WAITING
FOR TOMMY: WARREN ELLIS REMIXED
By
Richard Johnston
Emergency Capsule! Emergency Capsule!
I've got questions
in with numerous comic stars and celebs, eager, itching, to
be Waiting For Tommied. But sometimes there's a snag. A gap.
A catch. And right now, I'm sitting on a bunch of unfinished
interviews from lots of people.
So what to do?
Why don't I get other people to do my work for me?
Warren
Ellis has been doing a Question And Answer session over at
Millar world . He did a 5 Question Waiting
for Tommy before, but he's notoriously hard to get to do an
interview with the online comic biz.
So I'm
going to nick all their best questions and answers and present
them as my own, with a few interjections. To be honest, there's
43 pages of it, and there's a lot of guff, I've saved you
the effort by cutting the chaff, I really have.
You'll thank me.
Seriously. Getting rid off all that nonsense about the Pixies
has saved you a lifetime. Oh go on, then, if you must, you
can get the whole discourse here
Or you could just
start reading this. I stayed up all night cutting and pasting.
BRUNO:
Can you tell us some projects that you will be doing for Marvel
and DC and that have not be divulged yet?
WARREN: Not yet, no.
RICH: Okay,
bad one to start with, let's find another.
HOOKS:
Daddy, What's your closet X-Men fantasy?
WARREN: Doing an ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND
on the couple of years I spent writing X-books.
DANNY:
Are there any talks of you continuing any of your projects
for DC or Marvel after your initial commitment? If not, is
it back to small publishers or a departure from comics altogether?
WARREN: Okay, let's see. I have one sekrit work-for-hire
gig there, and that's a one-time thing. I have two new long-form
creator-owned series there, DESOLATION JONES and JACK CROSS,
and they will go from contract to contract if they're successful
enough that DC wants to continue publishing them. Aside from
a few miniseries and the STEALTH TRIBES OGN, that's all I
have at DC right now.
At Marvel, I have
my 12 issues of UFF, the five-issue ULTIMATE NIGHTMARE, and
six issues of another sekrit gig. Marvel have made it known
that they're pleased with the work, and have invited me to
continue working with them. I'm going to get ULTIMATE NIGHTMARE
and some more of UFF finished off, and see what the lay of
the land is.
I will be working
with some smaller publishers over the next year.
JOHN MILLIGAN:
Do you have projects coming that are outside of American comics,
besides your novel?
WARREN: Well, I guess the last videogame I wrote cinematics
and did plot consultation for, COLD WINTER, will come out
at some point this year.
I've been invited
on to the beta test of a system that'll provide content for
mobile phones, and this month I have to shoot my photographs
as an invited exhibitor to the SENT phonecam show in LA.
I wrote an episode
of JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED for WB, called "Dark Heart."
Once I've gotten
the first novel finished, in a month or so, I want to head
straight into the second novel, which has been living in my
head for almost a year now.
This year, though,
I've been mostly concentrating on comics.
MIKE FURTH:
Well i do want to know why you keep coming back to comics.
That sounded more stand-offish than I meant it. But basically
we all know you aren't really into superheroes, and the general
state of comics these days. So why are keeping at it? Is there
something specific you still want to do or is it something
about the medium,etc?
WARREN: Well, let's get a few things straight. Superheroes
aren't comics. They're not the sum total of the form. And
although I don't particularly enjoy superhero fiction, my
gripe has mostly been that they economically dominate the
medium.
And, yeah, the
general state of comics is, in my perception, pretty dismal
these days.
None of this alters
the fact that comics are the freest form of visual narrative
fiction there is, and they are how I want to tell (most of)
my stories.
ANDREW TRASK:
Process question: when/why/how often do you do "warmups"?
And have they ever paid off into longer salable works?
WARREN: Every day. Every "morning" (which for me can be
anywhere from 11am to 2pm), down the pub, with a Red Bull
and a cigarette.
Sometimes it's
just catching up with email. Sometimes it's a Bad Signal .
Often it's a piece for SCREAM TALKING ,
which is where I dump ultrashort fictions.
STEALTH
TRIBES started out as a warm-up piece -- partway through it
I found myself thinking, hold on, this is bigger than a 200-word
shot...
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| 9 Continued
Here...
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