I'm A Junkie

I'm a total Warren Ellis junkie. I read his newsletter, go to his website, read the comics, basically anything that comes out of his head. But this month he has three new projects in Previews, and you should order them while you can. Ever the helpful shop keep, I bring you synopses of the three, a limited series, an original graphic novel, and Ellis' first novel.

The limited series, BLACK SUMMER, is a super-hero book. Kind of. More aptly a book about the ethics of super-heroes. If it's ethical for someone to put on a mask and fight crooks, what else is it ok for them to do? Fight a corrupt city hall and cops on the take? Fight corporations that pollute the environment or release dangerous products? Could you fight the federal govt. if you felt they had colluded in a criminal war? One man, John Horus is about to find out. Check out Ellis' super-hero revolution this June with BLACK SUMMER #0, a 16pg $.99 preview. For more, you can checkout blacksummer.net

Also on the way in June from Avatar is CRECY, a 48pg original graphic novel. Not a big GN, about the size of two comics, but at $6.99 at least it's priced reasonably. CRECY is the first OGN from the Apparat line, which you may remember from the one shots they did a couple years back. Ellis has been slow to get material out for this line, but considering the wealth of material he's put out for other companies, I forgive him. In 1346 the battle in Crecy, France was the beginning of the end of chivalry. The English, with newly developed tactics and weapons, handed the French a crushing defeat, and changed the way wars would be fought. Noble men were now just as likely to be killed from a peasants bow as an opposing nobleman in armor. This battle crippled the French army for nearly ten years and killed an estimate third of the French nobility. I'm not sure what Ellis is planning to do with the story, but for any Briton, this battle evokes the same national pride that Lexington, Concord, or Trenton does for Americans. Check apparat.co.uk for more.

Last up is CROOKED LITTLE VEIN. CLV is the first novel to be put out by Ellis, but surely not the last as he already has the next one planned to release next summer. I don't know a lot about this book, other then it's supposed to be a tour of the dark underbelly of America. Here's what they said in the Previews solicitation: A burned-out detective is enlisted by an army of presidential goons to retrieve the U.S. Constitution... the real one! Now I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure I know all about the dark underbelly of America. The casual cruelness, the unthinking stupidity, reality-tv, cults of celebrity, religious fanaticism, sensationalist media, and the political ideologues. Really all the stuff that Ellis already covered in Transmet. That doesn't mean I'm not gonna read it, in fact just the opposite. It's the only way I know I'm not alone against the bastards.

Dan