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Captured Ghosts

// November 27th, 2011 // Comics, commentary, Movies, Nerdgasm, Scifi, Uncategorized, Writings

If you ask anyone who knows me who my favorite writer is— assuming they’ve ever listened to word I say— they’ll tell you J. Michael Straczynski.  And generally that’s the gospel truth.

Except in comics.

My favorite comic book writer, without parallel or exception is Warren Ellis.

While most of my generation are quick to mention Moore, Morrison and Gaiman in their Olympic pantheon, my short list begins and ends with the mad genius of Ellis.

Somewhere between Einstein and Asimov, he takes everything that makes comics work and turns them on their head.  His magnum opus, Planetary is not merely one of the greatest comics ever, but a Masters course in Fiction Meta Physics.  Over the last 3 months, his one-and-done Secret Avengers stories have blown away everything Marvel has done in the last 2 years.   His work on Nextwave with Stuart Immonen (Fear Itself) was more fun than any comic in recent memory.

How does time travel work when a solar system’s rotation isn’t static?  How do the properties of physics work in ill-formed Universes?  How do the Thing’s lungs inflate when his chest weighs a ton?  A short list of the many simple, brilliant questions no other writer ever seems to conceive, much less bother to answer.  Ellis does.

Director/ Producer Patrick Meaney (Grant Morrison: Talking With Gods) has a new documentary on the insane author, Warren Ellis: Captured Ghosts.

BSI Comics is proud to host a special screening of the documentary, Sunday December 11th.  BSI is the only venue to see this wonderful new film in the Greater New Orleans area, and probably for 100 miles in any direction.  Please join me and the rest of the BSI crew for this momentous occasion.  Details here.