Doktor Sleepless

[Velorath]

It's no secret that there are a number of Warren Ellis fans here, nor is it unusual for me to post about Ellis' latest projects here (and there certainly hasn't been any shortage of his work these days).  While I could have just lumped this into the Nextwave topic, something about this project just seemed to call for a topic of its own.  Maybe it's the way he's referring to it as "The New Transmetropolitan" in that it's "another big political-sf graphic novel" (there's a fairly decent Newsarama interview regarding the book if you follow that link).

Maybe it's his general description of the book's concept:

You are never going into space.
You will never own a jet pack.
Your car will never fly.
HIV will not be cured in your lifetime.
Cancer will not be cured in your lifetime.
The common cold will not be cured in your lifetime.
Don't these things bother you?

Suicide is the third biggest killer of teenagers in the United States.
In 1999 more people in America died from suicide than from homicide.
Do you think about this?

As anyone who ever read MyDeathSpace.com for any period of time know, the leading cause of death in America is automobile accident. This is generally interpolated into a number placed under the heading "accidental death." When the operation of cars is the leading cause of loss of life I'm not entirely sure how it comes under the term "accidental death." It wasn't a fucking accident, it was done by someone with a car. It's 2007 and we don't know how to operate cars without killing people. It's not a fucking accident if it was caused by someone getting into a one-ton metal bullet that cannot be operated with complete control at all times.

In Europe in 2004, 13000 kids – persons under the age of fourteen -- died due to poor water. It’s 2007 and the society does not yet understand how to operate water.

Are you thinking about this now?

People keep asking me what DOKTOR SLEEPLESS is about. This is what it's about.

Someone stole your future. Don't you ever wonder who?

And maybe it helps that Avatar Press seems to have gotten a good unknown artist on the book named Ivan Rodriguez.




Whatever the reasons, I'll be picking this book up come July.

[Johny Cee]

Yah,  more heavy-handed allegory shoved down our throats by someone with a barely cogent grasp of history, economics, politics, etc!  Preferably set in a future custom designed to prove our author's views as correct!

[schild]

Motherfuck me. That's awesome.

I love this sort of shit.

Allegory from Ellis is just fine, even if I disagree.

[schild]

I'm going to be buying two copies of each issue. it seems appropriate to bag them for my eventual kid.

[Velorath]

I'm going to be buying two copies of each issue. it seems appropriate to bag them for my eventual kid.

You're in luck:

NRAMA: The publisher, Avatar Press, is always one for variant covers and. One of those will be an "antique" cover by Crecy artist Raul Caseres. Can you describe what we can expect with those?

WE: Well, I've had countless arguments with Avatar over the years about this, and it boils down to: people buy variants. A lot. And if people stopped buying them, Avatar would stop doing them, but right now they contribute significantly to Avatar's bottom line.

So, since there were going to be variants, I took charge of them. Three themes, then: the standard cover, the Antique cover, and the Fake Warning Sign cover. Doktor Sleepless harks back to the paleo-future where Scientists were Mad, and I wanted a cover skein that reflected that. So Raul was tasked with producing covers that looked like woodcuts, in the mode of Bernie Wrightson's Frankenstein illustrations, that recalled the late 19th century through to the days of Tesla and James Whale movies -- the days of The New Alchemy, when electricians were wizards and heroes.

[schild]

I saw that. Now I have to order 4 copies. One of each cover and one to read. This will be exciting. I haven't collected a comic book since the original run of XMen Unlimited.

[Velorath]

Ellis suggests filling out one of these for your local comic shop owner:

[Johny Cee]

Motherfuck me. That's awesome.

I love this sort of shit.

Allegory from Ellis is just fine, even if I disagree.

My first harsh reply aside.....  If the story is good enough,  I'll tend to look past the allegory.  In Ellis' case,  I was amused by his Authority books,  and Transmetropolitan was entertaining enough though I never finished the series.

The Authority books entertained me as much from the irony.  The liberal democracies are bumbling and corrupt,  but the heros leverage their power to dictate demands on the world as to what is right.  In a book where (both modern and classical definition) liberal values are mentioned,  you have the heros moving into being an enlightened autocracy.  Delicious.

You can make a book or comic dealing with serious issues without turning it into a rhetorical farce.  Gaiman?  The Top Ten books? Cook and religion?

As to the blurb....   It looks as if it was written by someone with no or limited understanding of statistics,  and who's attempting to play the game of word/idea definition games that I grew tired off after my first late night college b.s. session.  It's a bunch of strawmen flung together to make it's author look deep.

[schild]

The ending of Transmet was probably the most amazing thing ever.

Of course, I finished it a mere days before HST died.

So uh, yea.

[HaemishM]

The ending of Transmet was probably the most amazing thing ever.

QFT.

If you didn't read the end, you really should have.

[schild]

Ellis suggests filling out one of these for your local comic shop owner:

I did. 2 Regular, 1 Antique, and 1 Warning Sign will be mine each month. It's especially nice since Atomic Comics didn't know about it and I was the first preorder at any store so I get first dibs every month.

[schild]

The new previews has the codes to preorder Dr. Sleepless. One of the versions is $5.99 and comes with a signed poster. Also, the No Warning Cover is 1 in 15.

[Velorath]

That's one of the reasons why I don't tend to bother with variant covers.  If DCBS offers the 5.99 version though, I'll likely pick it up (their July pre-orders I think will be up in within a week).

[Margalis]

From what I've heard The Authority is generally considered to be better after Ellis left.

[Velorath]

From what I've heard The Authority is generally considered to be better after Ellis left.

I've never been much of a fan of The Authority under any of it's writers.

[Velorath]

Advanced orders for the month of August are up now at most retailers.  DCBService lists a Doktor Sleepless "Science Bastard" T-Shirt (not pictured), a Shot Glass (says limited to 500 units and only listed as a $2.70 item, not sure if that's accuarate but ordered one just in case), and the first issue of Ellis' other Avatar press series Black Summer (7 issue mini, and there's also supposed to be a #0 issue which I might have missed ordering).

[schild]

Hm. Are they in the new Previews? How do I order these things? I suck at comic books.

[Velorath]

Hm. Are they in the new Previews? How do I order these things? I suck at comic books.

Should be in the new Previews, yeah.  If you don't want to order from DCBS, I'd try calling up the shop that you ordered the comics from and see if they can put in an order for you.

[schild]

What is DCBS? Heh.

[Velorath]

DCBservice.com is the online comic shop I tend to order from due to being to lazy to travel to the closest comic shop (I'd have to go to either San Mateo or Mountain View for that).  If nothing else, it's handy for browsing the advanced orders before going down to your local comic shop.

[schild]

Did I mention yet that I got the domain sciencebastard.com?

[Velorath]

Now I just hope this book is actually good (of course even Ellis' worst stuff is better than 90% of the comics out there).  With Marvel and DC already laying down the foundations for their next world shattering crossovers (the buildup for Marvel's 2008 crossover is rumored to start in an upcoming issue of New Avengers, and I've heard mentions of DC's "Final Crisis" in 2008 which Countdown is supposed to be leading up to) there's been a pretty big drought of good stuff out lately.

[HaemishM]

There's been good stuff, just on the periphery. About the only really good Marvel stuff has been the X-Factor and X-Men books. The DC flagship team books, Justice League and Justice Society have been outstanding. Countdown has really been flat, though, and the Avengers books have been routinely awful.

Ellis' work has been a highlight. His NewUniversal kicks ass. I lok forward to Doktor Sleepless.

[Velorath]

There's been good stuff, just on the periphery. About the only really good Marvel stuff has been the X-Factor and X-Men books. The DC flagship team books, Justice League and Justice Society have been outstanding. Countdown has really been flat, though, and the Avengers books have been routinely awful.

Ellis' work has been a highlight. His NewUniversal kicks ass. I lok forward to Doktor Sleepless.

X-Factor has been good, Astonishing has suffered from delays so Marvel could put the artist on another project for a while, and Uncanny's recent story went on for about 6 months too long.  I love Justice Society, but while JLA is well written, I think the pace has been a little slow.  I haven't even read the last couple issues of Countdown.  But there's not a lot out there that's really new.  Certainly nothing worth talking about anyway.  I could talk about X-Factor or JSA every month, but chances are that if someone isn't interested enough to have checked it out by now, they probably never will be.  There's just not a lot of new and interesting things going on in comics right now.

[HaemishM]

The Uncanny Fall of the Shi'ar storyline did go on a bit long, especially to have ended how it did. Is Brubaker continuing to write it after this story? If not, I don't have a lot of hope for the X-Men titles. They are so damn disjointed as a team, with members coming and going every issue or two. I thought the whole "No more mutants" thing was supposed to cut down on the confusion.

[Velorath]

The Uncanny Fall of the Shi'ar storyline did go on a bit long, especially to have ended how it did. Is Brubaker continuing to write it after this story? If not, I don't have a lot of hope for the X-Men titles. They are so damn disjointed as a team, with members coming and going every issue or two. I thought the whole "No more mutants" thing was supposed to cut down on the confusion.

I'm pretty sure Brubaker is continuing to write Uncanny.  We'll see if the Endangered Species storyline set to run through a lot of the books adds any sort of direction to the line.  As for the "No more mutants" thing, we've already seen Iceman, Polaris, Quicksilver, and Xavier get back powers 

[schild]

Should we make a seperate thread to talk about Black Summer (which might be awesome, #0 was... not what I expected).

[Velorath]

Should we make a seperate thread to talk about Black Summer (which might be awesome, #0 was... not what I expected).

Either way.  I'm not opposed to talking about it in this topic given the month long gaps between issues of most comics.

[Llava]

Those of us in the Phoenix area:
Ellis will be doing a signing at an Atomic Comics here on July 30th.  He's promoting the indy books, so you have to have a copy of either Black Summer or Doktor Sleepless to get in, and he will sign one additional thing because they expect it to be crazy.

[Velorath]

Those of us in the Phoenix area:
Ellis will be doing a signing at an Atomic Comics here on July 30th.  He's promoting the indy books, so you have to have a copy of either Black Summer or Doktor Sleepless to get in, and he will sign one additional thing because they expect it to be crazy.

That also happens to be the day after Comic-con ends (which Ellis will also be attending).

[schild]

Those of us in the Phoenix area:
Ellis will be doing a signing at an Atomic Comics here on July 30th.  He's promoting the indy books, so you have to have a copy of either Black Summer or Doktor Sleepless to get in, and he will sign one additional thing because they expect it to be crazy.

Yep. I shall be going.

[Velorath]

Finally found some pictures:

[schild]

Yea, I've got 3 shotglasses and a shirt on order. They were in the latest previews.

[Llava]

Black Summer's first issue was quite good.  I recommend checking it out.

[Velorath]

Black Summer's first issue was quite good.  I recommend checking it out.

I assume you're talking about the #0 issue (as #1 comes out in August I believe).  It's got my interest so far, but at only 8 pages of story in this issue, I don't have much to say about it yet.  I'm guessing they'll have to recap a lot of this in issue #1 for people who missed this preview.