Grant has shaped the X-Men into (a volunteer search and rescue group, F-A-B), but I'm really excited that someone has taken it a step further... And since it's Ellis, hopefully we're not going to get the kind of "firemen are our real superheroes - let us worship them!" crap that Marvel are planning to drown us in (see: 'The Call').

Big article about it here. Some choice bits:

"Global Frequency is about us taking responsibility for ourselves. It's about real people responding to unreal situations. It's about us rescuing each other, because no one else is going to do it for us.”

“It's the function that intelligence agencies fail at. Identifying a threat that exists under the public notice and getting to it before it blows up, as well as heading into emergency zones that the rest of the world just isn’t equipped for."

”It's a contemporary science fiction book, but the resonance should be obvious in days of terrorism, secrets blowing up without warning, and natural disasters that no one ever seems to be ready for."

”There are a thousand and one people on the Global Frequency. Theoretically, they are ready for anything. And it's very clear, in 2002, that literally anything you could imagine might happen. Tomorrow. Where you live.”

"It's a publicly-known organization, but its membership list is a secret. Anyone you know could be on the Frequency. And you wouldn't know about it until they got the call on that odd-looking cell-phone they carry all the time, get that steel briefcase from the closet, open it up and put on that jacket with the ‘Global Frequency’ symbol on the back - the mark of the dark world they've agreed to help hold back."

It's going to be 12 issues, each illustrated by a different artist (first up is Gary Leach, then Steve Dillon, then Glenn Fabry, and I think Phil Jiminez is mentioned as a future one). All stand alone stories. Crucially:

"Like any decent TV series, you'll be able to enter Global Frequency at any point and know what's going on and get told a complete story."

Now, I know sometimes that where Ellis is concerned, the finished product doesn't live up to the pitch. But damn it, for me this is far and away the most exciting idea he's come up with to date... And to seal the deal, all the covers are by Brian Wood, and issue 1 looks like this:

[broken image link removed by dericgeneric]

I don't care how long we have to wait, or what kind of schedule this comes out on... I'm very, very excited about this.
 
 
sleazenation
15:50 / 15.05.02
hate to burst you bubble fly, but it will take more than the hype of a masterful selfpublicist to get me excited about what sounds very much like a superhero book (specifically something along the lines of S.H.I.E.L.D.) pretending its not. The devil will be in the detail. When we eventually see the finished product.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
15:53 / 15.05.02
*sigh*... Did you read the topic abstract, sleaze?

S.H.I.E.L.D. aren't superheroes, by the way.
 
 
Jack Fear
15:54 / 15.05.02
I find the GLOBAL FERQUENCY concept interesting in that it delivers on something that THE INVISIBLES alluded to but never really explored—the idea that anybody could be in on it. The idea of people with secrets. More-or-less ordinary people, doing the best they can. A secret militia, almost—militia in the old sense.

And Sleaze, if anything I think this book is Ellis finally putting his money where his mouth is re: the whole notion of superheroes, and why he hates them, and presenting an adventure fiction that pointedly is not in the superhero mode.

Superheroes are all about the rescue fantasy, of someone outside ourselves coming down from the sky to save us (think the end of FLEX MENTALLO). This is the polar opposite, and it taps into the wide streak of compassion that informs most of the man's work, as snarly and cynical a surface as it presents—the idea that we've got no one to rely on but ourselves, no one to save us but each other, so we'd damn well better watch out for one another.

You know. Just like in real life.
 
 
invisible_al
17:12 / 15.05.02
I heard about it off Ellis' e-list and I have to admit it does sound pretty shiney. I like the idea of a group of everyday people doing the thunderbirds thing.
Also the front cover is actually quite nice, a lot more imaginative that most of the stuff that lines the shelves and I like the list of artists he's lined up.
Hmmm he's following through with his Planetary, each issue an episode, idea. Say what you like about him but he seems to be getting back to doing some interesting stuff after a fallow period.
 
 
bio k9
19:01 / 15.05.02
This does sound interesting. I like that each issue will be a stand alone story so when Ellis abandons the...oh. No Ellis debates? No grumbling? Hmmm. Ok.

I just hope he finishes the damn thing.
 
 
sleazenation
20:48 / 15.05.02
Its not about snipeing about Ellis, it is about hype, something that co-incidentally enough, said author is very good at. All we have to go on here a rather nice piece of artwork that could have as much to do with the contents as one of Dave McKean's covers for the dreaming. Hype is hype. As I said the devil will be in the detail.

And incidentally I never said that S.H.I.E.L.D. were superheroes, I said it was very much like one pretending that it was not. The many ways in which they are like superheroes (and various side questions about techno gadgets are a superhero trope, weithewr or not Iron Man is a superhero etc. ) is a whole other issue.
 
 
neuepunk
04:52 / 14.01.03
Now that the series is three issues in, I've finally been able to figure out what's been bothering me.

This series is Planetary. Only it's Planetary without the underlying backstory, the appearances from popular fiction characters, and there's no standing team. Planetary is/was self-contained in each issue, but the backstory developed as the series went on. With Global Frequency, we're left with a made for television shell where a couple generic characters coordinate a rescue effort in each issue. The dialog doesn't try to be as clever, but I'm seeing that as detrimental.

I can understand making it more situation-based rather than character-based, but none of the GF "specialists" that are brought in to deal with specific threats have been really fleshed out at all. The most recent issue bored me. So this woman knows her memetics and loves her girlfriend. Hooray.

I wish Ellis would either put more effort into Global Frequency, or abduct Cassaday and make him work on Planetary.
 
 
Our Lady of The Two Towers
14:13 / 14.01.03
It's also Thunderbirds without strings isn't it? And IIRC The Champions.
 
 
Sharkgrin
21:54 / 15.01.03
SPOILERS FHTAGN! PH-NGLUI MGLW'NAFH SPOILERS R'LYEH WGAH'NAGL FHTAGN!

I have read all three issues to date.

Each story reads very well, and the characters have enough depth to keep me pinned. The third issues' 'Lord 0f the Flies' Meme was a great idea with a great wrap-up.

My only hang-up is that each script reads like fire fighters rushing off to fight New World fires:
Step 1: Loose scret uncontrollable weapon on the (near) public...
Step 2: Call the Global Freqs and their black-leather-clad boss, feel out their characters some...
Step 3: See some horror, loose some innocents, but save the world.

VR
The Shark
 
 
PatrickMM
23:58 / 15.01.03
This series is Planetary. Only it's Planetary without the underlying backstory, the appearances from popular fiction characters, and there's no standing team. Planetary is/was self-contained in each issue, but the backstory developed as the series went on. With Global Frequency, we're left with a made for television shell where a couple generic characters coordinate a rescue effort in each issue. The dialog doesn't try to be as clever, but I'm seeing that as detrimental.

I agree with that completely. Episodic TV is all about characters, and that seems to be the thing that Ellis missed with GF. 22 pages is not enough time to introduce a new plot idea, and new characters without it eventually becoming tiresome. Early Planetary is the best example of standalone issues/continuing plots because it works on so many levels. Global Frequency feels like a superhero story without any strong characters. It's like he's just trying to prove that you can do action comics without superheroes, instead of telling a really good story.
 
 
kid coagulant
17:28 / 29.01.03
Issue #4 is out. How many crappy crap-ass 'Matrix'-inspired office building assaults have been published in the past month? Um, 2 I guess.
 
 
Jack Fear
22:43 / 01.02.03
Found #4 a marked improvement over #3, actually: very accurately rendering the feel of a Tsui Hark gun-fu picture—wonderfully kinetic.

The Sarge's bigotry seemed a bit too pat, a bit too stereotype-y, and from personal experience I doubt that you could find a hundred web designers strong & healthy enough to serve as soldiers but then, character development is hardly the point in this issue—just sheer adrenaline rush.

Other stuff I liked:

No Miranda Zero in the field, or even on the phone.

Roy Martinez's art. What else has he done?

The Web-centric blindness of the Heaven's 100, and the way Aleph uses that against them. In fact Aleph's whole double-bluff brinksmanship routine.

The details: the font used on the Heaven's 100 website is the original STAR TREK font. Heh heh heh.

And is it me, or is the First Among Equals a dead ringer for another web-celeb...



...the mighty Lore Sjöberg?
 
 
Imaginary Mongoose Solutions
01:02 / 02.02.03
Roy Martinez is new to me, I haven't seen him do anything else. That said, if he is a newcomer, wow does he have great things ahead of him. There's a lot of Cassasay there, in his pencils.

So far this has been one of my favourite issues, thanks in large part to the spotlight on Aleph and the lack of Miranda. Rather than being a "Matrix rip-off" I got a strong Tsuai Hark/John Woo vibe from the gunfight. Thinking especially of the hospital scenes in Hard Boiled.

Of course the similarities between #3 and Filth #8 were interesting as well.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
15:23 / 02.02.03
The thing that's struck me about this series so far is that the two issues I haven't been so keen on, 1 and 3, have been weighed down by too much pseudo-hard-science chat, whereas the ones I've enjoyed, 2 and 4, have mostly been fairly standard but well-executed shoot-'em-ups. I think issue 2 hit the right balance, in that it had something of substance there, a take on a familiar idea that wasn't 100% original (but fuck, what is?) but had enough sick twists to feel fresh (the chip in the cyborg's head that simulates sexual pleasure every time he kills someone, etc). Oh, and of course 2 had the best art, with 4 next, and that really does make all the difference.

I think 4 was in a way completely ridiculous and unburdened by content... it's mostly just guns, guns, guns, and every now and again that can be just what you need. Global Frequency isn't high art, it's the equivalent of watching Alias on a Sunday afternoon, and I'm down with that.

Oh, and in case anyone hadn't seen this, I just have to share the cover for issue 6, set in London:



Nice one, Brian Wood.
 
 
rakehell
23:32 / 02.02.03
I just want to say that I hate the way people write Australians. When I read the solicitation copy I had hoped the Melbourne it spoke of would be Melbourne, Florida not Melbourne, Australia. Oh well, at least it was set in a city and not the Outback with kangaroos and crocodiles.
 
 
uncle retrospective
23:19 / 24.04.03
So is anyone getting this still. Talk about running down the toilet. After the last issue I was hoping Warren would get it together and keep to every odd issue being good.
I was wrong. Is it me or is the premise just getting repetitive, something terrible is going to happen, two people have to shoot it out and save the day. And not even Simon Bisley's sicko art could spice it up. We just need a little less bad ass and a bit more story.
 
 
Imaginary Mongoose Solutions
05:57 / 26.04.03
I usually have an endless tolerance for Ellis writing bad-ass dialogue, but #7 really tries too fricking hard. Ther art is bizzarley fascinating, but it read way too much like the Austrailian issue.
 
 
rexpop
18:10 / 26.04.03
That's been the problem with Global Frequency...good concept, but the implementation has been not as good as it could be. So far we have had 3 shoot-em ups, 3 race against time plots, and the one about magic. Some have worked, some haven't. The concept works well, but it shows Warren Ellis' limitations as a writer. I would love to see other writers play with the concept and tell stories beyond what's been told so far.

Also I think the whole thing would work better as a TV series...but that is another discussion.
 
 
houdini
23:51 / 05.05.03

Yeah, sad to say but GF is just a monthly disappointment to me. I like Ellis's writing a lot, especially his superhero stuff. (And yes, I am aware of the irony in that.) Planetary rocks and his StormWatch and Authority stuff was plenty good for me. But I just feel like GF isn't going anywhwere. It's not building up to anything. It isn't doing anything. It really is the case that all you get is the sum of the parts, and each part is essentially the same. If he was going to take it further I reckon he'd've started already.

Which is too bad really. Still, got Orbiter in the box at the store so hopefully that'll be a good ride. (And, with Colleen Doran, at least it'll look pretty....)
 
 
Jack Fear
17:12 / 25.06.03
A quick bump: looks as if the final issues will focus more on the makeup and history of the Frequency itself, and not just the Crisis Du Jour.

In the wake of #8's "Miranda Zero gets kidnapped" plot, we have the following solicitations up at Wildstorm's website:


GLOBAL FREQUENCY #11
Five years ago, Aleph was the brilliant underachiever on campus...then she met Miranda Zero, and her life changed. Now she's the focal point of the Global Frequency rescue organization, coordinating crucial data during each operation. That is, until five minutes ago. The Global Frequency HQ has been breached, and Aleph must stand her ground and fight—for her life, and the life of every other agent on the Frequency!

and

GLOBAL FREQUENCY #12
Get ready for Global Frequency's final mission — and the biggest one yet! It's going to take a hundred people on the Frequency, including agents from the previous 11 missions, to save a major world city from a ransom demand backed up by a threat most people could never imagine.

So the episodic folds into the epic, for the final shots.
 
 
H3ct0r L1m4
03:43 / 07.07.03
to me GF is one of the smartest and dumbest comics around.

//GLOBAL FREQUENCY #12
Get ready for Global Frequency's final mission — and the biggest one yet! It's going to take a hundred people on the Frequency, including agents from the previous 11 missions, to save a major world city from a ransom demand backed up by a threat most people could never imagine.//

"final mission"? thought Ellis mentioned it was renewed for a second season by Wildstorm. and a ransom threat looks too much like the generic cult/terrorist [most of them only dangerous geeks] from previous issues. issue 8 was one of my favorites, despite not having the 'weird science bit' of the month, and made for a good example of why GLOBAL FREQUENCY is smart: 3-dimensional characters [and therefore dialogue], very nice pacing and mood setting, cool scenes showing the agents around the world trading info and a sexy Miranda Zero [after this issue I'm more than convinced Ellis has to write her in a S&M scene sometime]. Chris Sprouse art is solid from beginning to end and not rushed like on Steve Dillon's and Dave Lloyd's issues. and for what Miranda says in her 'Midnighter-bad-ass' monologue on #8, that was simply just another they-kidnapped-me day for GF.

when the series is dumb all the plot is set by dialogue only and a huge load of it. I can almost picture Ellis lifting the info from his research pile for the scripts, most of them twisted cool high-SF concepts taken from current news. but you have characters going on and on about the conccepts for pages to have the setup built. the smart talk could be reworked into actual visual narrative narrative - at least some of it, given the restraining 22 pages frame. all those talking heads annoy me sometimes, like they did on PLANETARY/JLA.

there have been too much gunfight bad-ass-talk [there can't be that many pissed-of women in Ellis' comics] stories in too many hostage situations. and you know most of the villains will have their arm or head blown-off by the end of the issue, sometimes during weak scenes, like in INVASIVE.

I've never read the ongoing PLANETARY but you guys' comments seem right on spot. I think the 'Science Fiction 911' episodic feel GLOBAL FREQUENCY has is great, though; the way credits are played is a hell of an idea. and I disagree that it has no character-driven moments. maybe some that's because most characters are common people and not recognizable supaheroes.

what I'd like to see is an analysis on the book's potential to reach new readers, since it seems to be doing the same numbers every month; I may be wrong. sometimes it seems we only need to read one of the issues and not the others, instead of being able to pick any of them. if so, then they didn't even need issue numbering, or 'episode 1.08' would fit best the purpose of not scaring off potential readers picking up #8.

in the end it comes down to the publisher putting money to help a book on its way to mainstream media. and, despite all the downers, Ellis and Co. managed to hook me into the book. it's monthly half fun/half disappointment, so I'm sticking to it until the exchange rate makes me drop it.
 
 
invisible_al
12:47 / 19.07.03
Issue 9# "Cathedral Lung", nice bit of horror and some lovely art by Lee Bermejo and colouring b David Baron. And I definately have to mention the colouring, it makes the issue with just a single colour to most f the panels. Doesn't quite come off with the art though the double page spead of the 'Catherdral' is a dissapointment compared with the rest of the issue which is genuinely horrific.
Lovely story though and I liked the hint that Aleph knew damm well what kind of horror's were going on in there but sent him in anyway, nice reference to Battle Royal but I didn't recognise the one about the japanese school bus?
Hope they keep this kind of quality for the last 3 issues.
 
 
FinderWolf
12:49 / 19.08.04
I just read my paperback of GF (collecting the first 5 issues). Pretty good stuff - fun and nifty, even though it feels like a 1/2 hour TV show that gets wrapped up a little too quickly, with a pithy comment at the end, like a more mature 'Superfriends' joke at the end of an episode.

But some great concepts by Ellis, and pretty much great art all around (at least in the first 5 issues).
 
 
diz
12:53 / 19.08.04
though i know this is the comics forum, and not the TV forum, Warren's currently blogging from the set of the Global Frequency TV show in Vancouver, for anyone who cares.
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
05:05 / 13.03.07
Three years later, I read both trades off the Global Frequency. The library system I work in has peculiar tastes as graphic novels go, and while this means that you have to put up with air bubbles like The Captain America Heroes Reborn series you also get things like GF.

I can pretty much agree with everything said above. Lovely concept, rescue fiction, execution a bit dodgy at times and ultimately it felt "formulaic." Possibly a result of the "made for TV" vibe.

But maybe I'm the wrong audience for the concept; I most jived with the episodes featuring Miranda Zero's capture (could have been the Sprouse art) and especially the "Aleph fighting invaders in the heart of the Global Frequency Central" episode (could be the Jason Pearson art). Maybe I like recurring characters more than I should and possibly I liked the idea of a gender reversed Elijah Snow and the Drummer. Nice that it was fairly self-contained and ended after the two volumes.

Are there ways to get around the formula? Or the idea "formulas" in self-contained comics? How would people do rescue fiction?
 
 
Mario
11:28 / 13.03.07
I wasn't on the 'Lith the first time this came around, so you guys missed my rant about this. Basically, my problem with GF was simply that, for all the hype that the book was about "ordinary people" saving the world, in the first several issues we had:

A former spy
A cyborg
A sorceror who may or may not be Aleister Crowley.

Not too ordinary, really.

If I was going to do it, I'd do it like this.

At 7:00 in the morning, Mrs. Julia Jameson awoke at the Wichitu Park campsite to find her 6-year old son Alfie missing. At 8:05, after an hour of frantic searching, she went to the ranger station, who told her that they'd do the best they could, but they were short handed, and there was a storm coming. A deliveryman, dropping off a case of coffee, overheard this, and pulled out his cell phone.

At 8:11, three words appeared on cell phones and PDA's across the state:

"Thunderbirds Are Go"
 
 
Evil Scientist
11:46 / 13.03.07
It has possibilities, but I reckon that after the third issue of search and rescue I'd be getting a little bored.

The cyborgs and sorcerors make for a better read.
 
 
H3ct0r L1m4
16:57 / 13.03.07
Ellis was working on a graphic novel to serve as volume 2. that died down soon after the tv pilot was not picked.

i enjoyed that series a lot, even considering the formula. if the producers had simply used the comics as script and storyboards they might have been greenlit.

and the memetic infection issue was so ripped in THRESHOLD...
 
 
sleazenation
18:57 / 13.03.07
For me, the series fell down on a lack of characterisation, a problem that was even more prominent in a series that had an extremely limited cast of recurring characters.

I never really got to know the characters in anything approaching depth - their moment lasting only as long as the crisis. Subsequently had real trouble caring about whether they lived or died...
 
 
Elijah, Freelance Rabbi
19:03 / 13.03.07
I felt that by the end of the two trades an interesting concept was ruined. I liked the idea of citizen super heroes, but it seemed like half the time the solution wasn't "We need the best person on earth with [INSERT INTERESTING SKILL]" but rather "We need a bunch of people with big guns to fucking kill everyone".
 
 
Corey Waits
22:23 / 13.03.07
[...]but it seemed like half the time the solution wasn't "We need the best person on earth with [INSERT INTERESTING SKILL]" but rather "We need a bunch of people with big guns to fucking kill everyone".

I didn't think that at all. I can only think of one issue where 'fucking kill everyone' was the solution...

I really enjoyed the series, the Parkour issue probably being my favourite, but I can also see where the formulaic criticisms are coming from. I'm not certain, as I only read it in trades, but I think that if you were reading one issue a month as it was coming out then it would've seemed less formulaic.
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
22:26 / 13.03.07
After a while, it seemed like everybody on the Frequency was either an ex-assassin or soldier of some description. 's why I liked the Miranda kidnap story with the retired detective being forced back onto the Frequency; he was less of a "kill everyone" bullet monkey and hinted that "rescue fiction" might have more angles and facets then we were really seeing. Same reason I liked the astronaut and the rocketman in the last story. I expected more of the Frequency kids to be weird and different, like Aleph proved to be, not necessarily super-trained government stooges but just specialists in weird things. They were in there, but after a while you couldn't see them for the hardasses.

And other times the art really didn't work with the story - the Le Parkour one stands out as a story with great possibilities (except, you know, it was basically a "beat the clock" thing as usual) that fell flat because the art wasn't really working with it.
 
 
Janean Patience
09:54 / 14.03.07
The Warren Ellis Gap of great ideas -=- bungled execution was glaringly obvious in this series. Episodic structure in which every issue has different stars and a different one-shot story? Great idea. Different artist for every issue to emphasise that difference? Fantastic, especially given a line-up of artists who don't often do monthly comics.

The issues themselves, though... Warren doesn't really know how to change his writing to fit his format. They're the bare bones of an idea expressed in art with nothing extra added. Characterisation was a fleeting glimpse, one panel every couple of issues like in 70s Avengers. They deal with their core concepts perfectly well but there's not really any reason to read the next issue. Good, but not what it could have been. When Warren comes up with these ideas he really should make sure he can write them first. 22 pages to introduce new characters, new places, new ideas? Then compress, motherfucker.

There were great issues. The one with the Japanese guy who'd retired was as horrifying as it should have been. The Chris Sprouse and Jason Pearson action issues worked much better than most action sequences in comics. The Bionic Man was suitably horrible, and Muth's magician was interesting and unusual.

Another 12-issue series was planned which had regular characters and an overarching plotline, IIRC, which could have built on the foundation the first series provided and been great. Probably it's been left too late now. It's still a series I'd give to people who like 24 but don't read comics to try and hook them into our dark, dark world.

(Minor annoyance: a 12-issue accessible series. Published in two volumes. Why, when one big thick volume would have been so much more reader-friendly?)
 
 
Tom Coates
10:18 / 14.03.07
I was interested in how the TV series handled this stuff at the end of the episode when the geeks all over the world started hooking together and being useful. I really liked the idea of some kind of real-time version of Wikipedia where people would collaborate to help resolve situations. You'd never know who they were. You'd never know what they'd done specifically. But collectively they'd found a way to make a contribution. I think there's something really nice about the way technology has made people feel like they can contribute and be useful again, and completely agree with people above arguing that the comic needed more real people in it.
 
  

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