Warren Ellis became the vanguard of the New
British invasion into American comics. Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman,
Grant Morrison (who Mark Millar used as cover for his very
own invasion before hopping off and looking like he'd always
been there), that was all quite a while ago. When Warren Ellis,
with only one real comics success to his name, that of Lazarus
Churchyard in the short lived Blast! Magazine, wangled a Legends
Of The Dark Knight gig (which would take years to be published)
and charmed Marvel's Marie Javins into giving him a series
of short gigs, each of which fell short of sales expectations
or was soon cancelled, he took that opportunity to build himself
as a brand. With a small X-Men audience drawn from his Excalibur
run and an even smaller audience from Ultraforce and Stormwatch,
he set himself up on the internet with his own message board
forum. Adopting the nickname Stalin, using the stick of banning
and gagging and the carrot of his favour, he created a slavish
tribe of Warren Ellis addicts that would transform his small
but vocal crowd into a Chorus that spread across the internet,
letters pages and into comics shops. It saw company after
company take a chance on this bearded Essex boy. After all,
if there was so much fuss, there had to be something to it.
There was.
A last ditch attempt to revitalise the repeatedly
re-launched and repeatedly low-selling Stormwatch as The Authority,
would become the most influential superhero comic book of
the decade. Other comics, other comic universe would be influenced
or would define themselves as being opposed to, the spirit
of that title. Wildstorm would eventually turn all their shared-universe
titles into those following on from the Authority. and for
a time, they seemed unable to publish a comic book without
it being named after a section of officialdom, or ending in
a 'Y'. And one year later the baton was passed on, and Warren's
sci-fi series Transmetropolitan, ignored by much of the industry,
would be the standard bearer of the line alongside Preacher,
much as Swamp Thing, Hellblazer and Sandman had done previously.
And then Warren said goodbye to all that
and pursued a series of shorter-run, creator owned titles
to pretty much anyone who'd have him - except Marvel. The
range of topics and genres tackled began to rival that of
Alan Moore.
But Warren's books have never sold well compared
to the rest of the industry - not initially, anyway. The Authority
only really took off after Mark Millar joined and decided
to grab a few headlines. But books like Orbiter, an original
hardback graphic novel topped their own field and opened DC's
eyes to the sales possibilities such titles could have - the
success of Endless Nights may not have been so well achieved
without it. They may not be putting them out exactly regularly,
put its suddenly another possibility that they can explore
a little more frequently than before.
And when mainstream American comics couldn't
quite give Ellis the space he needed, he found it in companies
such as Avatar (who, again, have revitalised their line after
the first book, Strange Kiss, did so well for them) and Ait/PlanetLar
(whose publisher, Larry Young, has had a good relationship
with Warren for what seems like forever - even publishing
a book of his grainy low-quality black and white photos taken
on a Handspring). An attempt to do something similar with
Image floundered, though Ministry Of Space is finally reaching
completion.
Because of Warren Ellis, the voices of Antony
Johnston, Matt Fraction, Brian Wood, Steven Grant, Lauren
Martin, Kelly Sue, Nick Locking (heaven-help-us), and even
yours truly have been turned up just enough to get heard by
people in Iceland. He has given birth to a mass of linked
Delphi fora taken up by ex-Warren Ellis forum readers and
other creators. And he, above all others, is responsible for
the mass of creators who now use the internet as a way to
develop their own fan bases. Aside form his own work, this
is his most far-reaching legacy.
On Monday, Warren Ellis asked if anyone would
like to send him four questions for website publication. Not
so much an interview, more a questionnaire, but I decided,
"why not"? However with Warren, unlike many others, I'm more
interested in what he's going to be up to, than what he's
already done.
I wasn't quite prepared for the answer "not
comics anymore."
