BT09 – C is for Complex (#Blogathon)

I really do read a lot of things by Warren Ellis. By the way, Doktor Sleepless, below, is one of the potential prizes that my sponsors can win. How about giving up some love for the animals?

Crecy (Apparat)
w. Warren Ellis; a. Raulo Caceres 

Writing		New reader?
Art		Non-comics reader?

Ellis tells the tale behind the Battle of Crécy, part of the Hundred Years War in 1346. It was the death of perhaps a third of all French nobility, fighting a small marauding British army, and demonstrated that cavalry, honor, and armor were of little use against massed bowmen. Ellis goes didactically into all the gory details from the perspective of the British troops, everything from camp medical care to the treatment of prisoners to the weapons used. Crecy marked the end of warfare as focusing on mounted knights, and the birth of much of modern tactics of firepower and maneuver.

Remarkably educational and entertaining, I’d recommend this to anyone with an interest in medieval warfare. I’d love to see it used in a classroom (though I suspect the language and violence would have a teacher thrown out of school on his ear).

Doktor Sleepless, Vol. 1, “Engines of Desire” (Avatar) [collects #1-8]
w. Warren Ellis; a. Ivan Rodriguez 

Writing		New reader?
Art		Non-comics reader?

Another case of Ellis throwing a zillion concepts at the reader making it difficult to figure out what’s going on. In a somewhat dystopic near-future city of Heavenside, genius inventor and nihilist Doktor Sleepless has arrived, pursuing dark secrets of his past and an agenda that few in the city are likely to enjoy. We’ve got high tech, conspiracy, magic, and everything in-between. 

Unfortunately, the story takes about half the volume to really get going, and even then it fails to delight. This is mediocre Ellis (which is a cut above anything else out there for starters), and I won’t be following this series along any further. What it lacks in immediate narrative, though, it holds tight in atmosphere and concept. People who like, though, Ellis’ more trippy and anarchistic work will certainly enjoy this.

 Listening to: McCreary, Bear, “Two Funerals” (Battlestar Galactica: Season 1))