I have a cave under my house

March 10, 2011 1:20 PM

Warren Ellis impersonates Alan Moore (SLYT audio only)
posted by fearfulsymmetry (61 comments total)

If ...Alan Moore... ...were in a comic... you'd definitely want to letter him... in the same style as... SWAMP THING.
posted by Artw at 1:25 PM on March 10, 2011

Every time I see the Bad Seeds/Grinderman I'm struck by how much their Warren Ellis looks like Alan Moore, at least in beard length
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 1:26 PM on March 10, 2011

Warren should show some goddamn respect.
posted by dng at 1:30 PM on March 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

In Britain that's how we do respect.
posted by Artw at 1:31 PM on March 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

Warren should show some goddamn respect.

He's just feeling cocky because he's pretty sure that nobody will ever actually make Transmetropolitan into a movie.
posted by Stagger Lee at 1:32 PM on March 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

Taking the piss is a fine art
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:32 PM on March 10, 2011

Neil Gaiman's impersonation of Alan Moore.
posted by grabbingsand at 1:37 PM on March 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

Neil should show some goddamn respect.
posted by dng at 1:38 PM on March 10, 2011

Interesting! I'd never heard Ellis's voice before; I'd always imagined it would be much lower and gravelly-er.
posted by rifflesby at 1:38 PM on March 10, 2011

That was so hilarious and dead on. Made an idiot of myself snorting at my desk.

I wonder how much of the story of the farm is hyperbole.
posted by lumpenprole at 1:44 PM on March 10, 2011

I've got mates who have been over there. The place has it's own dope smoke based microclimate.
posted by Artw at 1:46 PM on March 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

I want a magic cave in my basement.
posted by Astro Zombie at 1:48 PM on March 10, 2011

Oh, I'm sorry. I meant:

I wanta magic caaaave in me base-ment.
posted by Astro Zombie at 1:49 PM on March 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

I want Alan Moore in a magic cave in my basement.
posted by lumpenprole at 1:51 PM on March 10, 2011

I want Grant Morrison in a magic cave in my head
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 1:54 PM on March 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Lovecraft In Brooklyn: “Every time I see the Bad Seeds/Grinderman I'm struck by how much their Warren Ellis looks like Alan Moore, at least in beard length”

You're thinking of the wrong Warren Ellis, methinks. (Wrong continent, even. Though the beard isn't that far off.)
posted by koeselitz at 1:58 PM on March 10, 2011

Wizard Wars!
posted by Artw at 1:58 PM on March 10, 2011

I want Grant Morrison in a magic cave in my head

Isn't that what reading The Filth is for?
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 1:59 PM on March 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Oh, wow. Spot on.
posted by KGMoney at 2:33 PM on March 10, 2011

His Northampton is like a parody of a Northampton accent. If he was a stage actor, I'd tell him to take it down a step.

Now I realize I should have written "Oi'd loik a caaave."
posted by Astro Zombie at 2:49 PM on March 10, 2011

An Evening With Warren Ellis

I love Alan, but I haven’t spoken to him in years because I haven’t got that much time in the day. Alan speaks very slowly, and when he’s got you on the phone you’re kind of a captive audience.

Alan did a convention once in the states and his signing queue followed him into the bathroom.

The first time I went to Iceland I spoke at the university there, had a fantastic time. And they said ‘Do you by any chance know Alan Moore? We’d love to have him as a followup visit to you.’

So I rang up Alan and said, ‘If you’d like, I got you an all-expenses paid trip to Iceland, it was brilliant.’

And he said, ‘I don’t really leave Northampton much. In fact, I don’t really leave the house. In fact, I don’t really leave the living room, and truth be told, I stay on this side of the living room. The other side of the living room is a strange and different place, and it scares me.’”

posted by homunculus at 2:52 PM on March 10, 2011 [23 favorites]

Excellent use of the "Glycon" tag.
posted by infinitywaltz at 2:59 PM on March 10, 2011

It's a real shame Mr. Moore seems to have no real interest in comics any more, it would have been interesting to see where he went next (note: I don't consider Neonomicon an Alan Moore comic and in fact suspect it is being written by somebody else - the guy who gave us such amazing stories as Halo Jones and Swamp Thing doing weird tentacle rape stuff just doesn't sit comfortably within my perception of the world).
posted by tumid dahlia at 3:12 PM on March 10, 2011

weird tentacle rape stuff

Nah, that fits right in with the man that wrote From Hell and Lost Girls, Hyde buggering Griffin in LOEG and even Swamp Thing had a weirdo sex scene I seem to remember.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:28 PM on March 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's really rapey though :(
posted by tumid dahlia at 3:29 PM on March 10, 2011

Well, Century: 1969 should be coming this summer, and the non-fictional (sort of) The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic should be coming in our lifetimes, we should be so lucky.

And I count Neonomicon as an Alan Moore comic (though I've only read the first 1 or 2, then decided to wait for them all before going on. Still waiting.)
posted by Zed at 3:30 PM on March 10, 2011

You're thinking of the wrong Warren Ellis, methinks.

Nope. I don't know what the comic book one looks like. Just thought it was funny that the musician one has a giant beard
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 3:32 PM on March 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Oh and speaking of Avatar, what the fuck is with this Crossed bullshit? Is that what comics are going to be from now on?
posted by tumid dahlia at 3:32 PM on March 10, 2011

I liked Crossed! Well.. not LIKED, but made for interesting and evocative reading. A little goes a long way though and I agree that turning the dial to 11, as it were, for all comics would be a bad idea.
posted by jess at 3:44 PM on March 10, 2011

Oh and speaking of Avatar, what the fuck is with this Crossed bullshit? Is that what comics are going to be from now on?

Sure, just like death metal is what music is going to be from now on and from this point forward all movies are going to be just like Saw. No. Absolutely not. No. I don't think these comics are anything like all that popular; I think they're popular for Avatar, the same way that a lot of basic cable series are popular for their networks but would be disasters for the big four. That said, I can't speak to any of the spinoff series, but the original Crossed GN is very good if you're a horror fan who doesn't mind it when things get graphic. I'd rate it miles ahead of The Walking Dead, personally (and I like The Walking Dead).
posted by kittens for breakfast at 3:48 PM on March 10, 2011

Look, I'll admit that a few of the ideas that were skirted over in the first trade (the bit with the protagonist and the wolves) were good, but they weren't developed, and now it's just all babies eating their mums and dicks flying through the air, and the second idea was done better by Rob Liefeld and the first part was done better by spiders.
posted by tumid dahlia at 3:48 PM on March 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

I was being hyperbolic with the question about all comics being like that. Also did anyone else get confused the first time they heard "hyperbole" pronounced the way it's pronounced, because they'd always thought of it like hyper-bowl, like a future baseball thing?
posted by tumid dahlia at 3:51 PM on March 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Nope. I don't know what the comic book one looks like. Just thought it was funny that the musician one has a giant beard

Actually the two Warren Ellii don't look entirely dissimilar.
posted by flashboy at 3:53 PM on March 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

I used to think they were the same person. I'm sure The Dirty Three could pull off some bowel disrupting harmonics if they wanted to
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 4:00 PM on March 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

In honor of this thread I finally ordered Promethea and Top Ten
posted by Ad hominem at 4:15 PM on March 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Ad hominem, you won't be disappointed. Save PROMETHEA for last...
posted by Ron Thanagar at 4:22 PM on March 10, 2011

I just started reading comics in the last year and have a lot to catch up on. My favorites so far have been Watchmen, From Hell and Planetary. Parts of Swamp Thing and The Sandman have been pretty great, and I enjoyed Astro City, The Authority and a couple others but I keep chasing that feeling I got reading those three series.
posted by Ad hominem at 4:38 PM on March 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Promethea and Grant Morrison's Invisibles are your best other bets. And Tim Powers' novels. And Kenneth Hite's Suppressed Tranmission collections.
posted by Zed at 5:16 PM on March 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

Forget about ever catching up, unless you work in a comic shop.

I really enjoyed most of the Mignola Hellboy series, especially the ones with Richard Corben. Two earlier Grant Morrison series - The Filth and Seven Soldiers, just because the whole setup is so strange. It sounds like you might be headed for some of the older Garth Ennis series - his Hellblazer stuff was fun, and I really enjoyed The Boys and Preacher.

I hated Crossed too. Vacuous drivel, but the guy at our comic shop said, "Well, gore is important - that sells books."

Sadly, my comics budget got slashed with the cutbacks...
posted by sneebler at 5:25 PM on March 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

I have to provide a cautionary note to Zed's Invisibles rec, although I, too, think you will like it a lot. The first arc is incredible and brilliant, and then the next one ("Arcadia") is...

...not quite congruent to anything you just saw in that awesome first arc, difficult to get into, and just a hard sell all around. Stick with it; the arc is somewhat important to later goings-on and the book improves past that "what is THIS" moment.

I would also recommend you at least try Jonathan Hickman's creator-owned work, like Transhuman, Pax Romana, and A Red Mass for Mars. You may find something to like there; Hickman is consistently inventive and the visual development of his books is like nothing else out there.
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 5:37 PM on March 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Grant Morrison's Invisibles

Thanks, just bought the first 4 issues for the iPad.

older Garth Ennis series - his Hellblazer stuff was fun, and I really enjoyed The Boys and Preacher.

Oddly, I just read the "fear and loathing" Hellblazer TPB today and have the next couple TPBs on the way, I liked The Boys and Preacher as well.

Transhuman, Pax Romana, and A Red Mass for Mars

I will make sure to check those out.

I have been reading pretty much anything I see mentioned anywhere at random so the recommendations are certainly appreciated.
posted by Ad hominem at 5:48 PM on March 10, 2011

I hated Crossed too. Vacuous drivel

Would you like a cloth for your monocle, sir?

I have to provide a cautionary note to Zed's Invisibles rec, although I, too, think you will like it a lot. The first arc is incredible and brilliant, and then the next one ("Arcadia") is...

...not quite congruent to anything you just saw in that awesome first arc, difficult to get into, and just a hard sell all around.

I kinda think this is backward, myself...the first arc is (now) kind of sullied and too-familiar-seeming after The Matrix (though there is also a key scene in Arcadia that the Wachowskis bit for their movie), and may seem a little meandering and obscure, not to mention depressing, and just plain...'90s. Whereas Arcadia is a crazy adventure that spans time and space and has shooting and punching and demons in it! I can't say whether that was a crowd-pleaser, but it certainly should have been.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 5:53 PM on March 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

This thread is getting expensive. Just ordered Transhuman, Pax Romana, and couple others not available for the IPad. And I still have a stack of The Walking Dead to read.
posted by Ad hominem at 6:04 PM on March 10, 2011

I can't say whether that was a crowd-pleaser, but it certainly should have been.

"Arcadia" was pretty much the plotline that nearly sank the book and led to the Wankathon Working-- issue 7's rape references were a bit much for a lot of people... *hits Comichron*... yeah, Invisibles 7 was #144 on the Top 300 for January 1995, and then it suddenly vanishes from the Diamond Top 300 entire the next month.

I realize those figures are for preorder and whatnot-- the cover date on issue 7 is March 1995-- but it certainly seems like that part of Arcadia did Morrison no sales favors, however faithful to the tenor of the main historical figure's proclivities it might have been. (I'm trying not to spoil for Ad Hominem's sake.)
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 6:08 PM on March 10, 2011

The great thing about The Invisibles is reading it with the Disinformation.com guide. I've been into weird artsy/occult crap for decades now, and that guidebook still helped me make way more sense of The Invisibles than I otherwise would have.
posted by infinitywaltz at 6:11 PM on March 10, 2011

I realize those figures are for preorder and whatnot-- the cover date on issue 7 is March 1995-- but it certainly seems like that part of Arcadia did Morrison no sales favors, however faithful to the tenor of the main historical figure's proclivities it might have been. (I'm trying not to spoil for Ad Hominem's sake.)

Ah, okay -- I actually figured it was the one-shots after Arcadia that imperiled the series (I dug them, but they did bring the overarching story to a halt for several months right at a point where things had been coming together). ...Come to think of it, though writing for the trade was largely uninvented at that point, the entirety of Vol. 1 probably reads a lot better without the occasionally epic waits between issues. For a book as manic as it usually was, the rate of plot progression tended toward the glacial.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:16 PM on March 10, 2011

For a book as manic as it usually was, the rate of plot progression tended toward the glacial.

...yeah, my two major pull items at that time?

Invisibles and, uh, Mage: the Hero Defined.

I had some long, sad months at Phantom of the Attic where I'd just buy pity comics so Wayne could pay his rent.
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 6:17 PM on March 10, 2011

I like the idea of having pull items at a comic shop. But then I look at the six-fifty cover price and I balk. Plus comics these days is shite. Books created in Photoshop, regardless of how good the writing might be, might look realistic, but they don't look like comics. There's no craft to them, no colour, no depth, no smudge, no life. And glossy paper? Fuck's up with that?
posted by tumid dahlia at 6:59 PM on March 10, 2011

Just finished Arcadia, pretty cool exploration of a pretty popular secret society theory, should have known what it was going to be about from the title alone but the postcard totally gave it away. I guess I'm going to have to read the rest of them now.
posted by Ad hominem at 9:11 PM on March 10, 2011

Neil Gaiman also wrote this fantastic comic about Alan Moore.
posted by wayland at 9:30 PM on March 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Ad hominem: I don't think I've seen Warren Ellis's Transmetropolitan mentioned here yet -- with the type of stuff you're enjoying (which I love most of too) this should be another one right up your alley.
posted by slappy_pinchbottom at 10:37 PM on March 10, 2011

If you like Planetary, there's a book about it coming out in a few months. (self promo note: I wrote an essay about the role of monsters in the series for the book)

More books about the work of great comic writers here.
posted by clockworkjoe at 10:56 PM on March 10, 2011

The great thing about The Invisibles is reading it with the Disinformation.com guide

Haven't read it yet, so this isn't an endorsement, but there's another, more recent, Invisibles companion.
posted by Zed at 7:18 AM on March 11, 2011

I'm up to about vol 4 of Transmetropolitan, I've got to remember to pick up the rest but there is always something else to buy.

They should do Planetary Guides, I imagine them as a mix of Elijah Snow's journal and the Weekly World News.
posted by Ad hominem at 8:05 AM on March 11, 2011

I'd have thought Fortean Times, but the stories about mothman/goatsucker/what have you end with "and then we found it and punched it to death".
posted by Artw at 8:08 AM on March 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

And/or froze it and kicked it in the balls.
posted by Ad hominem at 8:25 AM on March 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Ha ha.

Fuck you, Dracula!
posted by Artw at 8:49 AM on March 11, 2011

Warren Ellis impersonates Alan Moore

It's called "Warren Ellis's career."

I like Ellis for the most part, but how has nobody made that joke yet?

I would also recommend you at least try Jonathan Hickman's creator-owned work, like Transhuman, Pax Romana, and A Red Mass for Mars. You may find something to like there; Hickman is consistently inventive and the visual development of his books is like nothing else out there.

I wouldn't recommend it to someone who hasn't absorbed an unhealthy amount of preexisting continuity, but Hickman's SHIELD series at Marvel is actually pretty awesome -- it manages to be both crazy-coconuts and kind of fitting at the same time. Like, of course a period-appropriate Moon Knight, Apocalypse, and the guy who'd become the Living Mummy repelled a Brood invasion in pre-dynastic Egypt. Duh.
posted by Amanojaku at 9:59 AM on March 11, 2011

Alan Moore interviewed by Pádraig Ó Méalóid.
posted by Artw at 4:20 PM on March 17, 2011

The Year Of The Warren Ellis Sex Puppet
posted by homunculus at 12:24 PM on March 21, 2011

And I count Neonomicon as an Alan Moore comic (though I've only read the first 1 or 2, then decided to wait for them all before going on.

So now I've read them all, and I see why someone would prefer to think it wasn't Moore's. yuck. I feel dirty.
posted by Zed at 7:33 PM on April 7, 2011