Ellis has got another good title on his hands. Damn if that chain-smoking, cane-swinging bastard doesn't have a knack for caustic characters with memorable one-liners. If comic books were movies, Warren Ellis would have a few lines, right up there with anything from “Fuck me gently with a chainsaw” to “One time in band camp…”. “If you're gonna shoot porno, don't clog the drains” appears in the second panel. For a change the supporting characters are more caustic (because an adjective for that escapes me right now) than the hero (anti-hero…no, scratch that, actually maybe not, it's one of those things people write but never actually say, like “gal-pal”). Ben Templesmith makes with the bleak yet rich panels, and is apparently happy there's no vampires.
Warren Ellis is reaching out to the poeple with this one. These single issues contain an entire story each for $1.99. So I can get the baby formula, and afford a comic book this week, instead of just buying the book and shoving a binky in the kid's mouth. (That's not even funny, is it? I'm such a dad.)
Plus if you like the prose, there's some more of it sans pictures to extend the reading life, and it kind of acts as the DVD bonus material concept applied to a comic book. Ellis still hasn't added me to his myspace, but why should I care, since I still don't know why I have a myspace account, I'm finding plenty of music elsewhere on the net these days.