Warren Ellis Teams With Jason Howard For New ‘Scatterlands’ Comic

The more cynical amongst you may have thought, now that Warren Ellis is a New York Times best-selling novelist with the release of his second novel Gun Machine, that he would abandon comics like a used-up kleenex and move onto more lucrative, highbrow creative outlets. The more cynical amongst you would be wrong, in that case, with the writer teasing a new project on his website this weekend.

The tease is just that: An image with a title and the name of Ellis' collaborator on the project (Jason Howard, likely best known for his work with Robert Kirkman on Super Dinosaur and The Astounding Wolf-Man), accompanied by Ellis' two word caption promising "Late February" and a link to Howard's Twitter account. Nothing else.

Given that, as recently as the beginning of this month, Ellis was being nostalgic for his webcomic Freakangels - "I do miss serial storytelling," the writer told Chris Arrant at Robot 6. "Weirdly (because I was exhausted and glad to see the back of the bugger), what I miss most is the FreakAngels mode. Online, weekly, free. It was as close as I've gotten to the 2000AD production style, and also, in my head, to a television series. One that went on weekly for three years, sure. But the term I always used for it was 'free-to-air,' because, in my head, that's what it was all about. Being able to broadcast a comic just after noon every Friday completely free for three years and change. It was a real struggle to do at times, but it was a lot of fun, and felt right" - it's not too much of a leap to consider that Scatterlands will be another series in that format - especially considering that the late February date is too soon to allow for a print release that hasn't been solicited by any publisher yet.

Expect more information as the launch date approaches.