Written by Warren Ellis & Illustrated by Jacen Burrows
All three published by Avatar Press, $6.95 (US), available (to some extent) from www.amazon.com or www.amazon.co.uk and any suppliers of quality books.

I had intended to write full, if somewhat short, reviews for all three of the books here. Instead I hit a brick wall. These are not books that lend themselves to paragraphs of insight from a waffling bastard like myself. Perhaps if I'd taken English to a degree level, I could confidently mutter along about the structure, pacing and written style of these collected columns. But I didn't and therefore I can't. Instead I offer a rough overview of all three collections, which to be honest cost so little that this should be all someone would need. Because I am always right, obviously.

Warren Ellis is one of several unhinged Britishmen writing comics primarily (because English people sometimes need to be stabbed in the head before they realise what they're missing out on) for the American market. No I don't mean stories of impossibly perfect men & women prancing around in tights saving the world, Warren Ellis writes comics for the mature reader, the mid to late teens and above. Sex, violence, bad language, culture, scathing wit, politics, intelligent commentary, stories that shit over half the yearly Hollywood output - these are some of the elements of the kind of comics I refer to. These books are collections of his internet columns, collected in a comic-size and sprinkled with illustrations from Jacen Burrows (they're black & white or greyscale and their weirdness nicely compliments the text).

He writes blunt, often amusing, always honest, sometimes harsh and 99% of the time (because nobody is perfect) interesting e-mail columns. What began as "From The Desk Of" and later morphed (in early 2002) into "Bad Signal" (which he is still writing, currently releasing around three to five every seven days). The subject matter of his columns can be literally anything but he is a comics writer (despite being grounded firmly in the absurdity of life outside comics) so there is often a comics related angle to things, if they're not the main focus. So if you're not someone with at least a passing interest in the world of comics over the past few years then these books will likely not interest you. I cannot say for certain as I obviously am someone floating through the world of comics, but half the enjoyment comes from at least having a rough idea of what he's writing about. For the people who can safely read these then I fail to see how you can't find them at the very least interesting, and most intelligent people will see the truth in his commentary and hopefully laugh as often as I did.

The writing is very much Warren Ellis' style. If you've ever read anything of his outside of his comics (or even inside, if you're familiar with the columns of Spider Jerusalem in Transmetropolitan) then you'll know what I mean. He doesn't waffle around a subject (like I do) and he doesn't fill pages with overly artful writing. It's a sharp, punchy style that suits his ideas and subject matter. That the books are in a comic size did annoy me somewhat to begin with. They're not overly thick (but then they're not expensive either) and I couldn't understand why a smaller format hadn't been adopted (Tokyopop manga size for example). However, that's explained in "From The Desk Of: Volume 2" - to begin changing a medium you have to produce work that initially appears to be a normal piece for that medium. So he basically wants to expand the range and approach of comics by disguising work not usually expected in that format as something normal. Fair enough, I thought. I'm all for that so I'll ignore the size issue. The only other downside was the availability of a few of the columns collected in the first book on his website. However the idea is to reach people who wouldn't be looking at his work on the net before this. So again, I can't fault him there either.

To be honest there's not much else I can waffle on about here without sounding like more of a Warren Ellis fanboy than I already do. If you fit into sphere of the comics world (even if it is the edge) then this is well worth a look. Your enjoyment will probably depend on quite how familiar you are with comics but hopefully the minimum will still make the purchases worth while. I'm certainly glad I have them and I've been receiving Bad Signal for the past month as a result. If you can't be arsed to splash out cash on these then subscribe to Bad Signal and see if the man's outpourings are your cup of tea. Me, I'm off to check my e-mail for the latest and remember never to begin a review with "these are not books that lend themselves to paragraphs of insight from a waffling bastard like myself".

Written to Eels - Efil's God