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Garth Ennis

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Garth Ennis
NationalityNorthern Irish
Area(s)Writer
Notable works
Preacher
Judge Dredd
Hellblazer
The Punisher
Dan Dare
Awards1998: Best Writer Eisner Award

Garth Ennis (born 16 January 1970 in Holywood, Northern Ireland) is an Irish comics writer, best known for the DC/Vertigo series Preacher, co-created with artist Steve Dillon, and his successful revival of Marvel Comics' Punisher franchise.

His work is characterised by extreme violence, black humour, profanity, an interest in male friendship, a disdain for organized religion, rampant misogyny, and contempt for superheroes. Frequent artistic collaborators include Steve Dillon, Glenn Fabry, Carlos Ezquerra and John McCrea.

Biography

Ennis began his comic-writing career in 1989 with the series Troubled Souls. Appearing in the short-lived but critically-acclaimed British anthology Crisis and illustrated by McCrea, it told the story of a young, apolitical Protestant man caught up by fate in the violence of the Irish 'Troubles'. It spawned a sequel, For a Few Troubles More, a broad Belfast-based comedy featuring two supporting characters from Troubled Souls, Dougie and Ivor, who would later get their own American comics series, Dicks, from Caliber in 1997, and several follow-ups from Avatar.

File:Truefaith.jpg
True Faith by Garth Ennis & Warren Pleece

Another series for Crisis was True Faith, a religious satire inspired by his schooldays, this time drawn by Warren Pleece. Like the two Troubles stories it was collected as a graphic novel in 1990, but religious protests led to it being quickly withdrawn from sale, apparently on the orders of publisher Robert Maxwell. It was later republished in 1997 by Vertigo.

Ennis shortly after began to write for Crisis' parent publication, 2000 AD. He quickly graduated on to the title's flagship character, Judge Dredd, taking over from original creator John Wagner for a period of several years. Ennis's most notable Dredd stories include Muzak Killer (a pastiche of mainstream pop music), Emerald Isle (a tongue-in-cheek story set in Ennis's native Ireland), and the twenty-part epic Judgment Day. Ennis also contributed the surreal Time Flies (with artist Philip Bond), dealing with time travel paradoxes and Nazis.

His first work on an American comic came in 1991 when he took over DC Comics's horror title Hellblazer, which he wrote until 1994, and for which he currently holds the title for most issues written.[1] Steve Dillon became the regular artist during the second half of Ennis's run. The creative partnership established went on to create Preacher. From 1993 to 1995 Ennis and John McCrea worked on another DC title, The Demon, during which they introduced super-powered contract killer Tommy Monaghan, also known as Hitman, whose own series would allow their creative partnership to continue when The Demon ended. Towards the end of the initial Hellblazer run, Ennis and Dillon collaborated on a one-shot called Heartland, exploring one of the secondary characters of their run. Several years after leaving, Ennis briefly returned for the five-part Son of Man story with artist John Higgins.

Ennis' landmark work to date is the 66-issue epic Preacher, which he co-created with artist Steve Dillon. Running from 1995 to 2000, it was a tale of a preacher with supernatural powers, searching (literally) for God who has abandoned his creation. Mixing influences from western movies and religious themes, it drew plaudits for Ennis from all sections of the media; the Guardian newspaper voted one of the Preacher collections its book of the week, and film director Kevin Smith described it as "More fun than going to the movies."

While Preacher was running, Ennis began a series set in the DC universe called Hitman. Despite being lower profile than Preacher, Hitman ran for 60 issues (plus specials) from 1996 to 2001, veering wildly from violent action to humour to an examination of male friendship under fire.

Other comic projects Ennis wrote during this time period include Goddess, Bloody Mary, Unknown Soldier, and Pride & Joy, all for DC/Vertigo, as well as origin stories for The Darkness for Image Comics and Shadowman for Valiant Comics.

After the end of Hitman, Ennis was lured to Marvel Comics with the promise from Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada that he could write The Punisher as long as he cared to. The initial 12-issue maxi-series was illustrated by Steve Dillon, who also did a 37-issue series (even illustrating it and co-writing an issue while Ennis briefly stepped down as writer) which only ended when Ennis decided to change direction. Instead of largely comical tone of these issues, he decided to make a much more serious series, re-launched under Marvel's MAX imprint. This run has inspired several limited series (such as Born and Barracuda) and one-shots (The End, The Cell, and The Tyger). The creators of the new Punisher movie, Punisher: War Zone, have attributed Ennis's Punisher MAX run as one of the major influences for that film.[2] While at Marvel, Ennis also wrote stories for Spider-Man, Ghost Rider, The Hulk, and Thor.

In 2001 he briefly returned to UK comics to write the epic Helter Skelter for Judge Dredd - this series cannot be considered a success, with Ennis himself saying that there is "not a hope" to return to writing Dredd as he was generally not happy with his run. "I’m too close to Dredd, I like him too much. I can’t tamper with the formula; nor can I take the piss the way I do with superheroes," he said. [3]

Other comics Ennis has written include War Story (with various artists) for DC; The Pro for Image Comics; The Authority for Wildstorm; Just a Pilgrim for Black Bull Press, and 303, Chronicles of Wormwood (a six issue mini-series about the Antichrist), and a western comic book, Streets of Glory for Avatar Press.[4]

His work has won him a good deal of recognition in the comics industry, including nominations for the Comics Buyer's Guide Award for Favorite Writer in 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000.

Unexpectedly, in 2006, it was announced that Ennis would write a new creator-owned extended series entitled The Boys, originally published by Wildstorm. After just six issues, The Boys was cancelled by Wildstorm, despite high sales and with no reason given. The series was picked up by Dynamite Entertainment, and is now ongoing. The Boys sees Ennis reunited with artist Darick Robertson, the two had previously worked together on the Marvel series Fury: Peacemaker and Punisher: Born. The Boys is expected to run for sixty issues.

Ennis wrote the first arc of WildStorm's Midnighter (a spin-off of The Authority) and one stand alone issue before leaving the title. Ennis has also worked with John Woo on a 5-issue comic book mini-series called Seven Brothers for Virgin Comics.[5]

In 2008 Ennis ended his five-year run on Punisher MAX to debut a new Marvel title, War Is Hell: The First Flight of the Phantom Eagle. The limited series features the little-used character Phantom Eagle, a WWI pilot who originally appeared in Marvel Comics during the 1960s.[6] [7] In 2008, Ennis also wrote a new Dan Dare miniseries published by Virgin Comics.

In June, 2008, at Wizard World, Philadelphia, Ennis announced several new projects, including an ongoing war series called Garth Ennis: Battlefields for Dynamite, another Chronicles of Wormwood mini-series and Crossed[8] both at Avatar, a six-issue miniseries about Butcher (from The Boys) and an Punisher project reuniting him with artist Steve Dillon (subsequently specified to be a weekly mini-series entitled Punisher: War Zone, to be released concurrently with the film of the same name).[9] [10] He has also worked with Jimmy Palmiotti on Back to Brooklyn, a crime-based limited series for Image Comics.[11]

Bibliography

Preacher by Garth Ennis & Steve Dillon; cover by Glenn Fabry

Comics work includes:

  • A1 #6A: "And They Never Get Drunk But Stay Sober" (short story, with Steve Dillon, 1992)
  • Garth Ennis's Battlefields, forthcoming ongoing from Dynamite
  • Hellblazer (with Steve Dillon, #41-50, #52-83, #129-133, Special #1 DC/Vertigo, + Heartland one-shot spin-off, 1992-1994, 1998)
    • Dangerous Habits (tpb collects #41-46, 1994, ISBN 1-56389-150-6)
    • Blood Lines (tpb collects #47-50, 52-55, 59-61, 296 pages, December 2007, ISBN 1-4012-1514-9)
    • Hellblazer: Rare Cuts (includes issue #56: "This is the Diary of Danny Drake", with David Lloyd)
    • "Mortal Clay" (pt1) / "Body and Soul" (pt2) (issue #57-58: with Steve Dillon, uncollected)
    • Fear and Loathing (tpb collects #62-67, 1997, ISBN 1-56389-202-2)
    • Tainted Love (tpb collects #68-71 + Special 1 + Vertigo Jam #1, 1998 ISBN 1-56389-456-4)
    • Damnations Flame (tpb collects #72-77, 1999, ISBN 1-56389-508-0)
    • Rake at the Gates of Hell (tpb collects #78-83 + Heartland, 2003, ISBN 1-4012-0002-8)
    • Son of Man (with John Higgins, tpb collects #129-133, 2004, ISBN 1-4012-0202-0)
    • Vertigo: Winter's Edge #2 (short story) "All Those Little Girls And Boys"
  • Hitman (with John McCrea, 60 issues, DC, specials: Annual #1, issue #1,000,000, 1996-2001)
    • Hitman (tpb collects #1-3 + The Demon Annual #2 + Batman Chronicles #4, 1997 ISBN 1-56389-314-2)
    • 10,000 Bullets (tpb collects #4-8, 1998 ISBN 1-56389-404-1)
    • Local Heroes (tpb collects #9-14 + Annual #1, 1999 ISBN 1-56389-509-9)
    • Ace of Killers (tpb collects #15-22, 2000 ISBN 1-56389-614-1)
    • Who Dares Wins (tpb collects #23-28, 2001 ISBN 1-56389-718-0)
    • uncollected: 29-33, 1,000,000, 34-60
    • Hitman/Lobo: That Stupid Bastich! (one-shot, 1999)
    • JLA/Hitman (2-issue mini-series, DC, 2007, upcoming)
  • Preacher (with Steve Dillon, 66 issues + Saint of Killers mini series, plus 5 one-shots, Vertigo, 1995-2000):
    • Gone To Texas (tpb collects #1-7, 1996 ISBN 1-56389-261-8)
    • Until the End of the World (tpb collects #8-17, 1997 ISBN 1-56389-312-6)
    • Proud Americans (tpb collects #18-26, 1997 ISBN 1-56389-327-4)
    • Ancient History (tpb collects Saint of Killers mini, Good Ol' Boys one-shot, and Story of You-Know Who one-shot, 1998 ISBN 1-56389-405-X)
    • Dixie Fried (tpb collects #27-33 and Cassidy one-shot, 1998 ISBN 1-56389-428-9)
    • War In the Sun (tpb collects #34-40 and Starr one-shot, 1999 ISBN 1-56389-490-4)
    • Salvation (tpb collects #41-50, 1999 ISBN 1-56389-519-6)
    • All Hell's A Comin' (tpb collects #51-58 and Tall in the Saddle one-shot, 2000 ISBN 1-56389-617-6)
    • Alamo (tpb collects #59-66, 2001 ISBN 1-56389-715-6)
  • Thor: Vikings (Marvel MAX, 5 issue mini-series, tpb, 2004 ISBN 0-7851-1175-1)
  • Time Flies (with Philip Bond, collected in 2000 AD Extreme Edition #19, 2006):
    • "Time Flies" (in 2000 AD #700-711, 1990)
    • "Tempus Fugitive" (in 2000 AD #1015-1023, 1996)

Awards

Notes

  1. ^ Irvine, Alex (2008), "John Constantine Hellblazer", in Dougall, Alastair (ed.), The Vertigo Encyclopedia, New York: Dorling Kindersley, pp. 102–111, ISBN 0-7566-4122-5, OCLC 213309015
  2. ^ Wizard. Molino, Rachel. "'Punisher: War Zone' Q&A with Ray Stevenson." December 8, 2008.
  3. ^ http://insidepulse.com/article.php?contentid=20202
  4. ^ Interview with Ennis about Streets of Glory, Comics Bulletin
  5. ^ Garth Ennis on Seven Brothers, interview with Newsarama
  6. ^ a b Nick Lowe on Marvel Max's War is Hell series, Newsarama, January 7, 2008
  7. ^ a b Laura Hudson, Ennis Moves from Punisher to Phantom Eagle, Publishers Weekly, February 19, 2008 Cite error: The named reference "PW021908" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  8. ^ Double-Crossed: Ennis & Burrows talk “Crossed”, Comic Book Resources, June 12, 2008
  9. ^ WW PHILLY: THE GARTH ENNIS PANEL, Newsarama, June 1, 2008
  10. ^ Ma's Home! Ennis talks "Punisher: War Zone", Comic Book Resources, September 9, 2008
  11. ^ Ennis & Palmiotti Go "Back to Brooklyn", Comic Book Resources, July 15, 2008
  12. ^ Dynamite Collects Ennis' 'Just a Pilgrim' in December, Newsarama, October 15, 2008

References

Preceded by Hellblazer writer
1991-1992 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Hellblazer writer
1992-1994 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Hellblazer writer
1998-1999 		Succeeded by


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