Results tagged “Warren Ellis” from Birmingham Mail - Speech Balloon

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Stormwatch: Force of Nature
By Warren Ellis, Tom Raney, Randy Elliott et al (WildStorm-DC/Titan)

Transmuting new ideas from left of field philosophy, science and the current zeitgeist of the moment into comics has never been a problem for Warren Ellis. Making them accessible to a greater reading public took its time though - his use of dialogue as communication of feeling and not just information can be viewed slowly developing on the pages of this collection of #37-42 of the old Stormwatch series.

Truth to tell you can see panels and pages where main pencil artist Tony Raney alongside Pete Woods and Michael Ryan's storytelling use of panel cuts, choice of close up etc possibly doesn't gel quite where Ellis's script might have intended and lessens the emphasis. But all in all, the collection's a good starting point for where Ellis would culminate his thoughts on the subject of groupings for hero-dom: their cause and effect, at the end of his run on The Authority.

As we open the pages, one Henry Bendix is in control as Weatherman, controller of Stormwatch, and the United Nations have told him that he can do as he damn pleases in so far as Special Crisis Intervention goes, at least for the time being. What Henry does is pension off a truckload of spandex clad heroes, bring a few new ones in (most notably Jenny Sparks and Rose Tattoo who read like characters straight out of 2000AD joining Marvel's The Avengers). It's not long before he's told to leave America alone - the implication being that they can carry on bullying the rest of the world.

Stormwatch Prime deals with superhuman hot war situations, Stormwatch Black with covert threats/black ops/spying, and Stormwatch Red is a deterrent and retaliation force. Bendix splits his new mob into these three distinct groups and each get a turn to headline feature subsequent issues collected in this book, That kind of thing can often be the equivalent of painting by numbers, no matter how well by some. Regardless, it's fast moving, neu-thriller styled, the odd experiment in storytelling or mix and match of sub-genres. The end result pretty satisfactory and leaving you wondering how it can all turn rotten so quickly then be re-ignited as The Authority. The seeds have been sown; it's a force of nature, unstoppable.

Celeb
By Charles Peattie & Mark Warren (Masterley Publishing)

British TV viewers might recall Harry Enfield and Amanda Holden starring in a BBC1 comedy series from a couple of years back featuring the exploits of a mindless rock star and his latest model trophy wife. It was based on the comic strip series collected within this book.

The TV version only lasted one series, unsurprisingly. Enfield played the part of an Ozzy Osborne caricature when Gary Bloke, the lead character, should be more of a MickJagger/Rod Stewart/Phil May of the Pretty Things, even Phil Collins actually, type. And Samantha Janus would have played his wife better.

Anyway, Bloke is a wrinkly rock star so cue: booze, drugs, women and the usual send-ups. As a comic it's all pretty funny too.

Peattie of course draws the Alex newspaper strip and his writer/collaborator on that does supply additional material whether that's the more cerebral to Warren's more off the wall material I couldn't say though.

Within a standard four-panel comic strip the characters evolve well over time, collecting work from 1987 to 2002 as originally published in Private Eye magazine.
It is a portrait shaped book with four strips per page filling around 100 pages of fun digs at petty jealousies, media fads and innocent screw-ups all lumped together!

My Own Little Empire
By Scott Mills (Ad House Books)

Mills unravels a story of a gang of kids hanging out, cruising in their car (how do American school kids get to do this?), drinking and doing other dumb youth things. There's a series of misadventures for the misanthropes and the boy who seeks the girl eventually gets her.

It's alright. Not great. The jokes are hit and miss. I don't want to put it down but after Trenches I was hoping for more from Scott Mills than a minor diversion. He again uses the odd landscape four panel to a page book format - It's also rather pricey for so little story content here in the UK.

David Boring
By Daniel Clowes (Pantheon-Random House/Jonathan Cape).

The son of a second rate comic book artist who ran out on him and his mother, David Boring's life tends to be a little less than his name supposes, despite his permanent blank facial expression.

The guy has an ass fetish. Whether he actually ever has sex with the various partners we see him with or that they're his internal fantasises visualised for our own sense of sexual voyeurism I remain unsure - and like it for being so! And then the murders that we see happening, I gather they're real, but who's responsible? David? His lesbian best friend, Dot?

In between all this there's David's search for his father, his piecing together of one of his comics to tell or misinform points of view is an integral part of this - the use of the colour comic panels, not just pages in such sections enhances these subjective points of views and it's a costly one as far as printing goes so my hat goes off to the various publishers involved along the way.

As a whole the book doesn't quite fulfil the promise you believe it will give but there are some valiant underplayed moves to use the comic forms' narrative and visuals and move them on a step or two - but perhaps the story is itself too enigmatic to attain a greater acceptance by a reading public? Or too clever for its own good? Or is it just me being a thick Brummie and needing stuff spelt out for me? Maybe the movie version is clearer, or will that dilute the intentions behind it all?

A journey down a lot of dead-end roads that take you back to one of the first tried. Curious. Worthy of more study by serious guys who have something more to say than the "I like this, you might too" attitude I've opted for, perhaps.

SATURDAY'S COLLECTION of graphic novel reviews...

Ministry of Space
By Warren Ellis & Chris Weston (Image/Titan)

Dan Dare meets neu-realism in this variable history story that sees the British steal German technology before the Yanks and Ruskies can get a look in during the fading hours of WWII.

It postulates the theory that space exploration would have continued on as a part of Britain's empirical nature instead of us becoming an inward looking trading post of diminishing returns.

Sir John Dashwood is an air commodore with the RAF an it is his ruthless spirit that makes it all happen, hiding a deadly secret in his doing that at the end the Americans have discovered and will reveal so. This proves Dashwood's downfall and Britain's folly - it doesn't quite ring true as every nation hides its war crimes with a smile and sadly generally gets away with it.

The last panels suggest racism would still be profoundly here but it just wouldn't be in the same way - But if so surely the Americans would have blacks in chains still? One change doesn't mean every nation will stay in isolation.

Regardless, it captures the height of empirical ambition, the sterling stiff upper lip, and a God's kingdom on Earth approach as exemplified by William Blake.

To this artist Weston deliver his exacting art in to evoke not only Hampson with modern mannerisms but as an apprentice to Don Lawrence also serves the memory of his mentor well.

American Splendour
By Harvey Pekar & Various (Ballantine/Titan)

A hefty album collecting two previous collections.

For those new they will find a collection of vignettes of generally high quality about the drudgery of daily working class life in Cleveland, USA. Boring? No.

There are insights into the human character, nuances and prejudices made and lost , and honesty from Pekar himself, and a point, moral or otherwise to the stories.

Robert Crumb's on board but there are plenty of delights from the other male and female artists.

I used to read the annual oversized comic version of American Splendour that Pekar self-published and this acts not only as a reminder of some good stories but how I saw a small-business man self-publish and treat his artists with apparent integrity - an attitude that's stayed at the back of my head and I've taken as a blueprint for any endeavour I've been personally involved with since.

Barnum! In Secret Service to the USA
By Howard Chaykin, David Tishman & Niko Henrichon (Vertigo-DC).

Sheer carny hokum that must have been written with tongue firmly planted in cheek!

The premise: that scientist Nikola Tesla is trying to take over the United States, as that nation's growth into Empire and future world dominator... and obviously kill of President Grove Cleveland in the process!

To prevent this, P.T. Barnum and his circus troop become special agents on behalf of the president. It's almost a two fingers-up assault on the revisionist pulp hero material that's pumped out these days. It's also an honest to goodness adventure of the sorts we all to rarely see these days.

A lot of it will leave younger readers bored rigid. It has to be admitted it feels the story has been padding out somewhat and Henrichion's quaint illustrative style isn't going to appeal to the X-fans out there, but there's some fun moments in it,.

I got get the feeling Chaykin's main interest was the history and politics side of this. The book ends happily enough, with that comic book sense that there might be a reprise, but I doubt sales would make it. To be frank I don't know how a hard cover collection came about unless there was also potential movie deals happening at the time. Regardless, I'm a sucker for almost anything Chaykin put out.

The League of Extraordinary Gentleman Volume II
By Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neill (DC/WildStorm)

The group reform and take on the aliens from HG Wells' War of the Worlds - it both loses and gains over the first collection. Charactersisations expand beyond their own chronoligical definitions, but maybe we prefered them otherwise. Cameos from John Carter and Gulliver Jones on Mars in the prologue were a welcome sight, however, an explansion of their roles would have been welcomed.

Supplementary text stories and covers round out the collection. All in all, there's enough meat on the story with the villains suitably menacing, doubly so when characters change allegancies.

100 Bullets: Samurai
By Brian Azzarello & Eduardo Risso (DC/Vertigo)

Quite why this collection of 100 Bullets #43-49 is subtitled Samurai confuses me - Caged Creatures might be more appropriate. The book's in two parts, the first featuring a con doing time and thinking he's little chance of surviving other prisoners, the second and more interesting, if initially, apparently more predictable, involves the illegal hunting of caged tigers. There's lots of mean and moody action, and it's all very cinematic

A mysterious man called Graves gives individuals 100 bullets to do whatever they want, promising that they'll get off scott free, but the 100th bullet must be for the individual themselves. The first story in this collection needs some awareness of the series' continuity, the second more accessible to non-series readers.

Creatures of the Night
By Neil Gaiman & Michael Zulli (Dark Horse Books)

Zulli has adapted two short stories by Gaiman, The Price and The Daughter of Owls.

They are brief reads despite their individual page count, and beneficial for it. Each tells a dark fairy tale suitable for all ages. The one a story about a cat battling the devil, the other a girl thought of as a demon herself.

Zulli gives thanks to Barry Windsor-Smith in his credits. That artistic influence was always there in Zulli's work and initially it may well have hindered his progression though made him a little more commercial, now he takes the essence of the storytelling that is Windsor-Smith's true skill (rather than the absolutely wonderful drawings themselves that people first admire) and uses that in a natural flow that makes the book work.

I expected not to like this and was very pleasantly surprised. Nothing deep but an effective collection.

BIG BOYS, bad boys, girls without sugar but plenty of spice -Not every graphic novel is worth its listed price. Welcome to Birch's Bark Part II!

The Witching Hour
By Jeph Loeb & Chris Bachalo/Art Thibert
(DC/Titan)

Initially, this collection has no clear direction, and once the plot develops it's not that original a story I'm afraid.

A small coven of witches are allowed to play the time worn role of The Fates but on a shoe string budget in that they can give mortals the choice over which path their life can take come the stroke of midnight. A modern day all grown-up fairytale? Well, I guess that's a tagline the Vertigo imprint played to for its first ten years.

It pulls you in for Loeb's matter of fact narration that pulsates with ideas casually thrown away in its very conversational flow. I found Bachalo's art to be rather pleasing and influenced by the work of Bernie Wrightson for this book but no one else I've mentioned this to can see it - which only goes to prove how subjective anyone's opinion can be!

Transmetropolitan: Dirge
By Warren Ellis & Darick Robertson/Rodney Ramos
(DC/Titan)

Many claim this is Ellis's old Lazarus Churchyard character rebooted for the American market. I seem to recall him telling quite a tale in a short space within the pages of Blast where Lazarus first appeared. Here it takes a whole graphic novel collection of water treading (for those of us who've just dipped in for the first time) to work out that the President of the United States has set lead character Spider Jerusalem up.

We do this before the lead character, and that may be admirable for our part, but it's of little literal substance when your lead character's supposed to be some Hunter S.Thompson-styled investigative journalist.

There's a nice attitude to some of the dialogue but other than that I would hardly presume this to be one of the must-have collections from the series. If it had run in the weekly British comic 2000AD during its heyday it might have been episode 6 in an 8 part run, and only needed to have lasted 6 pages.

Hellblazer: Haunted
By Warren Ellis & John Higgins
(DC-Vertigo/Titan)

A truly gripping tale is held within these pages as John Constantine seeks the murderer of an old lover and finds black magicians at work in every nook and cranny of London's occult underbelly.

Its plot is only two steps removed from that of Transmetropolitan: Dirge but Ellis stands up to the platform and delivers the goods this time round. This is worthy to stand alongside the early Delano and Ridgway tales for evoking an undercurrent of political intrigue fostered by Old World magic.

Shonen Graphic Novel: Yu-Gi-Oh! Book 1
By Kazuki Takahashi (Viz)

Based on the top rated animation show, card collecting game, and now film, this manga collection features Yuri, a small Japanese kid fascinated by games. When he solves the Millennium Puzzle it miraculously gives him the power to get back at bullies of all shades and sizes.

I'm presuming that it was originally intended for kids around 13 years old but it's a damned sight more mature than anything their English speaking counterparts ever get (or got in my very old case) offered. There's some sheer knee-jerk stuff too so don't get the wrong impression. What I'm talking about here is Takahashi's ability to focus on teenage preoccupations and fears as the regular cast's characters develop.

The stories themselves do veer towards plot set-up similarities though. And the endings are almost consistent in that Yuri uses the Millennium Puzzle to exact his revenge against a bully. Mind you, the gruesome manner that this is undertaken brings to mind those old Michael Fleisher & Jim Aparo stories of The Spectre in DC's Adventure Comics from the 70s. In both that series' case and this book's the unique way the dastardly ends are made are worth going along on the ride for.

The Big Book of Bad
By Various (DC)

From the much overlooked Paradox Press imprint this offers a vast array of cartoonists & artists who deliver, in the main, entertaining, interesting, or both, tales on people and ideas that are considered bad. Stand out artists include Roger Langridge and Brian Buniak.

Popular Astonishing X-men and Captain America artist John Cassaday is the latest top name to be confirmed for the Birmingham International Comics Show this October.

Cassaday first came to prominence for his award winning work on Planetary with writer Warren Ellis about a decade ago.

But recently he has enjoyed huge success with his run on Astonishing X-men with Joss Whedon, the pop-culture riffing creator of TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

This is another inspired signing for BICS joining an impressive line-up including Dave Gibbons and David Lloyd...