FreakAngels
When I reviewed Daytripper here a few days ago, I suggested that it's probably impossible for me to write an article about comics without Warren Ellis getting mentioned somewhere along the line. And look, here he is again.
The first comic I ever reviewed on this site - hell, the first thing, period - was Transmetropolitan, written by Ellis and drawn by Darick Robertson. It came to be regarded as the writer's magnum opus, a five-year, 1300-page science fiction epic that used the central character of a space-age Hunter S. Thompson to explore ideas about present day politics, media and celebrity. Ellis claimed he was virtually broken by the end of it: since Transmet wrapped in 2002, he's almost exclusively written one-off stories, miniseries, and the occasional large project that splutters to a halt partway through. (In fairness, a spectacular systems failure a couple of years ago was responsible for part of that.)
The one attempt at long-form comics that Ellis has successfully pulled off since Transmetropolitan has been FreakAngels, drawn by Paul Duffield: it's currently midway through what will be its sixth and final volume. However, the manner of its publication is just as fascinating a story as the narrative within.
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