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Friday Recommendation: Desolation Jones

By | February 11th, 2011
Posted in Columns | % Comments


A few weeks back, we here at Multiversity were celebrating the return of Fell, one of Warren Ellis’s greatest comic creations that was put on a lengthy hiatus when his computer croaked in 2008. Of the many other projects whose future the dead computer made suspect, one of my personal favorites was Desolation Jones, a collaboration between Ellis and Multiversity-favorite J.H. Williams III. Published by the now-defunct Wildstorm, I’m not sure if and when it will make its return, but that doesn’t mean you can’t go out and enjoy the one published trade paperback! Follow the cut for more on this great comic.

Desolation Jones is a detective story. Well, scratch that: it’s a Warren Ellis detective story, seen through an espionage-tinted lens. It follows many of the tropes of the genre, while at the same time tossing some of them out the window and allowing them to be run over by the heaviest gas-guzzler you can imagine. Our protagonist is a former MI6 agent who has been subjected to government experimentation that fundamentally changed him as a man – sure, his origins may be a different from your standard P.I., but he certainly talks the hard-boiled talk. The story is truly only one that Ellis could come up with: we have a Big Sleep-esque tale of three daughters’ “complicated” relationship with their father, Jones’s client, only this time a porn flick made by and featuring Hitler (yes, that Hitler) is thrown into the mix – the “Holy Grail of cinematic filth,” if you will. Of course, this being Ellis, things are far from what they seem, and Jones sons find out that his client, Colonel Nigh, is involved in – well, that would be spoiling you, now wouldn’t it?

There is no doubt in my mind that Desolation Jones is some of Ellis’s finest work. The characterization throughout is incredibly well done – even those characters that only appear for two or three pages are so well defined that it almost seems like the reader has actually met the character in person. The dialogue is some of Ellis’s best, mixing the hardboiled style of neo-noir with the bizarre devices of one of comics’ most brilliant yet most twisted scribes. And of course, like any comic by Ellis, it is impossible to resist putting the book down until you’re finished reading.

The book wouldn’t be near as good as it is/was, though, were it not for J.H. Williams III. Now, almost any comic fan knows who Williams is at this point, and how damn talented the man is, but he is really on another level in Desolation Jones. In my personal opinion, the only time Williams outdid his work on this book was when he did Promethea. Everything that you expect from Williams is in here, from his interesting blend of harsh inks and penciled shading to his inventive use of layouts and borders. The action in particular is so well done, more so than in anything else I have seen Williams do. There’s something brutal about every panel where one combatant connects with the other; the glamour of mainstream action comics is stripped away, leaving a scene that makes it feel like you too just got hit in the back of your head with a crowbar. I’ve noticed that this is a common thing that Ellis attempts in many of his non-cape comics, but it has never been pulled off as well as Williams does it.

So far, eight issues of Desolation Jones have been released. While the jury is still out on whether or not we will be seeing any more, the first six are available in a paperback entitled “Made in England.” Even if we never see issues nine and beyond, the first six tell a relatively self-contained story that can be enjoyed without reading more… though your mind will certainly wonder what’s next for Jones as soon as you finish the last page.


//TAGS | Friday Recommendation

Walt Richardson

Walt is a former editor for Multiversity Comics and current podcaster/ne'er-do-well. Follow him on Twitter @goodbyetoashoe... if you dare!

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