WAITING
FOR TOMMY: WARREN ELLIS REMIXED
By
Richard Johnston
JOERN
GROTE: If you could make "Marvel - The End" or a "DC -
The End", in the meaning of ending the complete universe,
stopping all series and so on, do you would like to do it.
Or rather, would you do a nice ending or a apocalyptic ending?
WARREN: What'd be the point of that? It wouldn't actually
end either "universe," after all.
I remember
someone asking Malcolm McDowell why he took the gig of portraying
the bad guy in that Original STAR TREK/STAR TREK Next Gen
movie. He said, "Because I get to be the man who killed Captain
Kirk."
And then
they changed the script and the ending on him, so that he
didn't.
You don't
get to win, doing that kind of thing.
BMSTRONG:
Will Rent Girl come in Hardcover?
WARREN: I wouldn't have thought so. I mean, this isn't
a comic from DC we're talking about here. It's being released
in whatever form it's being released in and that's it. Thanks
for pre-ordering it. Somewhere, cute tattooed girls are singing
your name with sticky fondness.
ANDY:
Always wanted to know who are you best friends in the comic
book industry?? Are you close friends with Grant Morrison,
Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, etc??
WARREN: I don't know Gaiman at all. Alan and I have
a marathon phone conversation two or three times a year, but
I wouldn't say we're close friends. My best friend in the
business is probably Garth Ennis.
CHRISTOPHER
WARE: Any plans to do any work for Humanoids?
WARREN: No plans. We were in heavy negotiations for
a long while, but we couldn't come to terms on the rights
deal. We may try again in a few months.
MAliChoudhury-cactusmaac:
I've just finished reading the Modern Masters book featuring
George Perez. He was discussing his 90's work and said a real,
positive, fun highlight of it -in the midst of being unenthused
by comics in general- was when he collaborated with you for
the ULTRAFORCE\AVENGERS crossover since he really got a kick
out of your take on the Avengers and even managed to meet
you in Blighty. Do you remember much about the experience?
WARREN:
Not a whole hell of a lot. I remember George asking me to
work plot/script on it, which I didn't usually do. This left
me with these huge photocopies of gorgeous, detailed, crystal-clear
pencilled pages from George, and having to write the dialogue
for them. This involves both actually writing the dialogue,
and taking a big marker pen and indicating on the pages where
the dialogue goes. Which wasn't a problem except... George
fills every goddamn millimetre of every panel with stuff.
Beautifully, sensitively drawn stuff. Every goddamn millimetre.
No matter
what I did, I was going to cover up lovely art.
It was
f**king heartbreaking. I cut the dialogue to the bone -- sometimes,
right through the bone and into the marrow. And I was still
covering up all this amazing stuff with word balloons. Oh,
it was 'orrible, it really was.
What
do I remember... I remember wanting to give George stuff to
draw that no-one else really had. It was a quite mental book,
by the end, with dozens of alternate versions of the main
characters running around. Thor as an English priest with
a cross-shaped hammer, flying around in his black dress and
collar, you know... I wanted to give him new stuff to think
about.
George
and his wife are lovely people.
AARON
MEHTA: Did you hand pick the artists on Global Frequency,
and are there any you would love to work with again? Any you
didn't feel like you meshed well with? Personally, I felt
that issue nine with Lee Bermejo was one of the best issues
of last year, and definitely my favorite from the series.
I'd kill to see you do something else with him. Thanks Warren
(and an unrelated question- Favorite Pixies song?)
WARREN: Hand-picked them. I dunno that I should talk
in public about the ones that didn't work out -- and there
were one or two.
Lee's
job was a highlight, yes. I thought Jon J Muth did an absolutely
astonishing job, and getting to write something for him to
draw -- hell, something that he'd choose to draw -- was a
career optimum point for me. That man's gift just knocks me
down. David Lloyd woke some people up. And I got the MARVELMAN
artist to draw my comic, you know? Beat that. I haven't received
my copy of GF 12 yet, so I don't know how Gene's done. And,
of course, Brian Wood produced the twelve best digital covers
of the last two years in comics next to, maybe, THE FILTH.
Favourite
Pixies song? Tough one. "Levitate Me," probably. Or "Gigantic."
Or...
MAliChoudhury-cactusmaac:
Ever hang out at the John Byrne Forum for laughs?
WARREN: Nah.
I imagine
it's pretty low on laughs.
NICO:
How helpful is a college/university degree for an aspiring
comic book writer? WARREN: No idea, mate. I left education
at 18. So did Morrison. So did Alan Moore. I think Gaiman
too. Garth left at 19, after fully three months of university.
So, um,
that there may be an answer to your question...
AARON
MEHTA: NINJAS or PIRATES?
WARREN: niiiinja
RICH:
Hide your eyes!
DAN
FISH1000: Do you remember doing a talk/Q&A in Harlow a
year or two back, for Essex Book Week? It was attended by
a handful of comic-savvy folk, a couple of giggling Manga
girls, and a throng of pensionable age people, who must have
attended every event, and were expecting something a little
different than mad Alan Moore/Kevin Eastman anecdotes. Was
that the most surreal public appearance you have made, if
not what was?
WARREN: The surreal one was when I turned up in Iceland
for a talk in the smallest public speaking room available,
and something like 250 people turned up...
...and
then people were recognising me on the street the next day.
RICH:
To be fair, that is the population of Reykjavik right there.
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