Just finished reading "Bad Signal: Volume 2" by Warren Ellis. I am unaware of anything else quite like Bad Signal. As you may know it is the email blog of Warren and contains everything from stories, to fragments of ideas, trashed scripts, commentary on Comics and popular culture, previews and announcements of Warren's work, links to sites of interests...essentially what ever is on Warren's mind as he travels with his hand held computer. I look forward with great anticipation to getting a B.S. in my email box, you never know when he'll send one and more importantly what he'll say. Warren is the master of short form writing, go to his website and sign up today. Then buy the collections, they are cheap, and will help support something in this world that is truly creative and unique.

Also the artwork in both collections is quite ghastly and extremely good. Jacen Burrows does a masterful job again. The radio on the cover of Volume 2, is really neat.

No post on Bad Signal would be complete without a sample of one...so here is one of my favorites about the future of sex:


warren ellis
BAD SIGNAL


Shrieky Girls


She opens her perfect mouth and the sound of a modem pours
out. The long shriek of signal, and then the radio-static-and-
rubber-band song of connection.

And then another. She looks up, opens her mouth, and the electric
scream beats up into the night. Another two, three signal-songs
harmonise. More. A row of Shrieky Girls, all in black and hazmat
orange, standing outside the club, looking up and dialling in.

Inside the place, there's an ozone pressure from the mass of
Shrieky Girls beaming internet whispers to each other. Shrieky
Girls dance, turning slow circles on the floor as the DJ plays
tripped Bristol beats spiked with Shrieky connection-sound
samples and tranquillised by sibilant female voices whispering
about sex and vodka in the dark.

Shrieky Girls lock us out of their world. Their shared gaze darts
around the room in flock patterns, homing in one on one guy's
piercings, one woman's shoulderblade brand. People still flinch
when they see twenty, thirty girls all turn around to look at them
at exactly the same time.

In the back, picked out in stopmotion by strobes, a Shrieky Girl
stands against the wall and pulls a boy in to her. She unzips him,
closes fingers around him, pulls him inside sharply. Her lips part,
and you expect a sigh, but you hear connection hiss. On the floor,
twenty, thirty Shrieky Girls stop dancing, and all their backs arch
in exactly the same way. Heads thrown back and mouths open
in modem screams.

It's not that Shrieky Girl who finds someone worth going home
with. But, when morning finally comes, it's all of them who share
the modemed sensation of a warm arm closed softly around them.
It's all of them who see him wake up and smile at them and look
at them, and see him keep looking and smiling at them even
though the make-up's half gone and the hair's been smashed by
the bed, because it was them he wanted to be with, not the look.

Two, three hundred Shrieky Girls smile just a little bit and hold an
invisible hand for a while.

Shrieky Girls are never alone. They live in an invisible web of
constant secret conversation, transmitting raw feelings like they
were texting notes.

Twenty, thirty thousand Shrieky Girls smile just a little bit
and turn away to dance.


(c) Warren Ellis 2003