It makes sense now

[trinityvixen]

I just finished Preacher--liked it less towards the end. Not to be punny or nothing, but it felt like it was slouching towards Gomorrah rather than running at the end, teeth bared and bloody, like it had been up until, oh, say the middle-to-late issues. I still liked it on the whole, mind you. I was amazed that, for a series about a guy with the ability to command anyone to do anything, very little of that sort of thing happened. Similarly, Cassidy is the least bloody-and-gutty vampire I ever met in fiction. I liked him immensely up until the story went soft around him. It was a nice change of pace from all the goddamned modern vampires. I love me some six feet of Eric Northman, mind you, but give it a bloody rest. (Ew, pun again.) I even liked Tulip, though she was a tad pathetic at times. Wish more could have been done with her, like what was done.

Anyway, I went to look up Garth Ennis to see what all else he's written. Apparently, some Hellblazer, which figures--his sense of humor and John Constantine's are nearly a perfect match. He also wrote the first six issues of The Darkness, as well as another corker of a miniseries, "Heart of Darkness," which !!!! I have the trades and I re-read 'em not infrequently. Say what you will about other Top Cow series--hell, say what you want about The Darkness--but they at least had style. And Garth Ennis literally wrote the best stories of that entire franchise, far as I'm concerned. Jackie worked best as the literal and figurative bastard he was before he was re-written to be more, I dunno, gritty or sympathetic. Ennis' Jackie was never a hero. He wasn't even saintly enough to be an antihero. He was an absolute asshole, with a streak of violence a mile wide with only his scant-few but bone-deep loyalties to redeem him as a character. He was also whip-smart and creative, which you should be, if you can help it, when you control a power that allows anything you dream to be. If they ever do get a Darkness movie off the ground, I'd love to see them go with Ennis' take on it.

But hot damn! He writes really well. I've got to check out more of his stuff!

Comments

[onefishonly.livejournal.com]

To clarify: Ellis has put out fun stuff, but even the fun stuff I've been disappointed by, because Preacher was significantly *better* - more fun, more satisfying, less annoying-in-certain-ways (sex-and-gore-for-the-sake-of-sex-and-gore is an Ellis staple now, it seems, whereas it felt part and parcel of the story in Preacher).

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

I will admit a tendency to get Ennis and Ellis mixed up.

That Ellis tendency towards sex-and-gore-because-he-can has really turned me off to a lot of his later stuff. Goddess was especially appalling. I don't object to either in the service of story, but it feels more and more like his writing is being guided by a 16-year-old boy playing "you can't top this". No, having the main character squish people's eyes out with his thumbs for being slightly annoying doesn't make him badass, it just makes him psychotic and not particularly interesting.

Ennis has some similar tendencies from time to time. But I've really been enjoying Freak Angels.

[onefishonly.livejournal.com]

Agghgh. I messed up my clarification. I ment to be talking about Ennis, not Ellis. Warren Ellis is the dude who did Freakangels (in addition to classics like Transmetropolitan and some runs on Planetary/The Authority, and a great one-shot trade called Orbiter), and a guy who seems slightly less all about sex and violence than Garth Ennis. Garth Ennis is the one whose Punisher (and Preacher, clearly) I liked, but who I now often find boringly over-the-top gory. Grant Morrison is another writer kinda talked about in the same paragraphs as those two, but I've never read the Invisibles, so I don't actually remember what of his I've read, other than the other excellent single volume trade WE3.

But yeah, I mix them all up occasionally.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

Grant Morrison, I've written off completely. After Seaguy, I've refused to read any of his independent books, and I only suffered through his Batman atrocity because I wanted to stay up to date on continuity. I don't know why I bothered, it didn't make any sense anyway.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Oh no, what did he do to Batman? And can't you just google it and skip over?

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

I should have, oh, I should have.

He did a lot of the Crisis/RIP Batman/Batman Inc nonsense.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

...aaaand you've got them backwards.

[onefishonly.livejournal.com]

yeeeeeaahh. To be fair, I'm hardly the first. And I'm tiiiiired.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

Dammit!

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Remind me what Ellis wrote again? Because now I have him thoroughly mixed up with Ennis. I don't blame you for this at all--I understand your confusion all too well. In fact, writing this, I stated to type out "Grant Morrison" in place of "Garth Ennis" because of the G-names, to say nothing of the closeness of "Ellis" to "Ennis." Sheesh.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

Look it up on Wikipedia. I've already messed it up enough as it is, I don't want to make it worse. :P

[xannoside.livejournal.com]

Absolute must-reads:

Transmetropolitan (amazing, if a tad, er, scatalogical)
Planetary (also amazing, tied somewhat, but not totally to WildStorm)
Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. (hysterical send-up of the Marvel universe)
Global Frequency (standalone comic; Fringe wishes it was this)

Highly recommended:
the Authority (invented them, was amazing while he wrote them, tied closely to WildStorm)
Hellblazer mini-series (pretty good, if a little out-of-character)

Generally Fun:
Desolation Jones
Mek
Ocean
FreakAngels

There's quite a lot more, but those are the standouts, IMHO.

Wrote the plot for the video game Dead Space. Wrote the comic that became the movie Red. Currently writing Astonish X-Men (and it's good)

[xannoside.livejournal.com]

In case you didn't notice, he's probably my favorite comic writer. :P

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Ugh, Transmet. I don't think I ever got past book one. It was so full of itself.

[xannoside.livejournal.com]

It really is, but I would recommend finishing book 2, at least. That's the point where the real plot starts and Spider's worldview starts to actually get challenged.