Broken Frontier

PERMISSION FOR PUBLICATION GRANTED

TO: Warren Ellis

FROM: Mark Steensland

DATE: 18 November 2005

RE: “Fell”

Dear Mr. Ellis,

I really wanted to like “Fell.” I’m a working professional and I’m still stunned by the cover price of comics these days, especially because I’m old enough to remember paying fifteen cents for a comic when I was a kid. So when I heard about what you were doing and why (the whole cheap, self-contained comic philosophy), I thought, “It’s about time.”

Then I read it.

Like a lot of stuff these days, it has its moments -- “I love Jesus” delivered *almost* as a non sequitur; the smoking nun in the Dick Nixon mask; the whole exchange with the disgruntled secretary whose husband left her for the dog; the “living fart” insult I am sure is already being quoted on freeways throughout major metropolitan areas. I’m sorry to say, however, that in spite of the current tide of popular taste, moments -- even witty Ellis-isms like those I listed -- do not make a whole.

In fact, I think the whole obsession with cutting our culture up into moments is a little scary. We don’t have pop songs anymore, we have ring tones. We don’t have news stories, we have news alerts. We don’t have stories, we have scenes. I had hoped “Fell” might do something to stem the tide of moment-based fiction. Oh, well. I guess you meant what you said about delivering a real slab of culture. These days, it just happens to come filleted.

I know, I know... this is starting to sound like one of those “long letters of criticism” you specifically said you didn’t want to get. On the other hand, you did ask for my thoughts about the characters, settings and themes -- and whatever else pops into my head -- so I’m going to give it to you.

Let me state for the record before I go any further that this is not intended as a kick to your cane. Far from it. Let me also ask you not to dismiss what I have to say about your new comic by writing me off as a “nobody.” The fact is, I *am* a nobody and I’ll be the first to admit it. I’m one of a bunch of nobodies who gave you money for your story. And while it’s true we paid less for it than a lot of other comics, I, for one, think I got less, too.

You see, I don’t like coincidences. Unless the story is *about* coincidences, which I don’t think “Fell” is. Yet, the story was full of them. Like when it just happens that Richard Fell has moved into a building where a guy died and the coroner’s office just happens to be carrying the body out. Or later in the story when he just happens to see that man’s daughter in the bar and then he just happens to be passing the alley while she just happens to be the victim of a crime. I know it’s the kind of stuff we see all the time in the movies and on TV and in our comics, but just because there’s a lot of it doesn’t make it right. If that were true, hunger and poverty would be at the top of the list.

All I mean to say is that, in a story, nothing can “just happen” because we, the readers, know that you, the writer, wrote it that way. Some people enjoy Penn and Teller showing where the wires and trapdoors are, I know. I, for one, don’t care for it much in my fiction and coincidences are one place the wires really show. Stories that grow organically hide the wires and make me believe -- if just for a moment -- that they are real, even if they happen to be about space travel or superheroes. Or even a police precinct called “The Moon” in a city called “Snowtown.”
In one of my columns long ago I told about meeting Eddie Campbell and asking him for advice. The first thing he said was, "Breaking in is the most creative thing you'll ever do." When I asked him how to do that, he simply said two words: "Be astonishing." I’ve come to realize that advice doesn’t apply just to breaking in, but must apply to everything we write or draw (or paint, or sculpt, or film).
I suppose I’ll give “Fell” another chance, but it will be more for sending a message to the publisher that I like the price and format than it will be for the story.

That is, unless you can find some way to astonish me.