Garth Ennis (born 16 January 1970 in Holywood, Northern Ireland) is a Northern 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, an antagonistic relationship with organized religion, and irreverence towards superheroes. Frequent artistic collaborators include Steve Dillon, Glenn Fabry, Carlos Ezquerra and John McCrea.
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.
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the two Troubles stories it was collected as a graphic novel in 1990, but religious protests led to it being quickly withdrawn from sale, apparently on the orders of publisher Robert Maxwell.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. 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.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.
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.
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.
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, with artist Howard Chaykin, features the little-used character Phantom Eagle, a WWI pilot who originally appeared in Marvel Comics during the 1960s.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 a metaseries of war comics called Battlefields from Dynamite made up of mini-series including Night Witches, Dear Billy and Tankies, another Chronicles of Wormwood mini-series and Crossed both at Avatar, a six-issue miniseries about Butcher (from The Boys) and a 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). He has also worked with Jimmy Palmiotti on Back to Brooklyn, a crime-based limited series for Image Comics.
Carlos Sanchez Ezquerra (born November 1947, in Zaragoza), who has also worked under the alias L. John Silver, is a Spanish comics artist who works mainly in British comics and currently lives in Andorra. He is best known as the co-creator of Judge Dredd.
In the 1970s he worked for Battle Picture Weekly, drawing such strips as Rat Pack, Major Eazy and El Mestizo.
During the development of 2000 AD he created the visual designs for the characters, cityscapes, and technologies for writer John Wagner s character Judge Dredd. Despite creating the character, Wagner and Ezquerra’s original Judge Dredd strip was passed on by editor Pat Mills in favor of a more introductory story by another creative team for the character’s debut, and their original strip would not be used until years later in an annual. Upset with management disputes, like his and Wagner’s Judge Dredd story being passed on for someone else’s work on a character he helped create, Ezquerra left 2000 AD to return to work for Battle Picture Weekly in 1977.
Carlos Ezquerra and John Wagner also created the character Strontium Dog for Starlord in 1978; the strip would later transfer to 2000 AD when Starlord folded. Other 2000 AD strips he drew included Fiends of the Eastern Front and adaptations of Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat novels. He would later return to Judge Dredd to draw one of the most infamous mega epics, the Apocalypse War, and would go on to draw some of his most memorable adventures. Always a fan favorite, Ezquerra still draws Judge Dredd and Strontium Dog from time to time.
Ezquerra has also collaborated numerous times with writer Garth Ennis on Bloody Mary, Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, War Stories, a Hitman annual with artist Steve Pugh, and two Preacher specials (The Good Old Boys and The Saint of Killers miniseries) for DC Comics, and Just a Pilgrim for Black Bull Entertainment.
In 2009 his son Hector inked his pencil work for Strontium Dog: Blood Moon.
Bloody Mary is the title of a series of science fiction comic book limited series written by Garth Ennis and illustrated by Carlos Ezquerra. All of the series were published as part of DC Comics Helix imprint. It is also the name of the main protagonist of the series.
The first series, Bloody Mary, ran for four issues from October 1996 to January 1997. The second series, Bloody Mary: Lady Liberty, also ran for four issues, from September to December 1997.
Both series are set in the year 2012 in a fascistic (mainland) Europe, which is at war with the USA and England. In the first series, the titular character, Corporal "Bloody Mary" Malone, a former nun and current commando, is sent to Europe to retrieve a doomsday weapon now in the hands of her former commander.
The second series, Bloody Mary: Lady Liberty deals with a religious maniac who has taken over New York City and is slaughtering thousands of innocent people. As part of her 'price' for this second mission, Mary demands the Statue of Liberty be rebuilt.
Link: Bloody Mary - 4 of 4 - Plus Lady Liberty - 4 of 4 - Full (English)
