Warren Girard Ellis (born 16 February 1968) is a British comic book writer, novelist, and screenwriter. He is best known as the co-creator of several original comics series, including Transmetropolitan (1997–2002), Global Frequency (2002–2004) and Red (2003–2004), which was adapted into the feature films Red (2010) and Red 2 (2013). Ellis is the author of the novels Crooked Little Vein (2007) and Gun Machine (2013) and the novella Normal (2016).
A prolific comic book writer, Ellis has written several Marvel series, including Astonishing X-Men, Thunderbolts, Moon Knight and the "Extremis" story arc of Iron Man, which was the basis for the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Iron Man 3 (2013). Ellis created The Authority and Planetary for WildStorm, and wrote a run of Hellblazer for Vertigo and James Bond for Dynamite Entertainment. Ellis wrote the video games Hostile Waters (2001), Cold Winter (2005), and Dead Space (2008). He also wrote the animated TV movie G.I. Joe: Resolute (2009) and served as the head writer on the acclaimed animated Netflix series Castlevania (2017–2021).
Ellis is well known for sociocultural commentary, both through his online presence and through his writing, which covers transhumanist (most notably nanotechnology, cryonics, mind transfer and human enhancement) and folkloric themes, often in combination with each other. He is a humanist and former patron of Humanists UK, a charity focused on promoting humanism and advancing secularism. He is a resident of Southend-on-Sea, England.
Early life
Ellis was born in Essex in February 1968. He has stated that the televised broadcast of the Moon landing is his earliest coherent memory. He was a student at the South East Essex Sixth Form College, commonly known as SEEVIC. He contributed comic work to the college magazine, Spike, along with Richard Easter, who also later followed a career in writing.
Before starting his career as a writer, he worked in a book and stationery store, a pub, in bankruptcy, in a record shop, and lifted compost bags for a living.
Career
Early career
Ellis's writing career started in the British roleplaying magazine 'Adventurer' for which he wrote the 1920s Cthulhu mythos strip 'Whiplash' throughout 1986. This was followed by a six-page short story published in 1990 in independent magazine Deadline. Other early works include a Judge Dredd short and a Doctor Who one-pager. His first ongoing work, Lazarus Churchyard with D'Israeli, appeared in Blast!, a short-lived British magazine.
By 1994, Ellis had begun working for Marvel Comics, where he took over the series Hellstorm: Prince of Lies with issue number 12, which he wrote until its cancellation after issue number 21. He also did some work on the Marvel 2099 imprint, most notably in a storyline in which a futuristic Doctor Doom took over the United States. Other notable early Marvel work is a run on Excalibur, a superhero series set in Britain. He also wrote a four-issue arc of Thor called "Worldengine", in which he dramatically revamped both the character and book (though the changes lasted only as long as Ellis's run on the book), and tackled Wolverine with then-rising star Leinil Francis Yu.
The Authority, Transmetropolitan and critical acclaim
Ellis then started working for DC Comics, Caliber Comics and Image Comics' Wildstorm studio, where he wrote the Gen¹³ spin-off DV8 and took over Stormwatch, a previously action-oriented team book, to which he gave a more idea- and character-driven flavor. He wrote issues 37–50 with artist Tom Raney, and the 11 issues of volume two with artists Oscar Jimenez and Bryan Hitch. Hitch and he followed that with the Stormwatch spin-off The Authority, a cinematic super-action series for which Ellis coined the term "widescreen comics".
In 1997, Ellis started Transmetropolitan, a creator-owned series about an acerbic "gonzo" journalist in a dystopian future America, co-created with artist Darick Robertson and published by DC's Helix imprint. When Helix was discontinued the following year, Transmetropolitan was shifted to the Vertigo imprint, and remained one of the most successful nonsuperhero comics DC was then publishing. Transmetropolitan ran for 60 issues (plus a few specials), ending in 2002, and the entire run was later collected in a series of trade paperbacks. It remains Ellis's largest work to date.