[Eye Flys]

Transmetropolitan anyone? I've only read the first two but goddamn they're so good. Eventually I'll get the complete series when I'm no longer a broke ass student.

This post has been edited by Eye Flys: 05 May 2010 - 01:06 AM

[Darkwatch]

For those of you not following his blog one of the latest was a series of quotes from his twitter.

Warren Ellis said:

In an interesting world, all porn stars would moonlight as contract killers, ramming strap-ons into the hearts of the evil.
On the other hand, no-one needs the possibility of Ron Jeremy breaking into their place with a strap-on at midnight.

I have, in my career, been contacted by 3 paranoid schizophrenics who believed I was trying to destroy and/or kill them.
One of them did however contact me to apologise for whatever it was he had done to deserve it.

If anyone here is thinking about killing someone, please leave one of my books at the crime scene. I could use the press.

Made my morning.

This post has been edited by Darkwatch: 04 June 2010 - 02:45 AM

[Coco with marshmallows]

based on recommendations from here, have begun reading the freakangels back catalogue.


Nearly died laughing reading the 'obituary' for Paul Duffield before episode 30

[Aptorian]

Now that I'm completely up to date, it really hurts every time you're expecting your Freak Angel fix and all you get is a skip week blurb.

[Abyss]

Aptorian, on 27 August 2010 - 04:55 PM, said:

You know we really should just make a separate Freak Angels thread.

I dunno. FA is more or less the only thing Ellis does regularly so this thread would likely die if we moved the weekly(ish) FA discussion elsethread, and he's far from prolific enough to merit a subforum.

Thoughts from our 5-6 regulars??


MODGOD NOTICE OF THREAD SPLIT: ALL DISCUSSION RE WARREN ELLIS' FREAKANGLES MOVED TO DEDICATED SPOILERS ALLOWED THREAD.

THIS THREAD REMAINS FOR DISCUSSION OF ANY AND ALL OTHER THINGS ELLIS, INCLUDING PLANTETARY, THE AUTHORITY, TRANSMET, CROOKED LITTLE VEIN AND WHY ELLIS RIGHTFULLY DESERVES AN ORBITAL DEATH RAY

[Abyss]

Ellis' twits from the last few months here. http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=10481
Because FUCK.

- Abyss, ...still laughing at 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Batman' and i still don't klnow why it's funny but it is...

[Abyss]

Ellis and Doran's ORBITER.

I wanted to like this. i really did. It starts great, it's got an intriguing mystery about a missing space shuttle returning after ten years and rebooting the American space program, the characters are perfect for the story. But the ultimate pay-off at the end is just... bleh. Like the story was building to a big chase scene and instead we got a group hug and smiles all around. I realize that a big chase with 'splosions wasn't what they were going for and see why Ellis and Doran went the way they did, but in the end it was just a bit too cutesy without enough suspence to make me glad i read it. Disappointing.

[polishgenius]

It is a bit bleh. Ellis seems to have so many ideas that he often writes really short runs just to get them on the page which, sometimes, don't do the concept justice.

Possibly better than trying to fit all his ideas into one book. Coughgrantmorrisoncough. Or when he starts a project that's meant to be more developed but then it just peters out, like Fell.

Interesting that Ellis finally appears to be making some headway in movies. As well as the adaptation of Red, there's his script for the remake of Excalibur (currently with Guy Ritchie attached apparently, not to be confused with the Bryan Singer remake of Excalibur), and his series Gravel is also being adapted, with him on scripting and exec-producing duties.

[Abyss]

Y'know, you read the foreword in ORBITER and it's pretty clear what they were going for, but the pay-off just didn't meet the expectation. You can't have an astronaut go nuts, eat peoples eyes and then crack a big smile and lead us all into Space The Final Frontier. i mean, sure, you can, it just doesn't read as well as some of the alternatives in my never so humble yet marginally worthless opinion.

polishgenius, on 08 September 2010 - 09:33 PM, said:

...Interesting that Ellis finally appears to be making some headway in movies. ...

Admittedly i'm not that well informed on the industry as a big greasy whole, but sometimes it seems like Ellis is the posterchildbastard for adaptations that don't get off the ground. He seems to do a lot of film and tv work that then just sits, like the production peoples are all dying to work with him but once they do it's like the mojo it dies or something. Alas.

RED... from what i've seen so far it's only barely any elements from the GN and seems more like a vanity project to give Willis, Freeman and Mirren something to do for a paycheque. I hope i'm wrong.

To this day, i STILL hold out (faint) hope for a GLOBAL FREQUENCY series, because that is a timeless high concept that only gets cooler with time.

[polishgenius]

Abyss, on 13 September 2010 - 02:33 PM, said:

RED... from what i've seen so far it's only barely any elements from the GN and seems more like a vanity project to give Willis, Freeman and Mirren something to do for a paycheque. I hope i'm wrong.

Supposedly the plot of the book serves as a prelude to the action of the film. Which is fair enough, as the plot could never carry a film by itself.

And yeah, it's difficult to call it an Ellis adaptation strictly speaking, but the same goes for the much inferior Millar's Wanted, which shared a title, the occasional situation, and some names, and that made him a darling of Hollywood. So hopefully this will have a similar effect. I think it looks a laugh, anyway.


Anyways, while it remains to be seen how his other projects do, there just seems to be a little bit more buzz about him now. Perhaps on the basis that comic book films are shit hot right now and for all that I don't like Millar very much, his success has proved that short-run creator-owned books with limited fame outside of keen comic readers can be successful films, and Warren Ellis has more short-run creator-owned books with limited fame outside of keen comic readers than any other writer in the industry.

[Abyss]

Yeah, Hollywood loves the idea of comics movies but beyond the basic concepts, the content rarely survives contact with the enemy. Kick-Ass stayed relatively intact but Wanted went a whole other direction. Sin City and 300 are more or less dead on reproductions but depending on who you ask 300 succeeded and Sin City suffered for exactly that.

Ellis does have a few other properties that could work, notably Ocean and Mek.

[wolf_2099]

Abyss, on 13 September 2010 - 08:03 PM, said:

Ellis does have a few other properties that could work, notably Ocean and Mek.

Are you telling me you don't think Hollywood could make ma faithful and accurate Transmetropolitan movie?

[polishgenius]

Matthew Vaughn could totally make a Transmetropolitan movie.
Well, not one movie, it'd have to be a series, but whatever - the point is, Matthew Vaughn could totally do it.




I think Kick-Ass did something to my brain.

[Abyss]

Sure there's an actor out there somewhere who, given the silly glasses, could portray a dead on Spider Jerusalem, but could the actual source material be reproduced/adapted in a way that actually captured the sickness majesty disrupted bowels spirit of Transmet is any kind of worthwhile way? I serious doubt it.
Crooked Little Vein would be easier to do.

And arguably more worthwhile because Godzilla Bukkake doesn't get nearly enough coverage.

- Abyss, ....oh, was that out loud...?

[Abyss]

So... PLANETARY.

Just read it. the whole thing.

Wow.

'Wow' as in holy dragonfucknuts is there ANY comics trope, staple or archetype Elis didn't work into this somehow and just knock clear out of the stratosphere?

'Wow' also as in i am SO happy i waited for this thing to be done because that was NOT a decade worth of stories. It was 2-3 years of stories stretched out over a decade and had i been reading the floppies i think i would have been seriously dissappointed with a few of those issues - 22 pages of infodump does not a fine comic make, however pretty the pictures. In the grand scheme of the long game they work, but otherwise at least have Jakita kick someone's jaw off, then i'm good.


But there are briliant parts to this series, and the last two issues may have been two of the most perfect comics ever written.

As a total story, it stands as one of the best pieces of comic work i've ever read.

Anyone else like? hate?

[Aptorian]

I still haven't read the newest stuff. The stuff that happens after Snow defeats the Evil Four, but what I did read certainly figures as some of the best comic book storytelling I have read.

I really should get around to reading the wrap up.

[polishgenius]

Abyss, on 19 January 2011 - 05:15 PM, said:

'Wow' also as in i am SO happy i waited for this thing to be done because that was NOT a decade worth of stories.
----
But there are briliant parts to this series, and the last two issues may have been two of the most perfect comics ever written.

Bearing in mind that it's not a decade's worth of writing either- if things had gone according to plan, the series would have been both longer and finished a lot sooner. Out of the 27 issues, 15 of them were out by 2001 and the last one took 3 years on its own.

It is notable that the last volume rather truncates stuff, rushing in story beats that were clearly meant to take a lot longer like the petal and such. A bit like the second season of Dollhouse, which, interestingly, also features the work of John Cassaday (he directed the Attic episode). He clearly decided that no, writing it properly was no longer viable but they need to wrap it up at least some ( Fell). So fair enough, and it did a decent job, although I thought the final showdown felt anti-climatic.

[Abyss]

polishgenius, on 19 January 2011 - 07:47 PM, said:

...although I thought the final showdown felt anti-climatic.

I go back and forth on that but overall is was a satisfactory confrontation and totally in keeping with the story.

SPOILERS SPOILERS BIG FINISH OF PLANETARY SPOILERS
WITH MASSIVE GHOST DINOSAUR COCK MONSTER
SPOILERS
SPOILERS

Spoiler

Sure on some level a reader may have wanted/expected a throw down between Snow and Dowling, but the beauty in what Snow did was such a nice touch that I couldn't help but like it even so.

They took out Leather by force, and Greene by (nasty) clever and set up the finish to obtain all the crap the Four had been hiding.

And then a Shiftship Snow hid decades ago teleports out, and Dowling and Suskind fall to their deaths... in a big archeological pit revelation.

Or put another way, they were beaten by the one secret Snow never let them get.

It just fit the overall 'it's a strange world out there' theme of the book so nicely that i couldn't feel unsatisfied with it.

If we're going to argue flaws, it's that Dowling and Suskind are floating a moment before and it's utterly unclear that Snow jammed their tech before he door'd out, but i can live with it.


The only hanging plot point i really am bugged about is what happened to the 'fourth passenger' from the fictional universe, and that's more curiosity than anything else.

[polishgenius]

Spoiler

I didn't mind the actual moment itself (the evil grin on Elijah's face when he says 'Door' is amazing), but the thing was they'd spent all this mystery and then hysteria on Dowling's powers and they never even came into play.

I don't know if the unresolved fate of the fourth passenger wasn't a shoutout to Grant Morrisson's The Invisibles, like the rest of the issue.

[Abyss]

polishgenius, on 19 January 2011 - 09:17 PM, said:

Spoiler

I didn't mind the actual moment itself (the evil grin on Elijah's face when he says 'Door' is amazing), but the thing was they'd spent all this mystery and then hysteria on Dowling's powers and they never even came into play.

I don't know if the unresolved fate of the fourth passenger wasn't a shoutout to Grant Morrisson's The Invisibles, like the rest of the issue.

Spoiler

True but Dowling's powers were the reason for Snow's memory blocks right from the beginning so technically, by remembering everything, he beat Dowling.

I haven't read the Invisibles which explains why that was lost on me. Tnx for the clarification.


In the same vein, did you notice in the 80s retro funeral issue the implication that the John Constantine was leaving the comic to become Spider Jerusalem? i had a good laugh at that. the Superman thing les so, maybe because i always suspected that hitler had sex midgets.

- Abyss, ...yes, that's right... Hitler had sex midgets... there it is...