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PROFILE: Warren Ellis Interview Introduction
Not always. Do you write stuff, specifically for Spider to say that you specifically disagree with. I couldn't produce actual examples, but it's probably happened, yeah. Do you consider Spider an analogue for you? Hmm. No. It's always tempting to see him that way. It's sometimes tempting to use him that way... And I'm not saying I haven't... [Laugh] But no, he's not. Spider Jerusalem is the product of an entirely different selection of personality damage. Do you intend Spider Jerusalem to be taken seriously? I think the question is, does Spider Jerusalem intend himself to be taken seriously? Spider is constantly a victim of his own passion and anger. I hope he's taken seriously as a character, as a personality. As a force of commentary, he tends to sabotage himself. Do you worry about that? You make a lot of good commentary about politics, about life, about everything through Spider. Do you worry that the silly stuff or the rampant drug use undermines your larger points? I tend to think, and reaction tends to support it, and what it really does is it hot-wires peoples objections. Because you get people to laugh, through the madness and the rampant drug abuse and this and that, you get people to laugh and that gets you under their defenses so you can actually deliver the idea. So people laugh and then stop and thing... One hopes.
Hm. It's just that you see a totally different side of Spider, depending on who does the covers. Do you think that's worth exploring? Transmetropolitan, the 60-issue run, is meant to be illustrated by Darick. We've had other people in from time to time, because Darick has moved around a lot over the last couple of years. These are solutions that I've had to come up with to help the schedule. But other than that, the 60 issues should be illustrated by Darick. There are one or two other side projects we've talked about, one of which would be illustrated by another artist. But that would be for a very specific effect, it would not be meant to emulate or even approach what Darick does. Darick's primacy as the artist should be in no doubt. You did an issue where you explored different facets of Spider Jerusalem, which was illustrated by different artists, and it's obvious that Transmet is obviously selling pretty well, particularly in the trade paperback collections and whatnot. You could've done, a Magical Bastard Spidey miniseries, done by Lea Hernandez, or a Porno Spider mini by Bryan Hitch. You could've done any number of those sort of off-shoot miniseries that people would've found uproariously funny, and bought. Do you worry that maybe you haven't exploited Transmet to it's fullest potential? W- No, no because it really had nothing to do with telling Transmet the story. I did I HATE IT HERE because I think it showed a different side to the story. But I think doing a whole bunch of vaguely-related spin-offs would be wrong, because it's not telling the story I set out to tell. Those 60 issues are the whole work, and spin-offs would be really... crap. Are you satisfied with the level of attention DC's backlist program gives to Transmet? I ask because right now the collections are at least 18 months behind the monthly issues. [Sighing] Yeah, I know. The Transmet backlist stuff does very very well. Very well. But no I'm not really satisfied with the backlist situation. It's something I'm going to have to sit down and attend to over the next months. Because we are a good 18 months behind, and the design was a bit sloppy on the last one, and we're lucky if we get a house ad when the new collection comes out. Now I'm not saying we're selling like Sandman, but... Actually do you get the Diamond Sales Reports for trade paperbacks and graphic novels? No. I get them once a month, and in the top 25 you usually have 4 or 5 books. Usually a Stormwatch trade, Authority, Planetary, and the newest Transmet trade. It's really impressive. It does really well. I'm just saying that to DC, it's not something of the all-consuming importance of a Sandman trade, which have done just astonishingly well. Revitalized the whole trade paperback industry. Yeah.
The original plan was to do the first 12 issue run on Authority as three four-issue trades. You seemed shocked, on the Delphi forum when that first trade solicitation came in as a collection of issues 1-8. They had told me that it was going to be three trades collecting the first year. I say back and said "Great! Fine!". And then the next think I know, they're actually soliciting a book that's 1-8, without telling me first! And that is an indication of the way that business practices have changed at Wildstorm.
Personally, I've always thought that they collected the issues that way because they were worried about Millar taking the book on. And that with a trade that collected the end of your run and the start of Millar's, they could at least get some of Millar's work into a collection if the fans didn't respond to his stories. If they were worried about Millar taking the book on, they shouldn't have given him the fucking book. I told them to give him the book. Introduction |
Are the opinions of Spider Jerusalem based upon your own opinions?
You got a chance to work with a lot of different artists on I HATE IT HERE. But the rest of Transmet has been, except for the covers, Darick Robertson's sole vision. Do you think that you would want to do a Transmetropolitan project with another artist, to see how a different artist would interpret that world?
Do you worry that in situations like Authority, where in the same month that they solicit issue 21 or 22, they're also soliciting a collection of 9-16 that they're just missing the boat? I mean, Authority was a book that had international media presence, you couldn't really ask for more focus on a title, and the stories that these news agencies were referencing just weren't available.
