McCoy's Ignition City #5 review

[MadBastard]

This may not be the best place for this, but I'll let Thom decide that. Paul Brian McCoy's review of Ignition City #5 was short, bitter, and to the point. So short, in fact, that I'm not sure, as editor, I would have posted it if it hadn't made me laugh out loud. In the rant-cum-review Paul states:

It's a market that doesn't seem to have room for a real science fiction story with original settings and a lovingly crass affection for the real pulp heroes of the past.

Which I think begs the question, what is real science fiction? If not Blackest Night then why not? If Ignition City is real science fiction, why is that?

[Thom Young]

Originally Posted by MadBastard

Which I think begs the question, what is real science fiction? If not Blackest Night then why not? If Ignition City is real science fiction, why is that?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDNrn...layer_embedded

[Paul Brian McCoy]

Originally Posted by Thom Young

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDNrn...layer_embedded

I love that clip, even if I disagree with Harlan about Aliens.

[Paul Brian McCoy]

Originally Posted by MadBastard

This may not be the best place for this, but I'll let Thom decide that. Paul Brian McCoy's review of Ignition City #5 was short, bitter, and to the point. So short, in fact, that I'm not sure, as editor, I would have posted it if it hadn't made me laugh out loud.

I'm not sure it should have been posted either, but that's another discussion.

Originally Posted by MadBastard

Which I think begs the question, what is real science fiction? If not Blackest Night then why not? If Ignition City is real science fiction, why is that?

Personally, I just think that Blackest Night is more typical Johns murder-porn. I tried to get through it, but I'm done with him. I understand that people who's opinions I respect and whom I have no problems with love this stuff, but I think it fetishizes mass murder without really dealing with repercussions and motivations.

It's one thing to examine war and death with battle scenes and big conflicts. It's another thing entirely to have, what is it now, around 16 issues all revolving around the same scene just enacted with different characters? The heart-eating is just the money shot repeated again and again. There's no real plot, just pages filled with bodies in varying states of mutilation.

And I love me some gore, don't get me wrong. Some of my favorite films of all time deal explicitly with graphic violence and gore. But if there are no moral implications or thematic purposes to the use of violence and gore in a work, it's just titillation. It's just murder-porn.

It's not even up to the level of torture-porn, since at least there we usually get some sort of absurdist moral stance, whether it's a Saw film or Hostel. Hell, check out Martyrs, to see how torture-porn can have brutal existential philosophical implications.

This, like "Sinestro Corps War" and Legion of 3 Worlds before it, is just mass murder and graphic mutilation as entertainment with no redeeming value. Sorry, folks who's opinions I respect.

But nobody really cares what I think.

[Paul Brian McCoy]

Wanna really see the difference between Science Fiction and Sci-Fi?

Watch Stargate: Universe and V back to back.

For fuck's sake, V was awful.

[Dave Wallace]

Might I hazard a guess that this review was written around the same time that Paul was posting in the recent Green Lantern thread?

Anyway, I haven't actually read this issue yet, so I can thank Paul for at least not spoiling the contents of the book in his review.

To be honest, Ellis has never struck me as the kind of person who cares about sales and popularity, so if he's decided not to write any more Ignition City, it's probably for his own reasons. He certainly has a history of starting off his projects enthusiastically before losing interest after 6 or 7 issues and letting them slide: Fell, Desolation Jones, newuniversal and Anna Mercury all seem to have fallen off the schedule lately.

[Paul Brian McCoy]

Originally Posted by Dave Wallace

To be honest, Ellis has never struck me as the kind of person who cares about sales and popularity, so if he's decided not to write any more Ignition City, it's probably for his own reasons. He certainly has a history of starting off his projects enthusiastically before losing interest after 6 or 7 issues and letting them slide: Fell, Desolation Jones, newuniversal and Anna Mercury all seem to have fallen off the schedule lately.

Well, except for Anna Mercury, all of those series suffered through the catastrophic computer crash where he lost everything he was working on. All notes, scripts, everything.

Originally Posted by Warren Ellis

My backups all got corrupted, and my backup device died. I'll fix that on Sunday, I thought, as I was under deadline pressure. Saturday evening, my main machine died in flames. Sent it off for data recovery. The guy running the data recovery shop took it in and then went off to Europe for an operation. And died on the operating table. Came back to the shop to get my machine, because no-one was answering the phone, to find it boarded up, the (mostly off-the-books, apparently) employees scattered to the four winds, and the shop stripped down to the plaster. Not a computer left in there -- not even mine.

(and no-one could do anything with the fucked backup discs, either.)

I'm referring to responses to The Autumn Interrogation of Warren 2009 thread at Whitechapel.

The last issue of Ignition City was delayed because they were switching printers, but he says that with other projects going through 2010, the planned follow up will probably not occur next year as he's hoped.

Originally Posted by Whitechapel

Will Ignition City get another mini?

Probably not. At best, not for a couple of years. But I don't think there's a burning commercial desire for more Ignition City out there...!

Is Ignition City not continuing because of sales? When it was first announced I thought it was said it would be a series of 5 issue miniseries, with "season 2" coming out late 2010...

I'm not going to have time for one in 2010, and I don't believe the world is exactly knocking down my door in search of one, no...

[Dave Wallace]

Originally Posted by Paul Brian McCoy

Well, except for Anna Mercury, all of those series suffered through the catastrophic computer crash where he lost everything he was working on. All notes, scripts, everything.

Yeah, I heard about that. A shame. At least that page that you linked to suggests that he's going to be coming back to most of those projects at some point in future.

[Larfleaze]

Ignition City was excellent. Seeing Pagliarani's art in color was a treat. I enjoyed all the characters even though im not aware the Buck Rogers characters he shaped them from. I liked this comic more than No Hero. The Anna Mercury Vol.2 is shaping up to be as good or better than Ignition City. I really wish Ellis would get on the ball with Dok Sleepless, because the comic barely seems to come out
I agree that Blackest Night is lackluster, with boring zombies showing up again and again. It is more like Horror-Scifi than actual sci-fi. I hate the stories that have no mystery element or masses of similair looking bad guys. It reminds me of why the Skrulls got so boring. This event seems to be focused on showcasing the DCU with tons of KEWL moments drawn by the very talented Ivan Reis.

[dannyboy121070]

Personally speaking, after getting burned numerous times by Ellis' work (MINISTRY OF SPACE, anyone...?), especially his work for Avatar, I've decided to wait for the trades. He has a track record of just losing interest in projects, or else taking his sweet time writing them. JACK CROSS, PLANETARY, NEWUNIVERSAL, DESOLATION JONES, pretty much anything he's done for Avatar....They've all been incredibly late. It's been so long between PLANETARY issues that I really have no idea where the story was when he left off. To me, it's a simple contract: I give you my money, you keep the story coming in a timely manner. If you can't do that, I'll wait until the story is finished and collected. Or, as is more and more likely lately, just decide I can do without it.