Comic Book Elitists: Part Duh
Author: Stephen Gerding
January 7th, 2008
When I wrote my angry little piece about elitist comic book terminology (I accidentally forgot about “cat piss man” - please forgive me), I was writing in response to a post on boingboing which, despite being a blog I genuinely enjoy visiting on a daily basis, seems to be populated by folks firmly entrenched in the Cult of Ellis. At any rate, the post in question was regarding Warren Ellis’ new “Laws of Robotics” and managed to raise a few hackles amongst the boingboing readership beyond just myself, so I thought I’d run a link directly to the post and the ensuing comments. One of my favorites:
Actually, there’s the three counterlaws of Warren Ellis that need to be posted in all fairness:
1) When it comes to cat piss, Warren is an expert in the same way that Howard Hughes was with his own - he bottles the stuff and has a vast collection.
2) The primary reason these days “superheroes” are referred to as “underwear perverts” can be attributed to Warren having written them that way for most of his career. Ergo, the old adage of “he who smelt it, dealt it” applies to Warren having made the “underwear pervert” claim in the first place.
3) It’s difficult to understand you with your head up your ass, Warren, Try pulling it out and giving that third law another try :p
Please note that when Ellis is on, I genuinely enjoy his work, and I find the irony in the fact that most of his best writing is done when he’s dealing with superheroes to be pretty damned funny. I have nothing against the man on a personal or professional level, really, but his carefully nurtured cult of personality just gets under my skin and crawls around like virtual chiggers, popping up no matter what website I’m reading. I guess last week it just hit me in the absolute worst way.
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3 Responses to “Comic Book Elitists: Part Duh”
January 7th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
I too think Warren is a really good writer, especially with spandex. I’ve met him a handful of times, and he’s a complete and total douche who’s opinion of himself can only be expressed in graphic novel form, not in singles.
January 9th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Ha! I’ve been telling you this since 2001. Ellis is a good writer but his fans or at least a cult part of it makes it seem he’s the next slice bread for quite a while now.
Then again, I’ve been accused of being a Grant Morrison Kool Aid drinker.
January 9th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Well, the thing is Grant Morrison is a consistently brilliant, engaging, and innovative writer.
Ellis obviously has his moments (I agree with you guys — he’s best with superheroes), and he is a talented writer. But I think often times he just gets lazy, repeats himself, and becomes too caught up in trying to communicate this now very tired sense of Brit cool. Just tell the story, buddy. If you’re bored, move on.