The All-Purpose Garth Ennis Thread

[Congo Jack]

It might be handy to have a place where any and all Garth Ennis material can be accumulated (for me anyway). Post interviews/news with/about Garth, and discuss or ask questions about his work.

[Congo Jack]

Bleeding Cool people are very excited about the new bi-weekly ongoing Crossed: Badlands series from Avatar, and that Garth Ennis and Jacen Burrows are returning to the book. So we talked to Garth about it all.

Q: CROSSED: BADLANDS will be published bi-weekly and ongoing. The launch date will be celebrated as “C-Day” in comic shops throughout the USA, Canada, and the UK. CROSSED fans are rabid, and they just can’t get enough. How do you feel as its creator, seeing the series take off like so?

Ennis: Warm glow and fingers crossed, about 50/50.

Q: There was a rumor going around that the concept of CROSSED began as a nightmare you actually had about your friends and family turning against you. Any truth to that rumor?

Ennis: The dream I had involved me staying at a friend’s place, which was surrounded by what appeared to be zombies. On closer examination, we realised they weren’t, they were just people… who were smiling at us with the most evil intent. It was one of those dreams where one minute you’re part of the action, the next you’re watching it from afar, like on a movie screen. I woke up before anything unpleasant happened.

Q: When you first sat down to write the BADLANDS story, what was the driving force? What story were you setting out to tell?

Ennis: Something small scale and quite melancholy, with bursts of intense action and some slightly unusual characters. The way I saw it, the world of CROSSED has been well established by now, so I wanted to focus on a little band of survivors and show what everyday life was like for people in the months and years after the outbreak — when the tricks and risks of survival become second nature, and people are starting to wonder what they’re surviving for. I also wanted to move the action away from the United States, to see how things might have turned out in a country with considerably less firearms.

Q: Where did Ian, the main character of your tale, originate? Was he based on anyone you know, or is he an everyman?

Ennis: He’s no one special, which is the point of the character. At one stage, he himself makes the point that he’s not particularly strong or smart or resourceful, but he has just enough wit to glom onto people who are, and make them listen to him.

Q: The outbreak that transformed the world’s population to psychopaths is never explained. What’s the appeal of its origin being open-ended?

Ennis: I’m almost always disappointed when I find out the reasons and origins behind various outbreaks and monsters. In the case of something like CROSSED, it’s going to be either the supernatural and/or act of God, or a lab experiment gone wrong, or aliens fucking around with us — none of which are going to be terribly satisfying. Let’s face it, in stories like this, nothing’s going to match the creeping anxieties and nasty possibilities you have kicking around in your own head. Nailing it down to one particular thing will always be anti-climactic.

I’ll give you an example: in FIREFLY, a show I enjoyed enormously, you had the Reavers set up as men who had gone out to the edge of space and seen something dreadful, and been changed by it for all time… and now they carried that evil with them to infect others. I thought that was brilliant, that idea of some indefinable darkness waiting to punish us when we go too far, see things we shouldn’t see. So long as they never feel the need to explain further or show what it might be, we can let our imaginations run riot. Then the movie came out and it turned out it was just a gas. Another example: PROMETHEUS, the prequel to ALIEN, is coming out this summer and there’s no way I’m not going to see it, but I can’t help but wonder — will the origin story we get come anywhere near the horrors that have been crawling around in our heads for the past thirty years?

Another reason to keep things nebulous is that once you get a reason or an origin, you can start working on a cure, begin “the fightback.” And as I’ve said before, that isn’t what CROSSED is about at all.

Q: CROSSED fans love Horsecock, the iconic villain from the first series. Do you feel that the landscape of CROSSED should be spotted with similar icons which stand apart from the herd, or is the true terror of the series in the endless waves of faceless madmen?

Ennis: A little of that goes a long way. Horsecock represented a kind of evolutionary leap for the Crossed that was fortunately negated before it went too far; any more guys like that, and human survival really would become utterly impossible. So for the time being, we’ll avoid these super-Crossed, and keep things vague as to exactly how smart the regular ones are. Their intelligence is simply overpowered by instinct, which prevents them from doing anything too ambitious.

Q: Jacen Burrows recently stated, “From the beginning, it has been important for us to handle the violence of the CROSSED world fearlessly… Horror has been abused and defanged by charlatans out for a quick buck, those who make one-dimensional, generic, formulaic product. We wanted to do real horror… explore the extreme limits of the human condition.” Would you agree? Should it be a responsibility of CROSSED to preserve the horror genre?

Ennis: How I tend to handle it is this: I’ll show how bad things can get once, then never go that far again. In the first CROSSED story, when that fucking idiot has his mishap with the bag of salt, you see people suffer the most painful and undignified death imaginable — a true negation of humanity. That tells you what everyone’s afraid of and why they’re so scared, and just how high the stakes are. After that, we never had to be that explicit again; we could show variations on a theme and explore some of the horrors that human beings themselves had to commit to stay alive, but we’d pretty much nailed our colours to the mast as far as the Crossed were concerned.

I mentioned “bursts” of action earlier — that’s how I think CROSSED stories should go, rather than being soaked in blood from beginning to end.

Q: The themes of survival and being hunted are prevalent in CROSSED and STITCHED. Would you consider yourself a survival enthusiast? For personal enjoyment, do you study survival handbooks and the like?

Ennis: Christ, no. I have a bottle of pretty good bourbon set aside, just in case society ever does finally go tits-up.

Q: Just for fun, how do you think you’d fare if the outbreak was real? How about Jacen Burrows or William Christensen?

Ennis: Oh, we’re all dead the first day!

Bleeding Cool > Garth Ennis – No More Horsecocks

[josh straightedge]

My favorite comics writer ever.

[lasraik]

The first Crossed arc is my favorite, I've read it too many times to count.

[Congo Jack]

Garth Ennis is writing a new The Shadow ongoing series for Dynamite for April this year, drawn by Holmes and Hornet artist Aaron Campbell, with covers by Alex Ross (above), Howard Chaykin, Jae Lee and John Cassaday.

Ennis is an appreciator of the series and the concept in its previous forms, tagging it as the only American character he’s wanted to write but is yet to.

Here’s the solicits… and the other covers.

"In the first issue of the ONGOING SERIES, it’s 1938 and The Shadow returns in a tale of blazing action and deadly intrigue, as a night of carnage on the New York waterfront plunges the mysterious vigilante into a conspiracy involving the fate of the world itself. As storm clouds gather across the globe, American Military Intelligence meets with a certain Lamont Cranston, determined to beat a host of spies and assassins to the greatest prize of all… but what that might be, only the Shadow knows. Be sure to get The Shadow #1 in April 2012!"

Bleeding Cool > Garth Ennis Writes The Shadow. All Other News Is Cancelled.

Follow the link for the covers.

[Congo Jack]

MTV Geek: What were your respective experiences with the character before starting The Shadow?

Garth Ennis: The best one I read was Howard Chaykin's mid-80’s story. Not much actual use given that it's an update and I'm doing a classic 30’s story, but still a great read.

Aaron Campbell: Being a child of the 90’s, I missed out on the DC runs and the old pulps and the Alec Baldwin movie certainly did a lot to curb any interest I might have otherwise developed for the short Dark Horse iteration. I do connect strongly the character, though.

Depending on how you define the term, The Shadow is arguably the first superhero ever. I mean the entire archetype for the super hero genre is there in The Shadow. The extraordinary and mysterious origin story, super human powers, super villain nemeses, alter-egos and secret identity, fighting for the greater good, living outside the excepted parameters of society. As with the Green Hornet, even though I had little contact with the characters before hand, I’ve found that I have this intrinsic draw to them. It’s almost like they’re in my blood and I haven’t really figured out yet why that is. Maybe it’s the historic period, or that sort of wonderful kitschy innocence of the pulps, or the idea that back then there was still so much that was unknown and uncertain. Whatever it is I love working with these types of characters.

Geek: So no love for the Russell Mulcahy movie?

Campbell: Nope.

Ennis: Not much.

Geek: The character is essentially the “Case Zero” in terms of a lot of elements that we now associate with the superhero or masked character or however you’d like to classify it. Besides both of your names top-lining the book, what do you think would make this immediately appealing to modern readers?

Ennis: I never really think about the appeal, or what audience would like any particular story. I tend to forget what I'm doing will ever be read while I'm writing it, and just get on with the task at hand.

Campbell: The Shadow is an awesome character in an awesome time. I mean what’s not to like? It’s New York City and other exotic locales in the 30’s, WWII is getting ready to start. You have the old-school mystique of Eastern mysticism wrapped up with a badass gunslinger. Plus The Shadow is one of those characters that everyone is aware of but very few know much about so there’s this chance for readers to explore something completely new.

Geek: Why do you think now is a good time to bring the character back?

Campbell: The time is always right for a great story and a great character. That’s eternal. And with as muddled and confused as the mainstream super hero genre has become in recent years I think something like this is a breath of fresh air—a fresh and un-biased start.

Ennis: Another one I don't think a lot about. I like the character, so any time is a good time.

Geek: Along the same lines, how do you think he’d function in the modern age?

Ennis: Probably in much the same way, only with greater reliance on technology—most notably the internet. Not really my department.

Campbell: I think that if he had existed in comics continually since the 30’s, like Superman and Batman, he would operate just fine because he would have evolved slowly over time. But he didn’t and I feel that to take him out of that time period would have no merit and would ultimately separate him from what makes him interesting and unique. There are plenty of characters to choose from in the here and now. I think The Shadow needs to remain a part that bygone era.

Geek: He was always sort of the scarier, “just-this-side-of-a-villain” character—did that at all factor into the appeal for either of you?

Ennis: Very much so. He has a strong sense of the dramatic, he likes to engineer quite grim and punishing ends for his foes. And when the moment comes he strikes hard, fast and with total ruthlessness. My kind of character.

Campbell: Absolutely. A character with no duality has very little value in my opinion. They might be nice, clean reading material for the kiddies, but there’s just nothing there to hold my interest.

Geek: Could you tell us a little about your version of the character? One consistent seems to be the ever-changing secret identity of the character.

Ennis: See last answer. I'm also focusing on the slightly mystical element to the character—there's a possibility that he can even cloud men's minds after they've died. And I decided that the very phrase "The Shadow knows" was of key importance—he knows a lot more about what's going on than he's saying, he sees himself as an agent of fate—putting the pieces in place, moving the players around the board, pushing evildoers towards their eventual doom.

Geek: Were there any particular elements from past runs on the character that you wanted to get into the book either in terms of look or feel?

Campbell: I have managed to gather a big stack of Shadow material going back to the late 70’s: Baker, Sienkiewicz, Kaluta, Chaykin, Gianni, etc. I’m not trying to mimic anyone’s style, though. It’s there more for an historic context, and of course to intimidate me by the sheer ponderous force of their combined absolute greatness. I want this to stand on its own merit and allow my vision of the character (and Garth’s) to shine through. I’m not trying to redefine The Shadow, but it’s also not a love letter.

Ennis: Nothing specific. He's such a great looking character to begin with, that side of things tends to look after itself. Likewise the era: it's hard to write a dull story set in 1930s New York and Shanghai.

Geek: Aaron, could you elaborate more on the look for the Shadow as a character and the book as a whole?

Campbell: Well, for the most part it’s going to be the Shadow that we are all familiar with. Black cape with the red lining, big floppy fedora, trench coat and red fluttering scarf, dual m1911 pistols.

Looking back through all the existing material you’ll find though that there’s never been one consistent way of depicting him. His costume has always had little differences here and there and the individual styles vary dramatically. For my part, I’ll be sticking to what I know and the style I’ve been developing, which is to say heavy on the shadows, a certain adherence to reality, and an almost fanatic devotion to place and time.

Geek: Could you tell us a little about the villain(s) of the piece? Who are you putting the Shadow up against?

Ennis: The villains are Major Taro Kondo of Japanese military intelligence, and a Chinese bandit king by the name of Buffalo Wong. There are also a number of suitably sinister Germans kicking about.

Geek: Finally, could you tell us a little about pulp titles that you’ve been into in the past? Anything that you wish other people might check out?

Campbell: If there’s one pulp that everyone should get a chance to see it’s Jim Steranko’s “Chandler” which appeared in Fiction Illustrated in 1976. It has been called the first graphic novel and it is amazing. I can only hope that one day it will get reprinted.

Ennis: None come to mind. It's really the Shadow and no one else.

MTV Geek > Interview: Garth Ennis and Aaron Campbell On Bringing 'The Shadow' To Dynamite

[Congo Jack]

Newsarama: Garth, you're clearly a fan of The Shadow, and the character has managed to endure for decades. From your perspective, what are the qualities of the character that have enabled him to stick around for 80 years?

Garth Ennis: Great look, with the hat, the coat, the scarf, the twin pistols. Nice sense of mystery, and of danger — you're never sure exactly how much he knows, or how far he'll go in pursuit of his aims. And stories set in the pulp era, with its enduring appeal.

Nrama: On the other side of that, how would you respond to a reader who may be unfamiliar with The Shadow, and see the character as a relic from a bygone era?

Ennis: Aren't they all? The vast majority of the most famous comic book characters — at least in terms of those owned by corporations — were created 50-70 years ago.

Nrama: As a fan, what material was your first introduction to the character?

Ennis: That would be the Howard Chaykin '80s update, which I think still holds up rather well. It's not set in the '30s, which is the period I think the character works best in, but Howard carries it off through sheer ability.

Nrama: The Shadow is a licensed character — how does the creative freedom on this series compare to a creator-owned project like The Boys? Is there a good amount of leeway there?

Ennis: It's been pretty good. Two or three minor points in the four issues I've written to date, and those more to do with character than any sense of extreme content.

Nrama: It looks like the series will be set firmly in the pulp era that originally birthed the character. What is it about this environment that you find personally appealing?

Ennis: On the surface it seems very romantic, with the veneer of New York high society covering the seedier end of things on the waterfront and so on, and the mystique of the Fabulous Orient in places like Shanghai and Hong Kong. Air travel was beginning to open up the world, at least for the adventurous types who could afford it. Yet at the same time, people in the know were gearing up for the massive confrontation that was coming: between Communism and Fascism, between the Democracies and the Dictatorships. Most continued in blissful ignorance, but some — especially in government — were starting to make their plans for the coming catastrophe.

Nrama: Do you see any similarities between this series and any of your past work?

Ennis: There's an obvious parallel with the Punisher, but Frank Castle is a much more straightforward character, a one-thing-at-a-time kind of guy. The Shadow sees things on a grander scale — he's an agent of Fate, putting the pieces in play, moving them around the board. Got a nice sense of the theatrical too, often engineering complex and tortuous ends for his foes. Really, rather than my own work, what I see in the Shadow — and the Punisher and Nick Fury too, come to that — is something harkening back to the British comics characters I grew up on. He is, when all's said and done, a gunfighter.

Nrama: Aaron Campbell, who has worked on plenty of projects for Dynamite in the past, is artist of the series . At this early stage, what can you say about what he's bringing to the series, visually?

Ennis: Tremendous sense of mood and place. Very strong on research, which is vital for a period piece. Good with characters. And — my #1 concern — an excellent storyteller.

Nrama: The Shadow has been announced as an ongoing series — how long term are you thinking in terms of plotting ahead on the book

Ennis: I'm doing the first six; after that we'll see how it goes.

Newsarama > Garth Ennis Knows What Evil Lurks in THE SHADOW

[Judge-Sergeant-Marron]

Can't wait for The Shadow, sounds like a match made in heaven to me! Hope he gets back to doing more Battlefield stories soon though.

[Congo Jack]

WHAT IS ERF?
ERF is the story of four friends at the dawn of time; Figwillop, KWAAAH!, the Booper, and Erf himself, and their adventures in the primordial world of long ago. The four take their first nervous steps out of the ocean and onto the shore, and are soon exploring the exciting new lands beyond. But danger lurks in the prehistoric jungle, and soon our heroes come face to face with the mighty and terrifying Colossux . . . An evolutionary tale of love and loyalty for children aged four and up.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Garth Ennis is a British comic book writer living and working in New York. Best known for the Vertigo series Preacher, his other credits include The Boys, Battlefields, Crossed and a successful run on Marvel Comics' The Punisher. He has won the Eisner award for Best Writer.
Rob Steen is the illustrator of the children’s book series Flanimals, written by Ricky Gervais. Other work includes The Things in Ted's Head and Elephantmen. Flanimals of the Deep won the Galaxy Award in the UK for Best Children’s Book.

ABOUT THIS PROJECT
This project will fund the print publication of the children's book ERF. The book will be a hardcover, 8" x 10", 48 pages in full color. We're looking at a printing of 1,500 to 2,000 if successful. Any extra raised would go to increasing the print run and promotion. The script is finished and about five pages of art are complete with the rest at varying stages of pencils. After some initial interest from publishers, we chose to self-publish and make this as a Kickstarter project to keep creative control and publish the story we really wanted to tell, and we think kids will love. As an established and successful writer for adults, this is Garth Ennis's first foray into the world of children's books. Fans of his comics may be surprised to find his strength for writing about friendships and loyalty translates into a perfectly age-appropriate and touching children's book.

Kickstarter > ERF by Garth Ennis & Rob Steen

[Congo Jack]

Columbia is no longer part of The Boys club.

The studio was developing the adaptation of the violent and edgy comic book from writer Garth Ennis and artist Darick Robertson but has put the project into turnaround.

The book follows the adventures of a CIA squad, known informally as "the boys," whose job is to keep watch on the proliferation of superheroes and, if necessary, intimidate or eliminate them. Writing duo Matt Manfredi and Phil Hay, as well as Seth Rogen, had worked on the screenplay since the project was first set up in 2009.

Producers Neal H. Moritz of Original Film and Kickstart's Jason Netter will now shop the project around town.

The Hollywood Reporter > Columbia Pictures Drops Comic Book Adaptation 'The Boys'

The Boys film adaptation is not dead. Some studios interested. This could be the coolest super hero franchise out there.

Twitter > @GhostPanther

[dupersuper]

I recently read the Pride & Joy trade. That is all.

[Congo Jack]

Hope he gets back to doing more Battlefield stories soon though.

Ennis is doing a war series for Avatar that he described as "following the model of Battlefields", but he did say it was going to be a while before that came out.

I recently read the Pride & Joy trade. That is all.

I thought that was a little lackluster for all the potential that it had. However, the elements are there where it could make a really excellent film thriller with a very decent main role for any actor in his 40s.

BC: I’ve been told that you’re a longtime fan of THE SHADOW. Looking back on the time when you first became a fan, what do you recall being the most appealing aspect of his story?

ENNIS: The first one I read was Chaykin’s. I loved the look of the character – the hat, the scarf, the coat, the guns. And he had no compunction whatsoever about mowing down scumbags by the dozen, which was something that put me in mind of the British comic characters I grew up with.

BC: The Shadow is a character with so much history, presented through a wide variety of media. What previous incarnations have you seen/heard, and do you think there is an iconic interpretation of the character?

ENNIS: Chaykin’s version, as I said above. Also, some of the Denny O’Neil 70’s stuff and a few others. Generally, I’m more interested in the potential I see in the character than his previous appearances, even those that are considered definitive.

BC: What are the themes that you aim to explore in your take on THE SHADOW?

ENNIS: Betrayal, deceit, fighting very dirty when you have to, and idealism versus practicality.

BC: THE SHADOW originally came to prominence during the 1930s, during the Great Depression and the early growth of imperialism / fascism / nationalism. What elements characteristic of that era will play a role in your storyline?

ENNIS: Very much the latter. It’s 1938 and stormclouds are gathering, with Nazi Fascism and Japanese Imperialism on the rise. How the democracies counter that will figure heavily in the conclusion of the story.

BC: Who are the supporting cast of THE SHADOW, and how do they complement the lead character?

ENNIS: Margo Lane is a brave and resourceful young woman who rapidly finds herself out of her depth. A certain Agent Finnegan of the US Government is bold, upstanding, decent, and honest, and was therefore out of his depth from the get-go. The villains are Major Taro Kondo of Japanese Military Intelligence and Chinese bandit warlord Buffalo Wong, both thoroughgoing bastards.

BC: The Shadow’s main advantage over his enemies is his terrifying inhuman persona – he’s a creature of fear and mystery. How are the villains in THE SHADOW able to appear monstrous in their own right when the hero’s own menace is so prevalent?

ENNIS: A large part of the story is set in Japanese-occupied China, where fifteen million of the locals were murdered from 1931-45. So in that context, the Japanese will have very little trouble looking monstrous.

BC: The Shadow often assumes fake identities over the course of his crime-fighting. What role do human personas – both his real identity and any fake identities – play in your series?

ENNIS: I found that Lamont Cranston was rather more interesting to write than The Shadow himself, who tends to show up, mess with people’s minds in rather unpleasant ways, and then kill everything in sight. Cranston’s more inclined to explain himself, to give you some insight into why his alter-ego does what he does.

BC: What are your thoughts on taking the creative reins on such an iconic character? How do you handle the weight of responsibility for preserving The Shadow’s legacy?

ENNIS: Oh, I don’t think about it. I just get on and tell the story.

BC: Looking back on your body of work, have you felt there were projects that were strongly influenced by the pulp fiction / crime noir or THE SHADOW specifically?

ENNIS: Not really, except in the general sense that his influence must lie at the heart of the gunfighter/crimefighter genre. Nothing more specific than that.

BC: With Batman such a part of American culture and our industry, a character whose roots owe so much to The Shadow, what needs to be done to make THE SHADOW distinct from its thematic progeny?

ENNIS: He doesn’t dress up like a bat, doesn’t balk at killing people who so clearly need it, and doesn’t hang around with a little boy in tights. There’s really no mistaking the two.

Bleeding Cool > The Shadow Interview: Garth Ennis Knows What Evil Lurks in the Hearts of Men

[Congo Jack]

Garth Ennis writes for Bleeding Cool.

Bleeding Cool > Garth Ennis Commentary On The Boys #66