Marvel Comics blabbery

Btw (on a different tack) -- I saw the Logan movie today. It's the first X-Men movie I've seen in ages; looked like one not to miss. I thought it was very well done... better even than I hoped/expected. Intense, super violent; but largely nails the right "tone" and steers clear of action-movie cliches (though it maybe grazes a few here and there).

The depiction of the Laura character, and the young actress who plays her, are both excellent. Logan and Xavier are played a lot differently from what I've come to expect from comics (and previous movies); but their portrayals are def. interesting, and fit the story, (I'm not sure where the story belongs in the X-Movie saga; is it an alternate timeline, or something?)

I had minor quibbles with a few plot points and "directorial choices" -- but on the whole, I came away very pleased (and I don't see many movies, so when I do, it's a big thang).

Threadkiller Jones, back with another journal entry...

I got this miniseries collection "Karnak: The Flaw in All Things": https://www.amazon.com/Karnak-Vol-Flaw-All-Things/dp/0785198482. I wasn't really familiar with the character or the writer, but I read a few pages when the first issue came out, and was intrigued enough to take a gamble and wait for the TPB.

It was worth it -- the book's great. I read it in one sitting (didn't want to put it down). The writing is very good, and undercuts the character's dead seriousness with frequent (and effective) dry humor. Karnack's "philosophical" musings are a bit silly, but the book doesn't require you take them seriously (and, in fact, the story nicely complicates their underpinnings). It's also a SHIELD-heavy story, something I have complained about upthread; but the Coulson-and-Helicarrier schtick works well enough here.

It's very cool that Marvel puts out relatively offbeat, "uncommercial" series like this. Check it out!

You're unfamiliar with Warren Ellis?

Didn't know Ellis did that, will totally read now

You're unfamiliar with Warren Ellis?

Yep, checking out his Wikipedia entry now. Looks like he broke into mainstream comics around '94(?), which was right after I checked out for a few decades.

I see he cowrote (with Kelly Sue DeConnick) a few issues of Captain Marvel in 2015, which I have read.

Yeah man, you must've checked out hardcore. Ellis is one of the most-known comics writers of the past couple decades.

Most well-known, most-known, whatever.

Would Transmetropolitan still be the best way to get into him these days?

Trees, Karnak and Moon Knight are all recent and great.

I'd take Planetary over Transmet any day.

And Nextwave. Nextwave Nextwave Nextwave.

Also, Nextwave.

Nextwave is amazing, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it for Rip Van morrisp

i'm a big transmet fan, nhex. check it out esp if you like cyberpunk/posthumanism urban genre fiction (which i love).

Oh yeah, I love Transmet. Just musing for the benefit of morrisp.
Ellis, like many other prolific writers, just has done SO MUCH work in the past 20 years it's a task to separate the wheat from the chaff
I really liked Planetary also, but feel like that (and Nextwave) definitely have some historical comics love/nerdity required for full impact
He's also done tons of mediocre, unremarkable work, like virtually everything he did for Ultimate Marvel

imo a lot of the stuff he did early relied on the same character types and fell into a rut plot-wise while doing some wacky character acrobatics and a lot of the more recent things are more sedate but much stronger in working within traditional plot structure

I've never figured out how to enjoy Ellis as much as other people seem to. There's something a bit Reddit Man about him.

Nextwave is fun, though, and super-accessible. Jack Cross and the James Bond books are not my cup of tea, but they're on similar lines to Karnak, if you liked that.

Ellis is very talented but some of his hardmanism severely undercuts my enjoyment of his work. But I've been varying degrees of a fan from when he was writing Excalibur and Doom 2099 in the '90s. And Ruins was an appropriately nihilistic take on Marvel for teenaged me.

Right. He has these too-perfect, onanistic tough guy heroes - who are usually white - and I keep expecting some sort of ironic commentary, but it never happens. Even Ian Fleming's Bond is more ironic and self-aware than Ellis's. (!)

His stuff has always turned me way off.

Yeah man, you must've checked out hardcore. Ellis is one of the most-known comics writers of the past couple decades.

Hey, gimme some credit... I've heard of Bryan Michael Bendy and Matt Friction!

It's Matte Friction. He doesn't write glossies.

*applause*

Actually, Authority would probably be a good place to start to figure out what happened to Superheros over the last 20 years too.

There's pretty much a straight line from The Authority -> Marvel's Ultimates (to the extent they even had Bryan Hitch on art duties) -> a lot of the ideas in the Marvel cinematic universe

Authority's good - even the first couple of series of the Ultimates were good (by Millar) - but I'm talking about the snoozers like UFF, Ultimate Galaktus, etc

I have a lot of time for Ellis but imho transmetropolitan holds up very poorly. best read as a document from a time and place.

imho (as others have noted) Planetary is the highwater mark.

His recent Moon Knight run was outstanding. I also loved his Stormwatch/Authority runs and Transmet was great right up until it wasn't.

I'd agree with the consensus that Planetary and Nextwave are his best efforts.

Only knock I got on Warren Ellis is that if the sales fall off a series, many of his series get left off unfinished. There are probably about at least ten series in that dead letter office.

Knock wood The Trees and Injection last long enough to be sufficiently completed. I think the Trees might only have one more series/trade until it is done.

Ellis is a lost master of the one issue comic book. Global Frequency, Planetary, the Apparat Singles series and some of his Marvel work are good examples of his single issue packs a punch. This is one thing I wish some modern writers would take from Ellis.

Ellis is a bit rubbish, and all his heroes sound like Warren Ellis writing fanfiction about warren Ellis

ellis has done some great stuff (moon knight def a recent highlight) but he can easily fall into self-parody. he's written so prolifically that there's a lot of sub-par stuff out there which can make it harder to sift out the gems

there was a particularly painful stretch in the mid-2000s where you could almost guarantee that an article on weird physics in new scientist or wherever would get shamelessly recycled into an ellis story six months or so down the line

Ellis is a lost master of the one issue comic book.

agreed, but he's also the master of the wordless two-page-spread space-filler of, like, a character opening a door and walking across the room to a desk

Only knock I got on Warren Ellis is that if the sales fall off a series, many of his series get left off unfinished

i enjoyed catching up with his new universal series on marvel unlimited recently and it was super-disappointing when it just... petered out

desolation jones is another good example of a promising series that just fell off a cliff never to be heard from again

agreed, but he's also the master of the wordless two-page-spread space-filler of, like, a character opening a door and walking across the room to a desk

Feel like Ocean was the peak of this.

I think I've said it before, but he really is the worst Disco Dad in comics. Has anyone else read his ultra-steampunk book? It's called...

wait for it...

Captain Swing And The Electrical Pirates Of Cindery Island.

I mean ffs.

No, I'm sure he intended that title to be take entirely seriously.

there was a particularly painful stretch in the mid-2000s where you could almost guarantee that an article on weird physics in new scientist or wherever would get shamelessly recycled into an ellis story six months or so down the line

I don't know that this is a problem tbh, a chronicle of historical futures is a useful thing to have in popular culture. He is kind of coasting on how much he got right in Transmetropolitan, but he is still a good writer chewing over current events from a variety of different directions, so he'll keep getting my money - and also he wrote Nextwave, so he'll keep getting my money.

Disclaimer: I read his newsletter.

Ellis' recent James Bond series (plural) with Dynamite were surprisingly good.

Ellis is a bit rubbish, and all his heroes sound like Warren Ellis writing fanfiction about warren Ellis

agree there

also agree that he's very good at "wordless" stuff, but seems to counterbalance that by claremont-ing all his dialog pages

transmet as "product of its time"? yes, but kind of read as wish-fulfillment wank at the time, too

that said, as anyone who's attended a comiccon should know, he seems like a nice guy

x-post

did that 2nd dynamite JB story ever finish?

I've attended plenty of comic conventions where 'nice guy' was not the phrase people were using about Warren Ellis tbh.

i assume most massively successful comic book writers are compulsive assholes, tbh. something's gotta drive them to be able to put out that much work and it's usually not a good thing

I'm sure there are exceptions, but I've always assumed that there isn't much overlap between the set of skills that inform writing prolificity and those that inform healthy social functioning.

Interesting! I met him a couple times and he seemed okay. Full of himself (which comes across in the writing) but friendly.

isn't much overlap between the set of skills that inform writing prolificity and those that inform healthy social functioning

i don't think there's a genuine correlation between those things (i've met too many nice writers) but there is certainly a tendency among assholes who happen to be writers to buy into that myth for expedience's sake

xp to you Chuck: yep, Eidolon wrapped up with issue 12, though that ending was about as perfunctory and Ellis-onian as could be imagined. let me know if you want me to spoil it for you.

the current bond series (minus bond, it's felix leiter) is written by James Robinson and is not much fun.

i don't think there's a genuine correlation between those things (i've met too many nice writers) but there is certainly a tendency among assholes who happen to be writers to buy into that myth for expedience's sake

― Chuck_Tatum, Tuesday, March 21, 2017 12:01 PM (twenty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not a correlation but, yes, basically what you said (the prolificity creates space to excuse oneself from the development of social skills if one is so disinclined).

I'm not exactly a paragon of either skillset, so I ain't sitting in judgment.

Any comic writers that end up writing a long box or so of books are going to end up with a stack of clunkers. I'd say Ellis has a decent signal to noise ratio, it is just unfortunate that a couple of really interesting series setups like Desolation Jones or Fell went into the ditch.

I feel like he had some deeper life complications going on than the "my laptop died and I lost some scripts" line that was floated, so I'm glad he seems to be doing well. I prodded in a couple online discussions of his work about Desolation Jones and he's really just tired of talking about it.

I have the suspicion the concentrated coffee/whiskey lifestyle caught up with him a couple times, as it will for anyone who makes a go of that

xpost to Ulysees

Yep! Just read, you're wholly correct re: perfunctory. Interesting comic, pretty piss-poor take on the character.

Anyway, Marvel Comics

there was a particularly painful stretch in the mid-2000s where you could almost guarantee that an article on weird physics in new scientist or wherever would get shamelessly recycled into an ellis story six months or so down the line

He was friendly enough at the con I saw him (and GMo!) at in '99. He asked our group what we were getting up to that evening - we knocked him back as we had tickets to go see The Phantom Menace.

Marvel comics! Ellis' Wolverine four-parter Not Dead Yet is a good read, if you can get past the phonetics used for the Scot character's dialogue.

that said, as anyone who's attended a comiccon should know, he seems like a nice guy

I've been to comic conventions on three continents and Warren Ellis has never been there

have heard various stories without the "nice guy" punchline, but only one was in a hotel bar the night before a comic convention

I'd assume the intention was to cite comic conventions Ellis was actually at in reference to his character but I respect sic's pedantry