Slashdot Mirror
Ask Warren Ellis
Warren Ellis has agreed to be our next victim for a Slashdot Interview. Probably best known
as the creator of the awesome comic Transmetropolitan. If there is a required reading list for Slashdot, Transmet has to be at the top. His recently released Mek series was the first comic I've ever read to actually mention the EFF. His Global Frequency book makes for great reading as well- #7 is out next week. Warren's work contains great dialog, observations on humanity, and is quite frankly just great SciFi. Besides comics,
you can read his blog at
Die Puny Humans and his weekly graphic novel evangelism column BRAINPOWERED.
Standard Slashdot Interview Rules apply: Post questions here. We'll select from the highly moderated ones, and Warren will answer in a few days.
So, I hate to ask this, but Planetary has been coming out at a very slow crawl, and some of us are waiting desperately for the next issue. When is it likely to come out? And is the slow pace just because you have so many projects going at once?
I was just wondering, was former Senator Longmarch supposed to look like Mao, or was his name and my thinking he looked like Mao just a coincidence?
I like you, Stuart. You're not like everyone else, here, at Slashdot.
And don't say Watchmen, cause that's (fantastic) genre crud.
"genre crud"? I can agree with "genre", since of course everything either *has* a pigeon-hole or *makes* one. "crud"? Hmmm.... nope, I don't think so.
So, what's "genre crud" to you? Did you dislike Watchmen because it had superheroes? Because it had... well, what it had at the end that I shouldn't spoil if folks haven't read it? When I hear "genre crud" it makes me think of something that sits comfortably within the lines defined by its genre, and Watchmen certainly did anything but! Granted, today it would be somewhat difficult to explain WHY that was the case, but that's because we have different expectations now.
My feeling is that Watchmen, The Dark Knight ("DK2".... *shudder*), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Sandman, Astro City, and many other titles between the mid 80s and the mid 90s helped comics readers to explore what it was that they wanted to get out of their superheroes, and each contributed to the genre significantly. Later works such as Top 10, The Authority, Planetary, Rising Stars and many others would never be mainstream (is Top Cow mainstream? Not sure) without the contributions of those books.
That's not to say there isn't "genre crud". I look at the recent Green Arrow series, and I see a few brilliant ideas up-front that Kevin Smith always brings to the table (though honestly the first few pages felt a bit like Dogma with superheroes) and then a few issues later... it starts to get bogged down in the need to introduce a villain and a "someone could die" moment right before the end of the issue.
Lucifer also started out with some interesting ideas and stalled. Granted, it made good reading for the first 15 or so issues, which is more than I can say for most sequels.
Then there's the flagship books. Every now and then I pick up a Superman or an X-Men, and I'm reminded that superhero story telling isn't always about telling a coherent story... Sometimes it's just about setting up a big fight, angsting over some "relationship issues" and beating the bad guy to a pulp while reciting a "truth and justice shall prevail" littany.
How such sorry, tired cruft could be compared to Watchmen, I'm seriously confused on.
Mr. Ellis, In recent years, there has been a minor trend of comics which feature updated or slightly reworked versions of the heroes and villains from old pulp novels and radio dramas. Many of these characters were created in and for the consumption of a society than was sexist, racially biased (if not outright racist), and generally more spiteful and discriminatory than modern society. Many of these characters' stories were filled with ethnic and racial stereotypes that have been (in most cases) culled from their representations in contemporary comics; however ignorance and hate remain a part of their past. In talking about this issue with some friends, it was pointed out to me that characters like Tarzan and Fu Manchu are archetypes (the wild man and the evil genius) which are present in many cultures ? that may be so, but the fact remains that those specific characters are also stereotypes (the great White hunter and the Yellow Peril). Considering that you have featured a Tarzan-like character in Planetary, and a Fu Manchu-like character in both Planetary and the Authority, how do you draw the line between using an archetype and using a stereotype? Is it even necessary to use those specific characters, when the archetype can be used to create a new character that is not tied to the close-mindedness of the past - or do you believe that reworking the character to remove those ties exonerates the character from its past? Do you plan to address this issue in Planetary or any other comic where you use pulp characters, and do you believe it is something other creators should consider?