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Not Drowning But Waving

Not Drowning But Waving

Orbital Operations for 16 July 2023

Warren Ellis
July 16, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes

Hello from out here on the Thames Delta.

All good here. Just buried in some difficult jobs while the other half of my brain is scheming new plans. I had one of those weird late-night “insights” about a plan for comics material that in a week or so will turn out not to be an “insight” but a “stupid” or a “what the hell is wrong with you” or “your insight was actually just some drinks.” But right now it seems very present and vivid and I want to follow it. Which means that I don’t have a lot of time for anything but working and thinking. Not drowning here, just waving. Here are some things.

FISHFLIES by Jeff Lemire begins its serialisation from Image Comics. All you really need to know is that it’s Jeff Lemire writing and drawing, which always has a completely different affect from Lemire writing for another artist, and is always a dreamlike, elevated experience. Big chapters - 64-page books. For me, there are only a handful of people doing big-canvas, novelistic, form-pushing work right now, and Lemire is always in that number

DEAN HASPIEL, doing a Kickstarter for his new book BILLY DOGMA AND JANE LEGIT.

SIRENS OF THE CITY, Joanne Starer and Khary Randolph. Boom! Studios. Urban fantasy in 1980s New York.

Snappy dialogue, hits the 80s New York touchstones with fun, plays with its spooky/mutanty 80s premises amusingly, but check out the art - the limited colour work is really worth your attention.

I can’t make it into a cinema, but I do really want to watch OPPENHEIMER. I tend to blow hot and cold on Christopher Nolan films. INTERSTELLAR had its visual moments but didn’t really hold together for me — also, I wonder if anyone’s calculated how much going to another planet through a black hole has added to the rolling budget of Money Spent On Rescuing Matt Damon From Stuff. TENET, however, I contend is Nolan’s best film - among other things, because it is the purest expression of his interests and intents.

(Edit: the total Matt Damon Rescue budget is estimated at $900 billion.)

There’s now a five-minute-long trailer for OPPENHEIMER on YouTube.

Discovered this guy’s work last week. Dylan Teague. Not much of an online presence - google suggests his IG. Spoke to him a bit in the week and got to see some more of his comics pages — do a search and seek out his work. Really beautiful stuff.

My name is Warren Ellis, and I’m a writer from England. These newsletters are about the work I do and the creative life I try to lead. I send them every Sunday to subscribers. Feel free to send your friends to orbitaloperations.beehiiv.com , where they can read the most recent letters and subscribe for their own.

I’m represented by Angela Cheng Caplan at the Cheng Caplan Company and David Hale Smith at Inkwell Management. Please add [email protected] to your email system’s address book or contacts.

all still on Amazon

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