Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Comic Books >

Warren Ellis' lesser known works

15:38 / 05.10.02

I decided to blow some cash and ordered Atmospherics, Strange Kiss and Stranger Kisses. Anyone read 'em? What did you think? I'll most likely check out Lazarus Churchyard at some point down the road, but was wondering if anyone could recommend other titles he's worked on that are worth getting. Any that should be avoided?

ONLY NICE THINGS

16:50 / 05.10.02

Sorry. Anything Warren Ellis has written with the word "kisses" in the title is shit. You have wasted your money. Lazarus Churchyard is a bit better, but still basically a bit wank in a "when I grow up I want to be Spider Jerusalem" way.

18:11 / 05.10.02

It does have D'Israeli art, though. There's not enough of that in the world.

21:07 / 05.10.02

I read Lazarus Churchyard right around the time I started to lose a taste for Warren Ellis' work, but I think it's on par with most anything he's done. The Strange Kiss series seems to be designed almost completely for shock value. If you like that sort of thing, it might be worth reading.

23:01 / 05.10.02

Atmospherics was pretty fuckin' pish, actually - and I speak as an Ellis fan.

Stranger Kisses has some sick-ass things in it, but it's kind-of half-assed, too.

Lazarus is good, though, a nice blend of comedy, action and futurism.

09:10 / 06.10.02

Blue was alright but again, it did seem to be going for the shock over anything else...

Ministry of Space was looking pretty good although I never managed to get hold of the last part (of 3) - does anyone know if it was ever released?

09:31 / 06.10.02

The avatar stuff (strange kisses etc.) is trying to be shocking, but since the script and art are so bad the reader (or at least this reader) fails to care.

Ministry of space is still coming- but was slowed down first by ellis not writing the script (due apparently to health and family problems ) and secondarily to chris weston having to find alternative work while he was waiting for ellis' script (hey artists have to eat too.) The deal is currently that weston as the script and will try and fit in 3 pages of pencils for MOS every month between his FILTH commitments. issue three will prolly end up coming out a month before the trade... Personally, despite great weston art and an interesting concept by ellis, the script fails to deliver much more than is already in the synopsis. Its a comic 'what if' the british empire had survived into the space age and thats what you get - a history of the space age british empire.

Lazarus churchyard is fun enough - great disrali art (and if you can get it D'israli is doing a fantastic strip over in the judge Dredd megazine at the moment - Steam punk via war of the worlds tech)

And of course there is Ellis' work for marvel particularly his run on excalibur which I haven't read but haus apparently rates.

23:38 / 06.10.02

I also rate Ellis' Excalibur: "There is no god. We killed him."

11:42 / 08.10.02

Yes, Avator stuff generally pants, but how can you diss Lazarus Churchyard? Lots of craziness that was slightly ahead of its time. And D'Isreali.

13:37 / 08.10.02

Liked Lazarus Churchyard. Excalibur, aside from Ellis himself saying it's crap, is pretty decent. His Hellblazer stuff, if you can find it, is quite good. The two Gen13 annuals he did with Steve Dillon are also quite good (collected trades that Zoom would be more than willing to sell to all comers

) and add nicely to his little Wildstorm ouvre. But I think there's a reason that his lesser known works are lesser known. They're just not very good. Ellis strikes me as following Ennis' route, in that he's got 4 or 5 really good works, and the rest is recycled stories (literally in the case of Strange Kiss) that just don't really work.

But then, I'm in one of my critical phases, so you really oughtn't pay any attention to me.

Zoom.

ONLY NICE THINGS

14:00 / 08.10.02

"Ahead of its time" in the very specific sense of having ripped off the Cyberpunk novels that came out a year or so previously absolutely mercilessly. It's fun, but it isn't original. The artwork's very good, but then I have a bit of a crush on d'Israeli so I would say that.

Excalibur (issues 78-102 or thereabouts, I think) is better than most of the Marvel X stuff at the time, and better than most of the Warren Ellis stuff of the time. Although I did quite like Hellstorm, and it had Fegredo covers, which is always good. And a really sudden and awkward cancellation, which is always better.

Imaginary Mongoose Solutions

19:35 / 08.10.02

Atmospherics and Strange Kisses are both pretty much old school splatterpunk and are both sort of "eh". They're not horrible, but they're nothing to write home about.

Churchyard, however, is one of my all time favourite comics.

Ellis' Excalibur was top notch as was the never-to-be-reprinted Hellstorm and Druid. Hellstorm fucking rocked, to be slightly more specific.

22:36 / 08.10.02

More praise for Excalibur here. Great stories, great art. The Dream Nails trilogy, Nightcrawler's new look, Colossus's hair, all good.

Also the Pryde & Wisdom mini was a lot of fun with some great dialogue.

23:43 / 08.10.02

That 'Blue' thing, with the Jacen Burrows art is pretty good, I reckin.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

03:21 / 09.10.02

I have learned that anything with Warren Ellis's name in the title is something I can pass on. And never to EVER buy a mini-series by him until it is collected in a trade paperback.

05:06 / 09.10.02

I used to be a huge Ellis fan until the whole "recycling" himself thing started happening.

I will second Hellstorm and Druid as being very good, mainly because they're very raw and, I think, creative. The whole tone of the books is different too, like when Hellstorm ends with a Bill Hicks paraphrase it's cool rather than an annoying rip-off like the various appropriations in Ellis' later works.

Granted this could be due to a shift in my perception or expectation but it seems to me like the former is "Let's see how many people get this, wasn't Hicks a genius" and the latter "let's see how many people don't get this and call me a genius".

I would also recommend his four issue "Thor" run, if only for the John Constantine character... which, admittedly, was cool back then and will probably now read like a lame rip-off.

02:35 / 17.01.03

Gracias for the nod Duncan. Dark Blue is shit compared to what I am doing these days!

Stange(r) Kiss(es), Atmospherics and Dark Blue were all pulpy, short form action-horror stories that were meant to just deliver a fun idea and get the fuck off the proverbial stage which isn't everyone's cup of tea but I think Ellis' From the Desk of and Bad World are both really fun reads (sure I'm biased but I'd have liked them with someone else drawing the beasts too). Before you completely write off the Ellis Avatar stuff, be sure to check out Scars. I think when it wraps up after its six issue run, people will be saying it was the best crime comic of the year. It isn't the same short form, pulp horror stuff but a real character driven piece with Warren really pulling out all stops. I think it is some of his best writing wince early Transmet but, again, i'm probably biased.

Scars info page and sample art:
http://www.avatarpress.com/scars

It is good comics and that is what it's all about

-Jacen Burrows

12:17 / 18.01.03

HOT JUICY SPOILER LOVIN'! GO GET THE BUTTER!

Lazarus Churchyard is written on a complete distopia, where the world is a heroin addict's dream, and the only hopes are to find harder drugs or someone to hug you and not make you hate yourself. The stories were paper-thin and sounded pretty much like drug-turf wars with weird future tech. I think Ellis should have dedicated this to all the current and future junkies of the 21st Century. The comics' high point was D'Israeli's great art.

Bad World is the Spider Jerusalem's Word Columns for the modern day reader. Insane alienation, paranoia, bestiality, and cannibalism for my routine consumption. Bizarre and disjointed peer inside other people's heads. Like seeing a car wreck up close, over and over again,; I opened up eevry issue waiting to gag or wretch - not high brow art. I do not think it would have survived as a series but, also I humbly nominate the covers as the Best in all Comics for Satanic and AntiChrist references.

Strange(r) Kisses leaves me kinda' flat but hey... to each his own.

VR\
The Shark

13:23 / 18.01.03

Hi, Jacen.

I did also enjoy your work on Bad World, though I missed #2.

Just going to check that link now.

22:30 / 18.01.03

That looks extraordinarily grim.

Good, good.