T/S: Warren Ellis vs Garth Ennis

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For most of the 90's, i had trouble telling these two guys apart, since they were both:

1)from the UK
2)wrote for high-profile Vertigo books featuring bald white guys(which I didn't read until this year)
3)did Hellblazer for a spell(which i did read until about 98-99)

Could somebody tell me the diff betwixt these two?

Oh yeah, and also with Grant Morrison, too.

― kingfish maximum overdrunk (Kingfish), Thursday, 19 May 2005 05:46 (twenty years ago)

Grant - ruffty-tuffty violence with manly men and 'strong' women. Gratuitous shots of internal organs. Nostalgic monologues about how things used to be.

Warren - ever-so-clever hard SF and haXor sp33k. Gunfire with little damage. Disparaging monologues about how things used to be.

Grant - PKD visions of alternate realities and timelines collapsing into a single transferable multiverse. Attacks by modern yet archaic weapons, often by bizarre anthropomorphisms. Shocked monologues about how things used to be IN THE CHARACTER'S PREVIOUS IDENTITY.

But we've done this before, haven't we?

― aldo_cowpat (aldo_cowpat), Thursday, 19 May 2005 07:23 (twenty years ago)

Ellis, although possibly not very justifiably. Because hidden wide-eyed idealism beats hidden John Wayne moral code or something. Or bcz I prefer science fiction to war stories.

― tom west (thomp), Thursday, 19 May 2005 12:04 (twenty years ago)

aldo, I assume your first description is meant for Ennis?

― Flyboy (Flyboy), Thursday, 19 May 2005 12:20 (twenty years ago)

Ennis: Guns
Ellis: Technology
Morrison: Drugs
Milligan: Clothes

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 19 May 2005 12:23 (twenty years ago)

Clothes and Hair.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 19 May 2005 12:25 (twenty years ago)

Actually it's a funny qn this cos from a Brit perspective Ellis and Ennis are from totally different, um, 'traditions' within UK comic writing. Not that I'd expect that to translate into their American work.

xpost: yes. And Hair. Maybe I mean "Milligan: Style".

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 19 May 2005 12:28 (twenty years ago)

Nostalgic monologues about how things used to be.

I really don't get this to be honest. He's hardly Jim Davison.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 19 May 2005 12:40 (twenty years ago)

Tom what does Ellis come out of? I'm vaguely aware Ennis is out of 2000AD but I can't think what Ellis did before Marvel picked him up

― tom west (thomp), Thursday, 19 May 2005 12:42 (twenty years ago)

Tom, it's kinda funny from a US perspective, too, given what they're predominantly known for here! Thing is, I'd probably Ellis w/ a True War story before I'd trust Ennis w/ any Fantasy / Sci-Fi stuff, though I'm openly biased towards WE (w/ no slight intented re: GE, of course).

― David R. (popshots75`), Thursday, 19 May 2005 12:45 (twenty years ago)

Ennis is kind of Commando/Action/old school 2000AD (even though he made his name doing edgy satire/Belfast realism material for Crisis, his heart is with real men heroes and violent war and vigilante comix). It's telling that he was picked by John Wagner to be a successor writer on Dredd, for instance. The only other writer in that British school getting work in the US is Andy Diggle.

Ellis is more of an 80s Brit-alternative type - Strange Days, Escape, Deadline, that sort of thing, though I've no idea if he actually wrote for any of them. I don't think he ever wrote for 2000AD, the first time I remember seeing the name was Lazarus Churchyard for some rapidly-defunct mature readers strip collection.

― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 19 May 2005 12:51 (twenty years ago)

Ennis - homosexual characters meet horrible ends

Ellis - homosexual, heterosexual, vehicularsexual, etc. characters meet horrible ends

Morrison - we will all become pagan sex gods and achieve seven-dimensional enlightenment

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 19 May 2005 13:26 (twenty years ago)

xxxxpost way up - aye, the first was supposed to read Garth.

He's actually had several Commando scripts rejected for being too violent, though apparently there are about 6 out there that he did actually write. Some of the rejected scripts later turned up as War Story for DC.

― aldo_cowpat (aldo_cowpat), Thursday, 19 May 2005 13:27 (twenty years ago)

Garth may not be Jim Davison but he spent way too much time in Preacher having Jesse spew forth little homilies and generally soapbox for my liking. I remember with particular horror a speech about how he loathed the use of the term "insecure".... John Wayne would never have put up with anyone calling him insecure, eh Garth?

― David N (David N.), Thursday, 19 May 2005 20:04 (twenty years ago)

I saw Ellis chat at the Toronto Comicon a coupla weeks back. He was sort of like a fatter version of Bill Bailey, crossed with Craig Charles in Red Dwarf. A bit terrifying. He could put fanboys in paroxyms just by uttering the words "fart" and "girls." I could feel my social skills dissapearing by the minute.

― Chuck_Tatum (Chuck_Tatum), Thursday, 19 May 2005 20:39 (twenty years ago)

Dodgy politics, splatterhouse and juvenilia aside though, I think Ennis's a fantastic storyteller. Having said that, I'll read his trades in the library, but feel it would reflect badly on me if I actually ever bought something my him.

― Chuck_Tatum (Chuck_Tatum), Thursday, 19 May 2005 20:41 (twenty years ago)

And Grant is a genius. Except when he's shit.

― Chuck_Tatum (Chuck_Tatum), Thursday, 19 May 2005 20:41 (twenty years ago)

Haha. To me, there are two very distinct kinds of Ellis books - the ones where he's most identifiably 'Warren Ellis' with all the corresponding misanthropic tics (Transmet, Desolation jones, possibly his Hellblazer run, lots of the smaller press stuff), and the ones where he puts all that aside (Planetary, Oceans, maybe some of his superhero stuff, etc.). The latter category I love, the former I don't really interest me.

― Jordan (Jordan), Thursday, 19 May 2005 20:55 (twenty years ago)

I never thought I'd find anyone else who wasn't impressed with Transmet.

― L (Leee), Friday, 20 May 2005 00:51 (twenty years ago)

I wasn't impressed with transmet!

― kenchen, Friday, 20 May 2005 04:39 (twenty years ago)

Read one issue and hated it.

― Tom (Groke), Friday, 20 May 2005 06:31 (twenty years ago)

ditto

― Huk-L, Friday, 20 May 2005 06:34 (twenty years ago)

(does the success of ILComics lie in the fact that we all pretty much like the same stuff?)

― Huk-L, Friday, 20 May 2005 06:35 (twenty years ago)

I remember Transmet being discussed here before and it's Andrew that's the big fan. I think it's kinda meh.

Huk's right though, we do have a sort of comics hivemind.

― aldo_cowpat (aldo_cowpat), Friday, 20 May 2005 07:22 (twenty years ago)

Speaking of hivemind I had a great idea last night for the BIG ILC SUMMER POLL! Everyone loves polls. I will announce it soon!

― Tom (Groke), Friday, 20 May 2005 10:26 (twenty years ago)

OH GOD POLLS

I have to go swallow my pride & revive a thread.

PS - TransMet started off great!

― David R. (popshots75`), Friday, 20 May 2005 12:35 (twenty years ago)

Well since the issue I hated was issue #1 I hope you're wrong Dave!

― Tom (Groke), Friday, 20 May 2005 12:36 (twenty years ago)

Ha! I just remember really liking the art, and Spider's puckishness, and the gun what made people empty their bowels. I read the first 20 issues, then left comics, then picked up the last 10 or so - it ended on a duff note.

― David R. (popshots75`), Friday, 20 May 2005 12:42 (twenty years ago)

I don't hate Transmet, but I've never felt compelled to read beyond the second trade. I still like reading Hunter S. Thompson, though.

― Jordan (Jordan), Friday, 20 May 2005 12:53 (twenty years ago)

Sure, but that's just consistent characterisation / lazy writing. Jesse is far too dull a character to be an Ennis substitute, I suspect Cassidy's a better match (which is why he gets the better arc).

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 30 May 2005 14:36 (twenty years ago)

And more to the point, none of the rest of his stuff does it.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 30 May 2005 14:40 (twenty years ago)

On Friday I saw a Justice League Unlimited episode written by W.E., it was pretty cool. Some alien thing showed up and it was self-replicating these little robot things that stole matter from whatever was handy to replicate further, towards the eventual consumption of the entire planet.
The Atom saved the day by shrinking down real small and messing with the atomic structure of the original machinebot, but not before the ENTIRE LEAGUE was called in to bust some robots up, but good.
The coolest part, though, and definitely bearing the W.E. touch, was that the Justice League, in an effort to contain the machinebots, blasted a big laser thing from their satellite, and then at the end, Gen. Eiling was all, "So the Justice League has space-based weapons of mass-destruction, eh? YOU ARE SO BUSTED, BATMAN!"

― Huk-L, Monday, 30 May 2005 14:46 (twenty years ago)

I think, actually, that the big laser might be have been a Dwayne McDuffie addition, seeing how it's a big part of this season's arc (which is awesome so far - the Question!!! Cadmus! Suicide Squad! *spasms*).

― carson dial (carson dial), Monday, 30 May 2005 18:39 (twenty years ago)

I saw WE talk about this at the Comicon. He seemed very excited to have Atom shrink into Wonder Woman's cleavage.

― Chuck_Tatum (Chuck_Tatum), Monday, 30 May 2005 19:19 (twenty years ago)

Ha ha ha, that was great. They kinda didn't make a big deal of that, but the shot did kind of linger longer than it otherwise might've.

I've gotta say (again) that JLU is sooo much better than I had thought it would be. They're basically working the same themes that DCU proper is right now, only doing it more cohesively (easy to do when it's just the one narrative) and PG stylee, and, frankly, more awesomer.

The whole Cadmus/Suicide Squad (Captain Boomerang was awesome! So was Deadshot.)/ Gov't/Justice Lords business is MIND BLOWING, but there's also wicked interpersonal shit going on that's really cool, like Black Canary and Green Arrow and the OMGWTF Question/Huntress relationship, and then the Green Lantern/Vixen/Hawkgirl triangle. Sweet, sweet stuff.

― Huk-L, Monday, 30 May 2005 19:55 (twenty years ago)

Um, when's it on in Canada?

― Chuck_Tatum (Chuck_Tatum), Monday, 30 May 2005 22:34 (twenty years ago)

YTV has new episodes (I think, or a higher proportion of episodes I haven't seen) on Friday nights, twice. And then Saturday morning (well, circa noon, depending on yr time zone), they show not so new, and then overnight Saturdays it's the DC heroes block with (not necessarily in this order) Smallville, Teen Titans, Superfriends, Justice League & Justice League Unlimited.
(if their was ever a more desperate cry for a social life...)

― Huk-L, Tuesday, 31 May 2005 13:29 (twenty years ago)

what the blazes?!? (sorry, REALLY off-topic)

ihttp://www.christopherjonesart.com/images/bug/bug_preview.jpg

― Chuck_Tatum (Chuck_Tatum), Friday, 3 June 2005 19:23 (twenty years ago)

That looks like a Fan Job. And since JL Adventures only went to #34 (though that would put #42 coming out NOW!) before starting over as JL Unlimited, I'm gonna bet my left nut that it is. Still, SOMEBODY must put animated Ambush Bug and animated Question in a room together for my enjoyment.

― Huk-L, Friday, 3 June 2005 19:50 (twenty years ago)

two weeks pass...

http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=warren_ellis

hunh. never knew he actually had a livejournal...

― kingfish (Kingfish), Monday, 20 June 2005 23:09 (twenty years ago)

He's got like 5.

― Jordan (Jordan), Monday, 20 June 2005 23:14 (twenty years ago)

This one was a short fiction dump for awhile.

― Jordan (Jordan), Monday, 20 June 2005 23:15 (twenty years ago)

two years pass...

Warren Ellis' Gen 13, C/D?

― Leee, Wednesday, 4 July 2007 19:08 (eighteen years ago)

Alright from a 50c bin for the Dillon art.

― energy flash gordon, Thursday, 5 July 2007 00:07 (eighteen years ago)

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