Ellis on authenticity, in music and beyond

[arbre_rieur]

Six pages from Doktor Sleepless 5. According to Ellis, the series is meant to be a sort of spiritual successor to Transmetropolitan.

Comments

[box_in_the_box]

Warren, the next time you want to monologue like this, just write a fucking prose book, and stop taking out on comics.

Reading this made me feel like if John Galt became a hipster and Ayn Rand decided to do his speech as a graphic novel.

[cmic]

Heh. I was with him, actually, until the Dylan-is-the-voice-of-his-generation-and-all-generations-after-all ending. It's cringeworthy.

The hero of this monologue could be Lady Gaga, and you could dance to it.

[darkknightjrk]

But is Ellis the hipster John Galt, or is Rhindhart? From what I've read of the character, he's hardly a mary sue for Ellis and is actually doing some messed up shit.

[arbre_rieur]

Welcome to Doktor Sleepless.

[fiftyeighthours]

I am the subject of your documentary.
You have a question? I am the third degree.
I am authentic; authenticity!

[seriousfic]

What happens when Warren Ellis writes a PWP.

Plot, What Plot?

[philippos42]

I didn't know what PWP was...

[jlroberson]

Swear to God, I have never understood why the Stone Roses were ever considered some kind of symbolic Saviors of Music. Not even back then. I am guessing you really have to have been British at the time to get it. But I always kind of scratched my head at the hype they were the "next big thing" back then. They were okay, but they were no My Bloody Valentine.

Just something that came to mind at their mention. I did like this--it seems a lot more like PUMP UP THE VOLUME than TRANSMET though. But I was a sucker for the Godspeed and (laterally) John Cale references.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Well, I'm intrigued. I don't know what the hell is going on in the actual comic - is that a robot angel? - but that's part of why I'm intrigued. I may have to look this up once it comes out in trades.

[darkknightjrk]

They traded the first eight issues called "Engines of Desire."

[arbre_rieur]

Yeah, reading the issues really doesn't help much on the 'figuring out what's going on' front. 90% of the book seems to be devoted to setting up mysteries, 5% to monologues/rants, and the remaining 5% to everything else.

[thandrak]

When Les Paul broke his arm in a car accident, he had it set at an angle so he could keep playing his music. That's what real is. It's what you do, not who you say you are.

Jeez, just because Robert Zimmerman changed his name and assumed a persona doesn't make him a fictional person. It makes him a bard. It's the music that's real or not.

Ask Alan Moore if his god is authentic. Then ask him if his god is real.

[thandrak]

I should never post immediately after waking.
Ahem. There are three things here, and they are three separate things. Being real, being authentic, and being hardcore.
Being hardcore, I brought up, and it covers doing something most would find beyond belief in pursuit of a goal. Mr. Les Paul's arm being set so he could continue to play guitar, would come under it.
Being authentic is an objective statement. It is either true, or it is not. It is about the facts of the matter. A city-raised blues player being set up to be a farmer on the acoustic is not being authentic.
Being real. Being real is a subjective statement, and further, it is a statement about the communication between the audience and the actor or writer or musician. Hunter S. Thompson was certainly in part, acting when he went gonzo. But the communication, the truth in the middle of what he was writing, even when he was telling blatant lies, kept him blatantly real. Being real while telling untruths is the gift and challenge of the bard, to put the audience in the shoes of another, to try to capture a meaning and essence and communicate it utterly to someone who has no conception of it.
Robert Zimmerman's construct of Bob Dylan is no less real for being inauthentic.

Of course, as Dr. Thompson proved, keeping things real has costs.

[thandrak]

Also, I admit, if I'm missing something here that's not shown, I am waiting to pick this up in trade because my local comic store has been having issues getting issues in. Or keeping them in.

[glprime]

Let's just say you're stating things here much better than in this character's rant.

Also, I've never really given any musician this much credit as an artist. Hype is a backlash of any talent or entertainment.

But then, I do take writing *way* too seriously, so it's interesting to see it from another angle.

[thandrak]

It's not credit as an artist, it's about vibe. It's an intangible that shows up in how much something hooks you. The most 'real' artists that come to my mind right now are the Beastie Boys. They are who they are. White boys. Who rap, punk style. Gangsta rappers, even, if you look at their actual lyrics.
And yet, there's no question about them being anything less than accepted, no question about them being anything less than real.
Immature as hell, but real.

[glprime]

Yeah, I'm just so damn straight-laced with my linguistics, I tend to reject "real" meaning anything except "the opposite of fantasy/imagined."

"Real" being an adjective for evocative aura, attitude, personality, tone, etc. just strikes me as cheap buzz words. I first heard it in the context of salesmen, then industry reviewers. I don't view it as an authentic qualifier.

[thandrak]

In this case, it's shortened from 'keeping it real'. The important thing in keeping things real is _not to be fake_.

This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Willy the S, representin.

[starwolf_oakley]

"Keeping it real" reminds me of the Law & Order episode "3 Dawg Night," where McCoy and Co. prosecute a popular rapper for a nightclub shooting.

Jack McCoy: It's one thing to play a thug on the cover of a CD, it's quite another to do it in Sing Sing.

[lamashtar]

Can't get the comedy skit "WHEN KEEPING IT REAL GOES WRONG" out of my head.

[kiplingkat]

First of all, I love Warren Ellis' work. I love what he doing on Astonishing but...

A. Talking about the cultural "reality" through the analogy of rock music is very...well, didn't we do that when we are all 17? But then maybe that is who the book is written for?

B. Doesn't "Be authentic to your dreams. Be authentic to your own ideas about yourself. Etc" = "Be yourself"?

C. Spending pages lecturing the reader about it in a comic book seems to be one of the first questions a writer would ask himself when thinking "Have I become a pretentious tawt?"

[brandiweed.livejournal.com]

B. Doesn't "Be authentic to your dreams. Be authentic to your own ideas about yourself. Etc" = "Be yourself"?

Not necessarily. Just chat up an Otherkin sometime.

[thandrak]

... I'm reading Proust right now. For pleasure. It's actually surprisingly readable. (The Lydia Davis translation.)

... have I become a pretentious twat?

[kiplingkat]

And I'm reading The Social Contract (Rousseau) for kicks. So?

Are you spending pages/hours lecturing people about your personal concept of reality?

It's one thing to use fiction to create clever stories that ask your readers to think about the nature of things (See: Sandman, in fact see Ellis' SuperGod). It's another to use fiction to outright lecture them what they should be thinking about things. Ask the question, don't tell people what to think.

As one poster put below comic books =/= blog posts, and they don't equal socio-philosophical essays either.

[lynxara]

Yeah, this is a basic failing of show-don't-tell. The art pretty clearly betrays it, too.

I wonder if Ellis is starting to think more in prose terms but just finds it easier to get comics published.

[darkknightjrk]

I'm reading selected Sherlock Holmes short stories for fun. If that makes me a prententious twat, then I don't wanna change.

[thandrak]

Bah! Sherlock Holmes is too plebian! One must be reading obscurities like Varney the Vampire for true twatishness.

[whatistigerbalm]

Comic =/= blog post. I can't believe a professional writer whose work I like slipped on this one.

[darkknightjrk]

I put it less as Ellis trying to make a point, and more Doktor Sleepless trying to assemble a cult of personality under him.

[mullon]

I'm not sure I get it. I think Dr. Insano is complaining about people who put on personas to be more easily accepted in the music industry, but he loses me halfway through his speech.

[foxhack]

Oh please, Dr. Insano would talk this guy to death and we'd enjoy it. :P

[aaron_bourque]

[4chan]What is this pretentious hipster bullshit.[/4chan]

Seriously, Mr. Ellis. Cut that down by about 2/3rds, and maybe you've got something.

Also?

Being real, being authentic, and being believable are at least 4 very different things.

[foxhack]

Too many words.

But I like the art!

[lamashtar]

Was that a joke referring to the famous criticism of Mozart--"too many notes"?

[foxhack]

Nope!

Ellis just gets too wordy wordy Mc Wordsome too often. :p

[halloweenjack]

So Dylan and Memphis Minnie are no more authentic than, say, Vanilla Ice? Is that where he's going with this? And people pay money for this book?

[philippos42]

This isn't for today's 17-year-olds, is it? Isn't it for the 40ish manchild who defined his world like this in his teens?