This book is a little like Waid and Kitson's Empire. It's with Image, which means that the artists only make money if the book makes money. As Ellis says, "If you're th eonly person who bought this comic, then I'll make neough off this project to buy a pack of chwing gum. If they take a couple of sticks out of the pack" (Fell, "Back Matter"). So, on that level, I have to respect both Ellis and Templesmith (the artist) for putting it all on the line.
Of course, we already know that the sales were quite good. A lot of stores ran out. When you have your own email-out that goes to 8,000 mailboxes around the world, you can be assured that your work will at least get a cursory look at the stores. Ellis, for all his deliberate offensiveness, is the most approachable of the "crazy British comic lunatics with scary hair" (of which there are a few). Gaiman is the golden boy of comics right now. Charming, handsome, impecably polite and well-spoken, not to mention mind-numbingly talented. Everybody likes Neil.
I suspect that if Ellis did more interviews he'd be less famous. "A face made for radio" as a friend of mine put it. I actually have no idea what the man looks like, but that's not the point. The point is that Ellis play to his strengths. He's actually interested in talking to fans and fellow artists, so he does. He uses the technology available. For god's sake, the man emails us the blow-by-blows of fights at his local bar using a blackberry. That's dedication. Plus, he can reportedly raise entire cities. With his cock. That's his report, of course, but still. You gotta respect that.
The book itself is quite good. I've been a little dissapointed with Ellis' recent minis. Ocean was fun and all, but by the end it didn't feel like it 'meant' something, and I can find 'meaning' in anything. I'm a pop culture scholar. Jack Cross made me nervous at first. I was afraid it would be yet another 'xtreme' espionage story, like 24, in which people who yammer about human rights are pussies and cowards, and shooting people in the leg is a legitimate interrogation technique, but I trust Ellis to make it about something more than that. It better be.
But I was talking about Fell, I think. I should get to that. The first hurdle is the art. It might put you off at first, but the scetchy, slightly 'off' style is perfect for a scetchy, slightly 'off' story about a scetchy, slightly 'off' detective living in a scetchy, slightly 'off' part of some unknown American city. Presumably American; I can usually read the accents that Ellis writes into his characters, deliberately or not. Moore and Gaiman do it, too. There's some interesting slips in The Killing Joke where suddenly Batman is using Britishisms (Britisms? Britms?).
Oh, right, shit. Fell. My circomlocution isn't because I didn't like the book. Not at all. Loved it. I think, though, that because I just read it, I haven't processed it yet. I have two readers in me, you see. The fanboy and the critic. So far, Fanboy likes what he sees, but Critic is still on the crapper, mulling it over (just to bring in a totally unrelated coloquialism that might not make any sense).
At first glance, this is the fairly standard 'cop goes to a dangerous neighbourhood and thinks he'll be fine but discovers that this neighbourhood might be too much for him.' I can't think of a single example, but I'm sure I've seen this before.
The difference, though, is that Ellis is aware that he's playing with these kinds of clichés, as any good writer should be (especially one in a cliché-ridden medium like comics). We're already getting hints about just why Det. Fell thinks he can handle anything, that there's more to it than "dedicated public servant." We won't see him righteously beating a suspect to find out where the little girl is buried alive so that he can save her little blond-haired, blue-eyed butt just in time, I suspect.
If the first issue is any indication, the people he saves will be almost as fucked up as the people he puts away. The victories will be small in scale but large in the lives of those he effects, and so will the defeats. I love iconic stories. I love when the scale is cosmic, historic, mythic, but the shy, unpresumptuous Canadian in me also really likes little stories about little people with little problems that are, because of their scale, never the less, the biggest things in their little lives.
There's nothing wrong with the little people. They're the vast majority of humanity, after all. Perhaps that's what Tolkien was on about when he invented Hobbits? I mean, other than trying to make the English look like just about the most lovable 'race' on the face of the Earth (despite the fact that the man grew up in South Africa!).
Anyway, buy Fell. Support artists who take chances, not just economically but creatively. If you like it, keep reading. If not, you're only out a buck-fifty.
Posted by orion at September 13, 2005 4:41 PM | TrackBack