The future is bad for you. In a place where everyone has the technology to create brand-new, weird sciences ten times a day, there are policemen who will hunt you down for having a bad idea. They are the Silencers. And the investigation of a dead kid with a silicon pentagram on his neck opens up a whole box of bad ideas upon a city that only survives through silence... Plus: Special pin-up gallery featuring artwork by Chris Weston, Dougie Braithwaite, John McCrea, Andi Watson, Steve Pugh, Simon Fraser, Dom Regan, Kev Hopgood, Jon Haward, and Matt Greg.
Warren Ellis is the award-winning writer of graphic novels like TRANSMETROPOLITAN, FELL, MINISTRY OF SPACE and PLANETARY, and the author of the NYT-bestselling GUN MACHINE and the “underground classic” novel CROOKED LITTLE VEIN, as well as the digital short-story single DEAD PIG COLLECTOR. His newest book is the novella NORMAL, from FSG Originals, listed as one of Amazon’s Best 100 Books Of 2016.
The movie RED is based on his graphic novel of the same name, its sequel having been released in summer 2013. IRON MAN 3 is based on his Marvel Comics graphic novel IRON MAN: EXTREMIS. He is currently developing his graphic novel sequence with Jason Howard, TREES, for television, in concert with HardySonBaker and NBCU, and continues to work as a screenwriter and producer in film and television, represented by Angela Cheng Caplan and Cheng Caplan Company. He is the creator, writer and co-producer of the Netflix series CASTLEVANIA, recently renewed for its third season, and of the recently-announced Netflix series HEAVEN’S FOREST.
He’s written extensively for VICE, WIRED UK and Reuters on technological and cultural matters, and given keynote speeches and lectures at events like dConstruct, ThingsCon, Improving Reality, SxSW, How The Light Gets In, Haunted Machines and Cognitive Cities.
Warren Ellis has recently developed and curated the revival of the Wildstorm creative library for DC Entertainment with the series THE WILD STORM, and is currently working on the serialising of new graphic novel works TREES: THREE FATES and INJECTION at Image Comics, and the serialised graphic novel THE BATMAN’S GRAVE for DC Comics, while working as a Consulting Producer on another television series.
A documentary about his work, CAPTURED GHOSTS, was released in 2012.
Recognitions include the NUIG Literary and Debating Society’s President’s Medal for service to freedom of speech, the EAGLE AWARDS Roll Of Honour for lifetime achievement in the field of comics & graphic novels, the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire 2010, the Sidewise Award for Alternate History and the International Horror Guild Award for illustrated narrative. He is a Patron of Humanists UK. He holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Essex.
Warren Ellis lives outside London, on the south-east coast of England, in case he needs to make a quick getaway.
City of Silence is anything but the what the title would suggest. In fact, it’s the story of an urb imbued with perversion, degeneracy, and utter weirdness that is as deeply saturated with such as the fiercely technicolor veneer that drapes over it. The utter lunacy and bizarreness depicted within is the product of an author who even admits himself, “I was young and probably a good deal less sane than I am now.”
Unsurprisingly, Ellis goes on to state, “It deserved to see the light,” yet I’m not sure I agree. As a prototype to Tranmetropolitan, it’s interesting (and that’s worth seeing right?). Featuring fluorescent colors that are as uncompromising as they are searing, the color scheme has more in Star Wars’ Dark Empire/Empire’s End trilogy with the brightness turned up to the max. This rich color scheme, as well as the dystopic future it envelops, sternly prefigures the excellence of Ellis’ future magum opus, Transmetropolitan.
Just as the chromatics are tuned up to the highest band possible for human eyes to register, so to is the application of British humo(u)r turned up to 11. Truly, City of Silence is the Spinal Tap of comics but for a highly specific British/Comic-Book aficionado audience. If you’re in the in, you’ll see an Emperor with regal clothes. If you’re not, you’ll just see an Emperor’s birthday suit.
City of Silence truly is what it is. Tautological sure but, nothing more could be said. And nothing less.
In a world where new technology and ideas are a dime a dozen, there are Silencers that will hunt people down for a bad idea! Originally written for Epic comics, this is an Ellis' sex, violence and drugs sci-fi romp, which doesn't quite hit the spot for horror or shock, like I think he intended. 5 out of 12.
2.6 stars. meh. reads like a series of notes for ideas that were too relentlessly edgy for Transmet. apparently it was written in the 90s & only saw print under image around the millennium. it's fairly boring & sloppy. for Ellis completists only.
First things first, I have to say that this is one of the ugliest comics I've ever read. The artwork is unpleasant in its details, and the color scheme is horrific; it feels like it's almost the negative of regular coloration. It fits the concept of the story; the world of the story is also very dark and ugly, with the world full of technology gone rampant - and a trio of very disturbing agents are responsible for keeping the world from disaster. The book is full of Ellis' absurd tech and people. Weird porn, illicit power, and stranger creatures, all populate the story, but the story itself is pretty thin. For the plethora of concepts peppering the book, there isn't much depth to the story itself. It just conveys a feeling of distaste across the book that never lets up; the finale is all kinds of disturbing, and final revelations about the characters just strange. I'm usually a big fan of Warren Ellis, but this is definitely not among his stronger works.
There are Warren Ellis stories and then there are Warren Ellis stories. This falls pretty squarely into the "Oh god, that's so wrong, I love it" category. Well, at least I liked it a fair amount. But I also spent a lot of the time I was reading thinking, "Well that's a bit 'Transmetropolitan'" and, "That's a bit 'Planetary'" and so on. But I'm still glad I tracked it down. Gary Erskine's art was a good match here.
No man, just no. Trying to focus on the art gives you a headache. Trying to understand the dialogues gives you anxiety. The covers are horrendous.
This is just a plain UGLY comic.
Maybe I'll understand it better if I'm on hallucinogens? Maybe I'll have to try that once?
Anyways, it's cyberpunk that's mostly PUNK. Written in the 90s, when the internet was still a Very Scary and Unknown thing. I like some of the ideas it gave Ellis, such as digital satanism? Programmed magic? If you're a fan (or follower, you don't have to be the one to be the other) of Ellis, you'll recognize some themes. Bodymodification, the Occult mixing with the Digital. Absolute ennui amongst the citizens of whatever place he's thinking up.
No, not his best work. And it has NOT aged well, to say the slightest. There might be a page or two that's actually ART. But that's the max, two.
Aun cuando se equivoca, o se dispersa, o no remata la faena, pese a sus excesos, Warren Ellis es un autor muy a tener en cuenta. Al igual que la mayoría de compañeros británicos que protagonizaron el desembarco americano desde mediados de los ’80, ha debido pagar el peaje de las franquicias (Thor, X-Men, línea Ultimate), en las que se ha defendido con mejor o peor fortuna: visceral, atrevido, lo mejor de su producción necesita unos aires de libertad que no pueden darle Superman o Spider-Man, por lo que suele obtener resultados más brillantes cuanto más se aleja de las primeras figuras del mundo editorial. Con todo, ha sido -y es- un personaje de influencia sustanciosa en el mainstream, gracias sobre todo a sus trabajos para Wildstorm (Stormwatch, The Authority, Planetary, Global Frequency), el subsello creado por Jim Lee para Image, ahora integrado en el conglomerado Time Warner. Estos autores (Moore, Gaiman, Milligan, Morrison, Ennis) venían sin las cortapisas que décadas de cobarde censura interna habían convertido en axiomas industriales, aplastando los brotes de creatividad más exacerbada o exiliándolos al circuito marginal. Cuando recalaron en las nuevas series que editores avispados les brindaban se traían bien aprendida la mala baba del Juez Dredd, Johnny Alpha y el resto de antihéroes patibularios del 2000 AD. Su “mainstream” era más feroz y subversivo y sus pretensiones no pasaban por escribir el penúltimo culebrón de éxito de un viejo superhéroe sino por expandir las fronteras del medio o, al menos, las de sus lectores. A mediados de la década de los ’90, Warren Ellis era el chico nuevo que quería entrar en el selecto club descrito. Tenía ideas, a borbotones, y no sabía dónde colocarlas. Escribe un guion para Epic, la división de Marvel pionera en conceder derechos de autor, que se queda en un cajón durante un lustro, hasta que Image la rescata en el año 2000 y la publica en tres comic-books ilustrados por Gary Erskine y coloreados por D’Israeli y Laura Depuy. Esa historia es un cuento distópico (y van…) titulado City of Silence, precedente bastardo de los mundos de Transmetropolitan o Tales of the Witchblade: La historia de Selena, donde un Ellis bisoño vuelca obsesiones recurrentes. City of Silence está repleta de ideas interesantes, como los pensamientos infecciosos (consideremos Videodrome, de Cronemberg, o En la boca del miedo, de Carpenter, aunque ubicado en un futuro próximo, vecino del imaginado por Cameron y Bigelow para Días extraños), las enfermeras radiactivas de un sanatorio temible o el grotesco maridaje entre magia, cibertecnología y drogas en el marco de una distopía fascista convencional que bebe de ambientes ciberpunk notablemente morrisonianos (los gendarmes de Necrolux, por ejemplo, podrían haber escapado sin problemas de la Patrulla Condenada o Los invisibles). Los protagonistas, un trío de bichos raros llamados Silenciadores, son una especie de fuerzas del orden encargadas de expurgar cualquier concepto “nocivo” de la sociedad, en lo que no es sino la ultimísima vuelta de tuerca sobre la dominación de la voluntad orwelliana (y la antítesis de Los invisibles). Pálidos como cenobitas, cada uno de ellos roba la impronta visual de modelos más acertados: Frost es el John Constantine (Hellblazer) que será luego Elijah Snow (Planetary) y, en general, cualquiera de los tipos duros de Ellis; Litany es la mujer alta y fuerte que repetirá en la guardaespaldas de Spider Jerusalem (Transmetropolitan) o en Jakita Wagner (Planetary) y que tengo la intuición de que extrajo de la Caitlin Fairchild de Gen13 (que escribió en dos correctos anuales dibujados por Steve Dillon); Gitane es como la Muerte de Neil Gaiman, si Muerte no fuera una adolescente gótica sino un travesti viejo y con la cara mutilada.
[...]
City of Silence sigue inédita en castellano. Admitiendo que es un Ellis en formación, con sus tics apenas corregidos, en una onda similar a sus desmelenes con Avatar (pienso en Strange Kiss, sobre todo), su lectura estimula. Los admiradores del autor -entre quienes me cuento- hallarán pocos motivos de queja.
Decently fun. Ellis is somewhat in TRANSMETROPOLITAN mode with the dystopian future of the book, Gary Erskine is actually at top form in this book. The book is decent, but not exceptional. Sadly, the cover image used on the collection is a positively awful computer generated image that guarantees the book will be ignored.
An Ellis work of which, unusually, I was quite unaware - turns out it's self-parodic technobastard fare, set in a world where floppy discs and DAT co-exist with cyber-occultism. But at least the art is nothing like that 'Money For Nothing' atrocity of a cover.
Man, this comic is weird. The three main characters have a sexual relationship, even though they are special agents called silencers. In this dystopian future where technology is king, this isn't all that strange, given the level of violence used by the same three charecters and their utter disrespect for human life. Thankfully, they can direct this negative energy against bad guys. And there's plenty of depravity to go around.
The artwork is as warped as the setting. It's not photo-realistic by any stretch of the imagination, but it's quite detailed. I suppose you can call it caricaturistic and it properly matches the decay of the city and the decadence of its citizens.
The city of Silence is threatened by a group of techno-anarchistic satanists that threaten to start a computerised holocaust. The first part of the silencers' mission has them disable an anarchist cell where they recover a device that can secretly steal electricity from the power grid. Then the three get naked in front of their police chief... Huh...
Es una historia muuuuuuuy under. Quizás demasiado. El mundo que Warren Ellis construye es genial, muy interesante y distópico, sin embargo falla en la construcción de personajes. Recién al final del tomo es cuando uno siente algo de empatía con ellos.
Y es que encima debemos hablar de un "ellos" porque no poseen entre sí demasiadas características distinguibles, son personajes bastante estereotipados con onda ciberpunk que funcionan como un solo ente.
Hay una gratuidad en cuanto a las escenas de sexo y sangre que normalizan estos recursos hasta el punto en que dejan de llamar la atención y resultan molestos. Son funcionales en cuanto a la construcción del universo que Ellis busca, pero completamente innecesarios para la trama.
No recordaba haber leído nada de Gary Erskine. Su trabajo es bueno en cuanto a la cantidad de detalle que posee. Le falta, al menos en este tomo, esa chispa indescriptible que permite captar y enamorar al lector, pero ciertamente su trabajo es el adecuado para darle forma a este mundo distópico de Ellis.
What did I just read? It felt like a bizarre (and kinda disjointed) pastiche of William Gibson and Hunter S. Thompson.. on cheap booze and fentanyl-lased drugs. Obviously, it felt like outtakes from TRANSMETROPOLITAN that somehow coalesced into "something" of an idea--for lack of a better term--which has early Warren and 90s weirdness all over it. All in all I wanted to like it but ultimately it felt pretty "meh".. all until that ending which somehow made me feel the story had potential as an idea, but was insufficiently developed (and probably rushed). Would recommend it only to die-hard fans and people into weird stuff.
Ok, especially if you like Ellis. Art by Erskine is well done, but the point is ugliness. So, not for everyone, and I am no horror fan. As an Ellis fan, this was a starter on bigger, different standalone projects. Assembled three issues from bargain bin and finally read them.
Um Warren Ellis ainda cru e a refinar o seu estilo mergulha-nos nas ideias de futurismo desgovernado, espaço urbano esmagador, choque de futuro e personagens assertivas e desenquadradas dos padrões de normalidade que tanto caracterizam a sua obra. City of Silence é uma espécie de prelúdio a Transmetropolitan ou Doctor Sleepless. Nesta mescla de cyberpunk com policial num espaço urbano futuro que vivem em choques epistemológicos constantes, três personagens mais que humanos formam uma força policial oculta encarregue de silenciar inovações tecnológicas. Num desenvolvimento hiper-acelerado, qualquer inovação poderá ser potencialmente catastrófica e numa tentativa de manter alguma ordem no caos social as autoridades citadinas tentam travar qualquer lampejo de disrupção tecnológico-cultural. Apesar de imunes aos memes virais, os três agentes encarregues do silêncio cultural encontram um inimigo à altura na pessoa de um mago tecnológico, que utiliza os canais de comunicação eléctricos para invocar os demónios infernais. Uma mistura visceral de ideias complexas e futurismo sem limites, ainda em estado cru e sem reflectir a elegância violenta que se tornou a marca da obra de Warren Ellis.
Godawful in every way; from beginning to end the writing is some kind of word-salad smarmy pastiche of low-budget film noir voiceovers, without any of the elegance of the Raymond Chandler that Ellis was trying to channel, and the story is as juvenile as it gets, more of a vehicle to throw sex, sleaze, and bizarre impressions of hackneyed goth/industrial stereotypes that were getting old 20 years ago. The art is some of the ugliest in an actual published book I've seen in decades, everything looks more like a flattened Hellraiser doll than actual people.
I'm not even sure what the point of its existence is, since everything in it was done better in earlier Ellis stories. Easily one of the biggest mistakes I've made in a while.