From The Desk Of Warren Ellis Volume 1

by Warren Ellis

Peer into the twisted brain of the madman by seeing what arrived From the Desk of Warren Ellis! A collection of essays, columns, journals, lectures, travelogues and fragments written for an Internet audience by Warren Ellis, the creator and author of Transmetropolitan, Planetary, and Strange Kiss. From the Desk of Warren Ellis Vol 1 contains writing from 1995 to 1998 on a variety of subjects, including the eating of sheep faces, Sin City, the ugliness of comics, the parallel world where Stan Lee dies in a horrific plumbing accident, how to write for comics, and why Michael Moorcock scares the hell out of him. From the Desk of Warren cheaper than buying a computer. Jacen Burrows offers up this creepy cover on a new printing of this essential guide to the bizarre mind of one of the industries most popular writers.

Genres: Comics, Nonfiction, Graphic Novels, Graphic Novels Comics

80 pages, Paperback

First published May 9, 2000

About the author

Warren Ellis is the award-winning writer of graphic novels like TRANSMETROPOLITAN, FELL, MINISTRY OF SPACE and PLANETARY, and the author of the NYT-bestselling GUN MACHINE and the “underground classic” novel CROOKED LITTLE VEIN, as well as the digital short-story single DEAD PIG COLLECTOR. His newest book is the novella NORMAL, from FSG Originals, listed as one of Amazon’s Best 100 Books Of 2016.

The movie RED is based on his graphic novel of the same name, its sequel having been released in summer 2013. IRON MAN 3 is based on his Marvel Comics graphic novel IRON MAN: EXTREMIS. He is currently developing his graphic novel sequence with Jason Howard, TREES, for television, in concert with HardySonBaker and NBCU, and continues to work as a screenwriter and producer in film and television, represented by Angela Cheng Caplan and Cheng Caplan Company. He is the creator, writer and co-producer of the Netflix series CASTLEVANIA, recently renewed for its third season, and of the recently-announced Netflix series HEAVEN’S FOREST.

He’s written extensively for VICE, WIRED UK and Reuters on technological and cultural matters, and given keynote speeches and lectures at events like dConstruct, ThingsCon, Improving Reality, SxSW, How The Light Gets In, Haunted Machines and Cognitive Cities.

Warren Ellis has recently developed and curated the revival of the Wildstorm creative library for DC Entertainment with the series THE WILD STORM, and is currently working on the serialising of new graphic novel works TREES: THREE FATES and INJECTION at Image Comics, and the serialised graphic novel THE BATMAN’S GRAVE for DC Comics, while working as a Consulting Producer on another television series.

A documentary about his work, CAPTURED GHOSTS, was released in 2012.

Recognitions include the NUIG Literary and Debating Society’s President’s Medal for service to freedom of speech, the EAGLE AWARDS Roll Of Honour for lifetime achievement in the field of comics & graphic novels, the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire 2010, the Sidewise Award for Alternate History and the International Horror Guild Award for illustrated narrative. He is a Patron of Humanists UK. He holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Essex.

Warren Ellis lives outside London, on the south-east coast of England, in case he needs to make a quick getaway.

Reviews

[Ill D · Rating 2 out of 5]

Its weird to read about someone nostalgize over the 90’s just a mere year after they ended. Accordingly as such, in that weird paper-thin crust of time before 9/11 happened and basically ruined everything, the zeitgeist was still peachy keen in the afterglow the end of the century. Riding that wave of positivity, not matter how ultimately ephemeral, was in this tiniest of slivers in time that Warren Ellis money grubbing publishers happened to toss together a few thoughts and ramblings from his WebPage cataloging those thoughts in the early to mid 1990’s for one thing... cold hard cash.

Frankly, there’s a lot of unconnected stuff here but certain things are definitely on repeat. Foremost, Ellis has a massive chubby for all things Alan Moore and Frank Miller and won’t stop masturbating Watchmen and Sin City, respectively. When his metaphorical arms are getting tired from this dual rub-and-tug, Garth Ennis also gets some action as Ellis utilizes another unused hole for sycophantic ingratiation.

With this metaphorical threesome done, Ellis’ ensuingly very self-celebratory splooge lubricates up the rest of the work, which is compiled of far more fragmentarily incohesive sections than the earlier ones. From disheveled musings on the then horrifying idea that comics would ever be digitized (shared in a piece regarding Marvel’s initial (and failure riddled) forays on AOL) to random travelogue-laden recollections in Scandinavia (high praises here for the Nords, nothing but disdain for the Icelandic) everything here is as deep as the (at most) less than five page formats per article would allow.

Whatevers are whatever but the conclusion is the same: yet another shameless grab for cash.

[Timothy Benoit · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the man's prose, so it's fair to call me biased. This volume contains many scribbles from Ellis at the end of the twentieth century, when he seemed quite a bit more surly. It's always interesting to read the thoughts of your favorite writers and this is no exception. Chock full of missives about his experience in the comic industry, tinged with wonder and vitriol. If you like his comics and want more, this would service you well.

[David Macpherson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Collection of random writing. It was pretty good and then the last two pieces were so scattershot and poorly composed that I was soured by the whole book

[Krystl Louwagie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not actually a huge fan of Warren Ellis's work, but, that's also not that fair to say because I haven't read a ton of it. I just know I've read some and not been so engaged in them that I looked up more. I have, and read, this because I got it very cheap from someone who was selling a very large collection of comics and this one was in the mix. He must've been a big fan of Warren Ellis. This volume is just random musing of his basically, and for the most part, he kind of comes off as an arrogant prick in my opinion. I took offense to some of his very strong opinions, like that comic book covers now a days are ugly. They're not, lighten up, man. I don't know, he just seemed to think very highly of himself. Which doesn't mean he can't write great graphic novels, but, I don't feel like I gained anything by these little tidbits.

[Sam Quixote · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just so nobody buys this thinking it's a comic book - Amazon has mislabelled this a "graphic novel" - it is in fact simply the prose writings of Warren Ellis. Specifically it's ideas and storylines that never (yet) got made. Some are ok but mostly you see why they never got developed further. Not a comic book then, only for those wishing to read scores of prose writings. For those looking for the comic book magic of Ellis, try elsewhere.

[Alessandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought that this book was very interesting and had a lot of entertainment to me and my fellow friends. I hope you guys will enjoy it because it was amazing to me, and hopefully you too. Thank you!!! :0)

[Callum · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you read comic books at all you owe it to yourself to go out and grab this in order to better understand the genre and to help you on your own way to becoming a graphic novel scribe. Good luck!

[Lucas Swanger · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-written time capsule of the late-90's comics scene.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

the comics master speaks. an illuminating collection of internet journalism.