Crooked Little Vain was great if you enjoy a lot of concentrated "Ellis" exposition.
and whats a good TPB shopping list/ reading order for Final Crisis/ Grant Morrison's Batman arc, I have about half of it in singles but I feel like just getting it in trades as I get money.
Gravel is basically a Warren Ellis version of Hellblazer - I've liked it quite a bit, but it gets really over the top and tongue in cheek at times.
Doctor Sleepless falls somewhere between Transmetro and Planatery story wise. Probably the highest "quality" of his recent work. I'd definitely recommend it to Transmetro fans.
Supergod is amazing. Definitely read the trade with it all collected, it didn't work as well in floppies with delays. Makes a good companion read with Planetary.
Freak Angels is free to read as a web comic, but I don't like it that much. Still, you cant beat the price. The pacing is way off, probably because of the format.
I have the Anna Mercury books, but haven't got around to reading them yet. Good reviews and a strong following, though.
I really did not like Crooked little vein. It just felt like he was playing up his whole shtick to the point of self parody, and it was so small and short, I felt a little bad for plopping down the high cover price.
Doctor Sleepless was the one that had a group of characters that looked like xkcd's version of Cory Doctorow, right? That is kind of funny.
I could not bring myself to read CLV based on the previews. It just seemed so tedious to get to whatever point he was making to get through references to stuff I already avoid. I did read Planetary recently in part because the main writer I succeeded loved it and Ellis in general. After reading that and an analysis of him on some blog I have a new appreciation for what he is trying to do, but I don't think he does it well enough for me to enjoy especially compared to Morrison.
Outside of Nextwave the best Ellis stuff from nuMarvel would be his Ultimate Fantastic Four run. What he did with Doom and Latveria, and the Negative Zone was pretty cool.
Also the ultimate armor wars mini series he did was pretty good too.
I was wondering if anyone had a resource, or some list of artists who do commissions - specifically Marvel ones. I saw the Ryan Dunlavey ones and am super jealous.
I read the first part of Supergod when it was a preview on Bleedingcool.
It seemed to just take the whole bizarre sex/violence shtick to a crazy extreme, without much else backing it.
I read Ignition City, and it was super mediocre.
I read the first issue of Planetary and didn't care for it, although some day I might give it another shot.
I'm not saying I hate the guy, though. His JLU episode is a favorite of mine, and I'm psyched to eventually read Transmet when I can either afford to or make a friend who owns it.
I use libraries to read comics with tons of volumes/trades. I read Transmet that way when I was in college. The little old library ladies give me the funniest looks when I would pick up that book.
I really did not like Crooked little vein. It just felt like he was playing up his whole shtick to the point of self parody, and it was so small and short, I felt a little bad for plopping down the high cover price.
I pretty much felt the same way. I don't follow Ellis on Twitter for a number of reasons, one of which is that it seems to be at least 50% "hey guys, look at this weird shit I found on the Internet". "Crooked Little Vein" was 100% "hey guys, look at this weird shit I found on the Internet".
Thing is, I totally couldn't put it down when I was reading it. I was frustrated with myself for it, but there was nothing I could do.
As for Doktor Sleepless, that's one of my biggest disappointments in recent memory. He was pitching it as Transmet mark 2, but it ended up being a story that didn't say much and didn't go anywhere (didn't even get an ending). Or, from my point of view, anyway. I think I enjoyed the backmatter on that book more than I did the book itself.
I did read Planetary recently in part because the main writer I succeeded loved it and Ellis in general. After reading that and an analysis of him on some blog I have a new appreciation for what he is trying to do, but I don't think he does it well enough for me to enjoy especially compared to Morrison.
Would you happen to remember which blog it was? I've never read a good analysis of Planetary (not because there aren't any), and I'm curious to see if my understanding of it matches that of someone who's done a rigorous analysis.
I had a specific perspective on it coming in (based on who read it and what they wrote based on it) that was reinforced because it's easy to reinforce one's biases, and part of it was cool because I appreciate science. But coming into it having read this article and thinking about Grant Morrison and some other things I actually appreciated it as a story about stories and really concretized my rather positive (especially compared to how hateful and mean a bastard I was around here) outlook. So I give Warren Ellis a lot of credit for helping that come to pass. I'm pretty sure I read some more pieces on it, but I cannot remember offhand.
Would you mind expounding on what you thought about it, what was reinforced? Sorry, I don't mean to sound like I'm hounding you, I just really like Planetary. It's one of the most important comics for me because it was one of the few comics where I saw some of the meta-structure and drew some conclusions on my own, before I had a chance to have the whole thing spoiled for me on a forum or news site or whatever. Now I'm curious to see if what I thought about it matches what other people thought about it (especially in the case of people who aren't as crazy about it as I am).
The reinforced opinion is insider baseball stuff about how material from Planetary inspired some material in the current edition of Shadowrun since one of the main writers was (is?) a huge Ellis fan. So saying that the drummer is clearly a major inspiration for technomancers probably means nothing to anyone.
I'm not really sure what else to say at the moment.
Wasn't aware of the insider baseball portion, but I'm a fan of Shadowrun (have been for about ten years), so I know what you're talking about. I never made the connection between the Drummer and technomancers, mostly because I never thought about Planetary and Shadowrun "in the same breath", as it were, but it makes a certain kind of sense. Although, the way I imagine the Drummer interacting with machinery and data flow is pretty different from how I imagine technomancers doing it.
Anyway, sorry, off-topic. Thanks for letting me know what you thought.
The reinforced opinion is insider baseball stuff about how material from Planetary inspired some material in the current edition of Shadowrun since one of the main writers was (is?) a huge Ellis fan. So saying that the drummer is clearly a major inspiration for technomancers probably means nothing to anyone.
I'm not really sure what else to say at the moment.
I honestly think Supergod would have been much more effective as a prose short story, or, perhaps, an OGN in collaboration with an artist who wasn't on a monthly deadline (think Frank Quitely). Read over, I think, 7 or 8 months due to delays and illustrated by an artist whose work was pretty inconsistent across all 5 issues (not bad, certainly, but still pretty mixed) the story came across to me as rather slight and the whole spectacle of it all a little less... spectacular than it should have been. The prose preview Ellis posted on his site intrigued me more than the final story did and could have made a great addition to any recent sci-fi anthology.
The reinforced opinion is insider baseball stuff about how material from Planetary inspired some material in the current edition of Shadowrun since one of the main writers was (is?) a huge Ellis fan. So saying that the drummer is clearly a major inspiration for technomancers probably means nothing to anyone.
I'm not really sure what else to say at the moment.
Really? I did not know that, that's pretty cool.
Yep. To be fair, I would do something like put a Transmet reference into a book or base a recurring character on a Planetary character if I were a freelancer and Ellis fanboy, too.
Wait a sec ...
Goddamn it. You know what I really, really want? (And then I return you all to comic books) Brian Clevinger is a Shadowrun fan and I would kill to have him write a SR comic book.
Most of the big name writers have only a select few things they are really good at.
The problem lies with them trying to shoehorn these strengths into every story they write to varying effects
I realize JMS isn't real popular around here for his recent Superman work, but I first noticed this back when he was doing Rising Stars. I remember a couple of ideas that were in B5 getting re-used. Then a few more in Spider-man. After that, I started giving his comics a pass.
Most of the big name writers have only a select few things they are really good at.
The problem lies with them trying to shoehorn these strengths into every story they write to varying effects
I realize JMS isn't real popular around here for his recent Superman work, but I first noticed this back when he was doing Rising Stars. I remember a couple of ideas that were in B5 getting re-used. Then a few more in Spider-man. After that, I started giving his comics a pass.
Yeah his writing is all variations of one story: Rising stars, Silver Surfer: Requiem, Thor, Twelve if he didn't crap out, Superman if he didn't crap out, and others I'm sure.
There is a climax scene in all of those stories where this massively powerful superhuman power is shared across all humanity for one day, allowing them to share in some collective gestalt of new agey feelgood bullshit before humans go back to doing what we do best, which is destroying ourselves.
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RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
edited March 2011
Heh. My guess was something along the lines of "We need somebody to come along and save us from ourselves."
So when Sentinel squares off against Cap, Iron Man, or someone similar in MvC3, his opening line is "Avenger, stand down".
Being a government-sanctioned superhero force, have the Avengers ever utilized the Sentinels as part of some covert strike team against rogue mutants? Would make for a pretty awesome team-up if so.
Or, alternatively, have the Avengers ever threatened to quit unless they stopped mass producing Sentinels to go murder their mutant allies?
spookymuffin( ° ʖ ° )Puyallup WA Registered Userregular
edited March 2011
I never really understood why mutants are so hated, when you have superheroes that might have the exact same powers. Why does it matter so much how they got these powers?
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According to wikipedia, he also wrote Anna Mercury, No Hero, Doktor Sleepless, Supergod, and Gravel within the last four years.
I like Warren Ellis for his ideas. I hate it when his books depend on ultra violence to fill pages.
The whole "weirdness magnet" thing the protagonist had going on reminded me of Blue Devil's shtick.
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and whats a good TPB shopping list/ reading order for Final Crisis/ Grant Morrison's Batman arc, I have about half of it in singles but I feel like just getting it in trades as I get money.
Doctor Sleepless falls somewhere between Transmetro and Planatery story wise. Probably the highest "quality" of his recent work. I'd definitely recommend it to Transmetro fans.
Supergod is amazing. Definitely read the trade with it all collected, it didn't work as well in floppies with delays. Makes a good companion read with Planetary.
Freak Angels is free to read as a web comic, but I don't like it that much. Still, you cant beat the price. The pacing is way off, probably because of the format.
I have the Anna Mercury books, but haven't got around to reading them yet. Good reviews and a strong following, though.
I could not bring myself to read CLV based on the previews. It just seemed so tedious to get to whatever point he was making to get through references to stuff I already avoid. I did read Planetary recently in part because the main writer I succeeded loved it and Ellis in general. After reading that and an analysis of him on some blog I have a new appreciation for what he is trying to do, but I don't think he does it well enough for me to enjoy especially compared to Morrison.
Also the ultimate armor wars mini series he did was pretty good too.
It seemed to just take the whole bizarre sex/violence shtick to a crazy extreme, without much else backing it.
I read Ignition City, and it was super mediocre.
I read the first issue of Planetary and didn't care for it, although some day I might give it another shot.
I'm not saying I hate the guy, though. His JLU episode is a favorite of mine, and I'm psyched to eventually read Transmet when I can either afford to or make a friend who owns it.
I pretty much felt the same way. I don't follow Ellis on Twitter for a number of reasons, one of which is that it seems to be at least 50% "hey guys, look at this weird shit I found on the Internet". "Crooked Little Vein" was 100% "hey guys, look at this weird shit I found on the Internet".
Thing is, I totally couldn't put it down when I was reading it. I was frustrated with myself for it, but there was nothing I could do.
As for Doktor Sleepless, that's one of my biggest disappointments in recent memory. He was pitching it as Transmet mark 2, but it ended up being a story that didn't say much and didn't go anywhere (didn't even get an ending). Or, from my point of view, anyway. I think I enjoyed the backmatter on that book more than I did the book itself.
Would you happen to remember which blog it was? I've never read a good analysis of Planetary (not because there aren't any), and I'm curious to see if my understanding of it matches that of someone who's done a rigorous analysis.
Comics Should Be Good: Reasons to Love Comics #334
This is what made me read Planetary at all.
I had a specific perspective on it coming in (based on who read it and what they wrote based on it) that was reinforced because it's easy to reinforce one's biases, and part of it was cool because I appreciate science. But coming into it having read this article and thinking about Grant Morrison and some other things I actually appreciated it as a story about stories and really concretized my rather positive (especially compared to how hateful and mean a bastard I was around here) outlook. So I give Warren Ellis a lot of credit for helping that come to pass. I'm pretty sure I read some more pieces on it, but I cannot remember offhand.
I'm not really sure what else to say at the moment.
Anyway, sorry, off-topic. Thanks for letting me know what you thought.
Really? I did not know that, that's pretty cool.
Transmetropolitan and Planetary are some of my most favorite comics ever.
Everything I've tried by him since then has been exceedingly mediocre and/or filled with the Ellis-isms and tropes I liked least from Transmet.
Yep. To be fair, I would do something like put a Transmet reference into a book or base a recurring character on a Planetary character if I were a freelancer and Ellis fanboy, too.
Wait a sec ...
Goddamn it. You know what I really, really want? (And then I return you all to comic books) Brian Clevinger is a Shadowrun fan and I would kill to have him write a SR comic book.
Rans, we are totally bro-dogs on this.
The problem lies with them trying to shoehorn these strengths into every story they write to varying effects
they got 4 really talented dudes to do what they each do well within the same story
And probably the best written event of all time
there aren't necessary for the story and aren't part of the 4-volume tbp set
they were just a dumb last minute cash-grab
because I mean come on
that was fucking awesome
Yeah his writing is all variations of one story: Rising stars, Silver Surfer: Requiem, Thor, Twelve if he didn't crap out, Superman if he didn't crap out, and others I'm sure.
There is a climax scene in all of those stories where this massively powerful superhuman power is shared across all humanity for one day, allowing them to share in some collective gestalt of new agey feelgood bullshit before humans go back to doing what we do best, which is destroying ourselves.
It seems to be a theme
Being a government-sanctioned superhero force, have the Avengers ever utilized the Sentinels as part of some covert strike team against rogue mutants? Would make for a pretty awesome team-up if so.
Or, alternatively, have the Avengers ever threatened to quit unless they stopped mass producing Sentinels to go murder their mutant allies?
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