Desolation JonesWritten by Warren Ellis
Art by J.H. Williams III
2006
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Spy stories all (pretty much) run on the idea that being a secret agent is the coolest job in the world. I read somewhere once that (statistically speaking) everyone on the planet has seen at least one James Bond film: but then with that 24 hour party lifestyle - (exotic locations, glamorous gadgets and thrilling escapades and all the rest of it): who are you to resist?
But what happens when the party finally starts to die down: and the guy that spent his life living on an excess of excess starts to frazzle apart and burn out - what happens when you're drinking not to have a good time but because you have to? ...
That guy with the grey skin stinking of leftover alcohol and cigarettes? That's Desolation Jones: the human personification of sticky floor the day after the party - with The Door's "When The Music's Over" playing on a loop in the room next door [1] (or if you prefer: The Weeknd), shiny no-longer white t-shirt sticking to your wheezy chest and a suspect stain's slowly creeping all over your body: this is what happens when a spy gets broke.
Combine this guy with a story structure built out of jet black Noir and leave to burn in the Los Angeles sunshine: and you've got a pretty good idea of what to expect from this comic. Noir is the perfect form for a guy like Desolation ("Desolation" - what a great word): one of the unspoken rules for noir stories is that whatever the luckless protagonist/detective is leading the way has to be past his best - and Desolation is nothing if not past his best: as are all the other poor walking wounded he meets along the way. Combine with a search for a priceless missing x (in this case: the holy grail of dirty movies), a total lack of trustworthy characters, dirty secrets hiding inside other dirty secrets and a past full of more pain than is human comprehensible we're off: and everyone is doomed.
From talking to other people (you know who you are): this is the Warren Ellis story for people that normally can't stand Warren Ellis. One of the big parts of that has got to be the lovingly rendered and detailed by J.H Williams III - who you really should know from his gob-smacking jaw-dropping mouth-watering work on Alan Moore's Promethea - (what do you mean you haven't read it?) who here makes despair and squalor look succulent and semi-magnificent and who's panel work is constructed less like something that's just doggingly going through and more like he's playing music (am loving the boxes falling across the action capturing each moment in it's own space - and the ghostly shadows cutting the wrong way (right to left) across the page). There's also this very cool slow-mo bullet-time thing going on - where reality snaps into red, black and white and everything gets all bendy. Too many comics rely on the same basic colours and styles throughout - but not this one: every chance it gets (mainly through Jones' druggy freakouts) the palette and perspectives start to shift and the tone bounces around all the minor notes mixing it up with a washed out - and it's all the better for it. Another reason why this it's good is that mostly (supermodernism speech aside) it avoids dropping in big ideas and instead focuses on the human cost of a good time all the time with one standout scene nestled in the middle that brings home how messed up things can get - in a nicely understated way (which makes a change to Warren Ellis' other stuff - which normally goes for the money shot).
Gotta say too: that this would be the perfect book to read in tandem with another Warren Ellis book called "Fell" - which is the night-time twin to Desolation's day-time horrors. So yeah.
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[1] Not that I'm a Doors fan or anything: but that song's sweats kinda the same kinda of loose, sleazy energy as the book - and Jim "Mojo Rising" Morrison fat mystic hippy routine is the kinda headache inducing character you could imagine hiding in the background in one of the many (beautiful oh so beautiful) panels.
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Links: Londonist Interview with Warren Ellis, Desolation Jones #1: Author’s Commentary, Focused Totality Review of #2, Focused Totality Review of #6, PopMatters Review, Grovel Review.
Further reading: The Filth, Promethea, Queen and Country, Fell, Sleeper, Sin City, Red, FreakAngels, Batwoman: Elegy, Goldfish.
Profiles: Warren Ellis, J. H. Williams III.
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