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Warren Ellis (born 16 February 1968) is a British author of comics, novels, and television, well known for sociocultural commentary, both through his online presence and his writing, which covers extropian and transhumanist themes (most notably nanotechnology, cryonics, uploading, and human enhancement). He is a resident of Southend-on-Sea, England.
as a student at , commonly known as SEEVIC.
Discussion
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Quotations
Do yourself a favour, you tragic-looking old pisspot... go someplace and eat a lightbulb.
I have decided that I shall be referred to only as Love Swami for the rest of the week, and shall delete any email not headed with the term.
I will accept death as an alternative to the pain of being awake, at this point.
If anyone in this shithole city gave two tugs of a dead dog's cock about Truth, this wouldn't be happening.
If I knew PHP, I'd have my own social network system by now. Consider yourselves lucky.
In other news, I'm up way too fucking early again. Oh, and Southend Pier caught fire (again) last night. Wasn't me.
Encyclopedia
Warren Ellis (born 16 February 1968) is a British author of comics, novels, and television, well known for sociocultural commentary, both through his online presence and his writing, which covers extropian and transhumanist themes (most notably nanotechnology, cryonics, uploading, and human enhancement). He is a resident of Southend-on-Sea, England.
Early Life
Ellis was born in Essex in February 1968, about seventeen months before Neil Armstrong landed on the Moon on 20 July 1969; he reports that the televised broadcast of the event is his earliest coherent memory.
He was a student at , commonly known as SEEVIC. He contributed comic work to the college magazine, Spike, along with , who also later followed a career in writing. Prior to his career as a writer he had "done most of the shitty jobs you can imagine; ran a bookstore, ran a pub, worked in bankruptcy, worked in a record shop, lifted compost bags for a living".
Career
Ellis' writing career started in the British independent magazine Deadline with a six 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: Prince of Lies 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 (though the changes lasted only as long as Ellis' run on the 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 spin-off 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 . Transmetropolitan ran for 60 issues (plus a few specials), ending in 2002, and the entire run was later collected in a series of trade paperbacks. 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 2009 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 spin-off books Generation X, X-Man, and X-Force, but it was not successful, and Ellis stayed away from mainstream superhero comics for a time.
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.
In 2006 Ellis worked on Jack Cross (for DC), which was not well received and subsequently cancelled. For Marvel, he worked on Nextwave, a 12-issue limited series. He also worked on the Ultimate Galactus trilogy. Ellis also took over the Thunderbolts monthly title, which deals with the aftermath of the Marvel Civil War crossover.
In honor of the 20th anniversary of Marvel's New Universe in 2006, Ellis and illustrator Salvador Larroca created a new series that re-imagines the New Universe, under the title newuniversal. The first issue was released on 6 December 2006.
Ellis continues to work on several projects for different publishers, including Fell (for Image), Desolation Jones (for DC/Wildstorm) and Blackgas (for Avatar Comics). Ellis also wrote an episode of Justice League Unlimited entitled "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 Bad Signal mailing list, , and . He is popularly known as "Stalin," "The Love Swami," or "Internet Jesus" on these forums.
Ellis' first prose novel, Crooked Little Vein, was published in the summer of 2007 by William Morrow (an imprint of HarperCollins), with a second novel, Listener, to follow. He is also developing a television series for AMC called Dead Channel, for which he will be the sole writer.
It has recently been announced that he is writing an animated direct to DVD feature film, Castlevania: Dracula's Curse, which will be based on the similarly titled video game Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse.
Ellis has described himself as "a notorious pain in the arse for getting involved in book design". According to a comment made in the first issue of Fell, he has more trade paperbacks in print than anyone else in the American comic industry.
Ellis wrote a column for the Suicide Girls website that appeared every Sunday from July to December of 2007, entitled "The Sunday Hangover."
Ellis is also writing a Second Life column for Reuters titled Second Life Sketches
In Second Life he is known under the name Integral Danton.
On 29 July 2007 Ellis announced two new projects for Avatar Press; FreakAngels, a free long-form webcomic illustrated by Paul Duffield, and Ignition City, an ongoing monthly series. He also has two other current series with Avatar: Anna Mercury and No Hero.
On 12 June 2008, it was announced on the front page of The Hollywood Reporter that Summit Entertainment had optioned Red, his 2003 thriller with artist Cully Hamner, as a feature film.It will be scripted by Eric and Jon Hoeber, who have most recently written the script for Whiteout, and produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Mark Vahradian
The first quarter of 2009 will see the release of G.I. Joe: Resolute, a series of web-episodes written by Warren Ellis. (Some early reports named the series GI Joe: Absolute, but Ellis himself corrected this in his message boards.)
Bibliography
- Hellstorm: Prince of Lies #12-21 (with artists Leonardo Manco (#12-13, 15-16 & 18-21), Peter Gross (#14) & Derek Yaniger (#17), 1994)
- Excalibur #83-103 (with several artists, including Casey Jones and Carlos Pacheco, 1994-1996)
- Ghost Rider Annual (1994)
- Ghost Rider #55 (1995)
- Starjammers (with artist Carlos Pacheco, 4-issue mini-series, 1995)
- Druid (with artist Leonardo Manco, 4-issue mini-series, 1995)
- Ruins (2-issue prestige mini-series, 1995)
- Dr. Strange, Sorcerer Supreme #80 (plot & script), #81 (plot only, script by Todd Dezago), & #82 (plot only, script by Evan Skolnick) (1995).
- "Metalscream" in 2099 Unlimited #4, 7 (unfinished) (1994, 1995)
- "Steel Dawn" in 2099 Unlimited #9 (1995)
- Doom 2099 #25-39 (1995-96).
- 2099 A.D. Apocalypse (Dec 1995)
- 2099 A.D. Genesis (Jan 1996)
- What If (comics) (volume 2) #77 (dialogue, plot by Benny R. Powell, with artist Hector Gomez, 1995)
- Thor #491-494: "World engine" (with artist Mike Deodato Jr., 1995-1996)
- Carnage: Mindbomb (with artist Kyle Hotz, one-shot, 1996)
- Storm (with artist Terry Dodson, 4-issue mini-series, 1996)
- Pryde and Wisdom (with artist Terry Dodson, 3-issue mini-series, 1996)
- Wolverine #119-122: "Not Dead Yet" (with artist Leinil Francis Yu, 1997-1998)
- X-Force #102-110 (with co-author Ian Edginton and art by Whilce Portacio and Lan Medina, Marvel, 2000-2001, Counter-X Volume 1 collects #102-109, 192 pages, July 2008, ISBN 0-7851-3304-6)
- Ultimate Fantastic Four #7-18 (2004-2005)
- Ultimate Galactus Trilogy:
- Iron Man (volume 4) #1-6: "Extremis" (with artist Adi Granov, 2005-2006)
- Nextwave (with artist Stuart Immonen, 2006-2007)
- newuniversal (with artist Salvador Larroca and colorist Jason Keith, 2006-2007)
- newuniversal:shockfront (with artist Steve Kurth, 2008-)
- Thunderbolts #110-121 (with artist Mike Deodato Jr., 2007-2008)
- Ultimate Human (with artist Cary Nord, 4-issue mini-series, 2008)
- Astonishing X-Men #25- (with artist Simone Bianchi, 2008-)
- X-MAN 63-71
- Switchblade Honey (2003). A 72-page sci-fi graphic novel with artist Brandon McKinney.
- Come in Alone (non-comics). Collection of the on-line weekly column that Ellis published in 1999-2000 in the website Comic Book Resources.
- Available Light (non-comics). Collection of short writings and digital photography by Ellis.
- Strange Kiss (a series of four 3-issue and two 6-issue miniseries with artist Mike Wolfer, all featuring the same lead character, William Gravel):
- Strange Kiss #1-3 (1999)
- Stranger Kisses #1-3 (2001)
- Strange Killings #1-3 (2002)
- Strange Killings: Body Orchard #1-6 (2002-2003)
- Strange Killings: Strong Medicine #1-3 (2003)
- Strange Killings: Necromancer #1-6 (2004)
- Gravel (co-written with Mike Wolfer and art by Raulo Caceres, 2008-)
- Dark Blue (with artist Jacen Burrows, 2000) Originally published in 6 chapters in the Threshold anthology, later collected in TPB.
- Bad World (with Jacen Burrows, 3-issue miniseries , 2001)
- Atmospherics (2002)
- Bad Signal: From the Desk of Warren Ellis, a collection of essays from Ellis' mailing list of the same name
- Scars (with Jacen Burrows, 6-issue miniseries, 2003)
- Wolfskin (with artist Juan Jose Ryp, 2006-) Sword & fantasy mini-series
- Blackgas (2006)
- Black Gas 2 (2006-2007)
- Black Summer (with Juan Jose Ryp, #0 plus 7 issue series, 2007-) Masked hero series
- Doktor Sleepless (with Ivan Rodriguez, 2007–)
- FreakAngels (with Paul Duffield, webcomic, 2008)
- Anna Mercury (with Facundo Percio, 2008-)
- No Hero (with Juan Jose Ryp, 8-issue limited series, July 2008)
- Frankenstein's Womb (with Marek Oleksicki, graphic novel, January 2009)
- Ignition City (with Gianluca Pagliarani, 2009, forthcoming
Others
Appearances in others' work
He makes a lengthy cameo appearance in Powers volume 1 issue #7, in which much of his dialogue consists of actual quotations from Ellis' writings.
Awards
- 2007:
- Eagle Awards:
- Favourite Comics Writer
- Favourite New Comicbook (for Nextwave)
- Favourite Comics Story published during 2006 (for Nextwave)
- Favourite Comics Villain (for Dirk Anger)
- Roll of Honour
External links
Official
- Posts from www.warrenellis.com are automatically crossposted to the Livejournal. The journal archives also contain some original fiction by Ellis.
-
Unofficial
- , Ellis' rant and "thinking out loud" mailing list
- , Ellis column at ArtBomb
-
Forums
- , the forum attached to his webcomic Freakangels. Used for other purposes as well, such as future-tracking and general chatting.
- , Hosted by Ellis on March 18, 2005
Interviews
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