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]

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.