The Warren Report: 1-14-05

Today I slept until four in the afternoon. Cold or no, that's just ridiculous. I mean, it even surprised me when I woke up and saw the clock. And I haven't even read all of this week's comics yet.

Point is, I think it's going around, since Warren's been unusually quiet this week. Only three missives from the Bad Signal, only two of which with any kind of substance. Fortunately, the last two Apparat books came out, giving us some other Warren related matieral to talk about.

The Bad Signal was about how Warren hates Mondays, which made me decide to read the next few installments of Garfield in my Warren Ellis voice to see if they were any better. They weren't. He was apparently interviewed by "an Australian woman who claimed, in the interview, thatI was on her 'famous people I'd like to fuck' list."

And people ask me why I want to write comics. Heck, I'd be happy to be on an Australian woman's "Regular People I'd Like To Fuck" list!

As for the Apparat books, they went pretty much as predicted: Two good ones (Simon Spector and Frank Ironwine), one okay (Quit City), and one pretty rough (Angel Stomp Future). Not bad for an imaginary fifth week event that came out two months apart. The stories function as well done gimmick books; there's a trick to each one, but they're generally well crafted, and in the case of Spector and Ironwine, a lot of fun.

Simon Spector featured art by Jacen Burrows, who you may remember I recently bashed in my Worst Comics of 2004 list. Now, while he's not exactly the Superstar Artist that Avatar wants him to be, Burrows does have some talent, and his art fits Simon Spector well. I was actually thinking of another Avatar mainstay, Juan Jose Ryp, whose art I can't stand (and who, coincidentally, does pencils on Angel Stomp Future). Ryp's art style is, to my eyes anyway, horrid. He tries to do ultra-detailed work like Geoff Darrow, but his panels end up looking cluttered and hard to read. It's a shame, because I've seen his raw pencils, and they're almost good. He adds in all the clutter in inking. If he'd tighten up his art and draw more cleanly, he'd only have to worry about the terrible way he draws vaginas.

And in case that's not enough Warren for you, in addition to working for Avatar, DC, and Marvel, he's also haunting Scott's dreams!

"I was back in high school, with high school age versions of everyone I know, and I had a class taught by Warren Ellis--He was the math teacher. And he had a rule that you couldn't ask questions in class that took more than one sentence to say, and if you had a longer question, you had to write it to him as a letter and put it in his mailbox. "

That's Warren for you. Always redefining the industry.