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Warren Ellis

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Warren Ellis
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Warren Ellis

Warren Ellis (born February 16, 1968) is a British author of comic books and graphic novels, well known for his acerbic personality and sociocultural commentaries, both through his online presence and his writing. He is a resident of Southend-on-Sea, England.

Contents

Career

Ellis' writing career started in the British independent magazine Deadline with a 6 page short story in 1990. Other early works include a Judge Dredd short and a Doctor Who one-pager. His first ongoing work, Lazarus Churchyard appeared in Blast!, a short lived British magazine.

By 1994 Ellis began working for Marvel Comics, where he took over the series Hellstorm with #12, which he wrote until its cancellation with #21. He also did some work on the Marvel 2099 imprint, most notably in a storyline where a futuristic Doctor Doom took over the United States. His most notable early Marvel work is a run on Excalibur, a superhero series set in Britain. He also wrote a four-issue arc of Thor called "Worldengine", in which he dramatically revamped both the character and book.

Ellis then started working for DC Comics, Caliber Comics, and Image Comics' Wildstorm studio, where he wrote the Gen¹³ spin-off DV8, and took over Stormwatch a previously action-oriented team book, which he gave a more idea- and character-driven flavor. He wrote issues #37-50 with artist Tom Raney, and the 11 issues of volume two with artist Bryan Hitch. He and Hitch followed that with the Stormwatch spinoff The Authority, a cinematic super-action series for which Ellis coined the term "widescreen comics."

In 1997 Ellis started Transmetropolitan, a creator-owned series about an acerbic "gonzo" journalist in a dystopian future America, co-created with artist Darick Robertson and published by DC's Helix imprint. When Helix was discontinued the following year, Transmetropolitan was shifted to the Vertigo imprint, and remained one of the most successful non-superhero comics DC was then publishing [[Citing sources citation needed]]. Transmetropolitan ran for 60 issues (plus a few specials), ending in 2002. It remains Ellis' largest work to date.

1999 saw the launch of Planetary, another Wildstorm series by Ellis and John Cassaday, and Ellis' short run on the DC/Vertigo series Hellblazer. He left that series when DC announced, following the Columbine High School massacre, that it would not publish "Shoot", a Hellblazer story about school shootings, although the story had been written and illustrated prior to the Columbine massacre. Planetary has been notoriously plagued with delays, but is scheduled to conclude in 2006 or 2007 with issue #27.

Ellis also returned to Marvel Comics, as part of the company's "Revolution" event, to head the "Counter-X" line of titles. This project was intended to revitalize the X-Men spinoff books Generation X, X-Man, and X-Force, but it was not successful, and Ellis stayed away from mainstream superhero comics for a time.

Transmetropolitan - one of Ellis' best-known series
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Transmetropolitan - one of Ellis' best-known series

In 2003 Ellis started Global Frequency, a 12-issue limited series for Wildstorm, and continued to produce work for various publishers, including DC, Avatar Comics, AiT/Planet Lar, Cliffhanger and Homage Comics.

In 2004 Ellis came back to mainstream superhero comics. He took over Ultimate Fantastic Four and Iron Man for Marvel under a temporary exclusive work for hire contract.

Toward the end of 2004, Ellis released the "Apparat Singles Group", which he described as "An imaginary line of comics singles. Four imaginary first issues of imaginary series from an imaginary line of comics, even." The Apparat titles were published by Avatar but carried only the Apparat logo on the cover.

As of 2006, he continues to work on several projects for different publishers, including Fell (for Image), Desolation Jones (for DC/Wildstorm), Jack Cross (for DC), Blackgas (for Avatar Comics), Nextwave (for Marvel) and the Ultimate Galactus trilogy (for Marvel).

He wrote an episode of Justice League Unlimited titled "Dark Heart".

Ellis has managed a series of online forums and media to promote his written works and his creative ideals. These forums are sharply moderated by Ellis and his assistants, to suit the particular purpose each one was created for. They include the Warren Ellis Forum, DiePunyHumans.com, the Bad Signal mailing list, WarrenEllis.com, Warren-Ellis.livejournal.com and The-Engine.net. He is popularly known as "Stalin," "The Love Swami," or "Internet Jesus" on these forums.

Bibliography

Planetary: All Over the World
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Planetary: All Over the World

AiT/Planet Lar

  • Bad World
  • Blackgas (2006-)
  • Dark Blue
  • Bad Signal: From the Desk of Warren Ellis, a collection of essays from Ellis' mailing list of the same name
  • Scars
  • Strange Kiss
  • Stranger Kisses
  • Strange Killings
  • Strange Killings: Body Orchard
  • Strange Killings: Strong Medicine
  • Strange Killings: Necromancer
  • Wolfskin (2006-)

Apparat

Others

Trivia

He was born about seventeen months before Neil Armstrong landed on the moon on July 20 1969; he reports that the televised broadcast of the event is his earliest coherent memory.

According to a comment made in the first issue of Fell, he has more trade paperbacks in print than anyone else in the comic industry.

Writings about Ellis

Much has been written about Ellis' work by other writers, and that trend can be expected to continue since Ellis shows no signs of slowing. The tone and subject matter of his work has changed since his early stories. This change has been notably pointed out in publications such as Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, and Entertainment. Ellis' work has also been the focus of a number of academic articles and dissertations.

Interviews

External links

 

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