This was supposed to be about Crooked Little Vein - 1.17.08 Warning: contains some crude vocabulary.


Warren Ellis is like some guy who is simultaneously drunk and high and rabid, and, whilst lurching wildly down the street, identifies himself with unbelievably inventive obscenities and howling yet shockingly articulate tirades about everything and anything. He probably wears an expression that manages to fuse intense distillations of salaciousness, fury, and abject horror; and one gets the sense that if you get too close, he will vomit on you, bite your face off, or attempt to do both.

You see? This is my brain on Ellis, which I'm sure is far more dangerous and mind-warping than any mere controlled substance. The man is nuts. Tremendously sardonic, savagely bitter, and usually ferociously vulgar, he is an awful man. Yet he's the kind of person who, though quite possibly classified as an arsehole, carries it off so brilliantly, you sorta enjoy his sheer bastarddom. He may be shameless and outrageous, but he is extremely entertaining.

His writing bristles with a restless intelligence and an almost desperate wriggling between hollow-eyed despair and fearsome, feverish defiance. He speaks in venom and heartbreak, delight and depravity. Through his endless and elaborately bizarre visions, he seems to intimately understand the curious way fascination and revulsion are tightly intertwined, displaying a cracked kaleidoscope to attract and appall.

But he does tend to recycle himself. He has his pet rants, just like anyone, but he certainly does hammer away at his. Perhaps his vicious scorn for American misconceptions of Britishness might get a bit tired after a while. Possibly his verbal gyrations might seem too self-conscious or contrived. Maybe he spins stories excessively (or obsessively) about social decay and totally fucked-up shit. (Pardon my lanaguage, but there are really no other words.) It's like beating a dead horse - ok, so sometimes it's a donkey or a pony or even a zebra, and maybe you use a cane or a cricket bat or a lead pipe. But ultimately, you've still got a pulped equine corpse and a dripping stick in your hand.

Thing is, Ellis serves up such uncommonly fine dead horse, I'm usually willing to forgive. He has a distinctive style and certain favored themes - but then, so do a lot of excellent writers. I don't necessarily think this is creative laziness; often, people simply find things that interest them deeply and use many endeavors to explore these ideas. (However, I'm not saying that producing all-the-same stuff is always an acceptable thing either, but this is another matter altogether.) At any rate, Ellis doesn't reinvent the wheel every time, but he does consistently provide a great ride, breathless and breakneck for sure.

I know some people think he's overrated and/or arrogant, and he probably is. But I have to say that I really admire his dedication to grassroots movements, independent and struggling artists, and the fans at large. His degree of personal interaction with "the masses" is quite uncommon for a writer of his status, and as far as I can tell, he is remarkably honest and genuine about it. It's not a publicity stunt; rather, he uses his celebrity to bring attention to people and things that would otherwise likely go unnoticed. The 4am is a great example of this, as well as other projects like Rocket Pirates or the Whitechapel stuff. Ellis isn't necessarily the 800-lb gorilla, but he's still got a considerable amount of prestige - so it's nice that he puts his influence to good use. He often writes about people trying to make it in the midst of a vast, mad world; but here in real life, he actually tries to do something about it.

That's not the say he isn't a jerk, though. I bet he can totally be a big, nasty pain in the ass. But sometimes we need people who don't flinch from madness and pain and injustice and all that loathsome evil; and he's the sort who goes ahead and shoves it in your face so that you gag and laugh, and then you start thinking, and maybe you even do something about it. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean you do something virtuous or humanitarian - maybe you shrug and give up, or maybe you decide to join the dark side. Ellis can be both angel and demon on one's shoulder, though in many ways, he's far more likely to talk loudest as the latter.

But there's always this curious sense of duality in his writing, or perhaps an aspect of surface and depth that haunts all the stories. On one hand, there's stuff like Fell - taut and bleak, remarkably restrained yet seething within the coldness of noir, a study in soul-shuddering hopelessness; but still, there's an undercurrent of some stubborn warmth, a grim and unlovely but fiercely determined challenge to the hungry dark. Then there's the likes of Nextwave, a gleeful screaming joyride, all glorious madness and reckless mischief, exulting in its wanton rampage. But it also carries a cynicism that often goes beyond mere wryness, smoldering beneath the dazzle and never quite fading into comfort. One is never quite sure what Ellis's true outlook is, or if the layers of irony, contradiction, and mockery are just more smoke and mirrors.

Anyway, Crooked Little Vein... that's what I meant to talk about here. It's an interesting case, Ellis's first novel - pure words alone, no pictures except what his writhing words force into your head. It's a totally audacious thing, a mental hand grenade disguised as a trim, 280-page book. The characters are abhorrent, the language is filthy, and the deeds are fouler still. But everything is simply SO perverse and SO utterly beyond the pale that, despite my admitted Puritanical values, I found myself offended by... nothing. It's impossible to react normally when one realizes that the ostrich tantric sex cult mentioned in the beginning of the book is merely a mildly odd thing compared to the rest of the atrocities that follow. You can only accept that you've fallen into a bottomless pit of insanity, and go with it. You might feel kinda messed up afterwards, but it's worth it.

And that's Ellis. With eyes glazed or burning, he breathes out staggering fumes of smoke, alcohol, and blood, rattling off a blur of blasphemy and poetry in an unsteady but utterly unshakable deadpan, and you can't quite tell if he's snarling or leering or perhaps even smiling. But that's okay. Because it can only get better.

Unless it gets worse.