Steven Shaviro is using Twitter to fire out 140-character bomblets of thought. Professor Shaviro is never less than interesting. Also honoured to find the following sends:

Warren Ellis’ Doktor Sleepless. The future is Not Fun, but it is already here. Instant comms, body mods. A cure for “aggressive apathy”?

Warren Ellis’ Crooked Little Vein: hilarious pseudo-noir. Godzilla bukkake, saline testicular injections etc. And inspiring to boot.

http://twitter.com/shaviro.

HarperCollins/William Morrow, the publisher of my novel CROOKED LITTLE VEIN (out from July 24), have printed up thousands of CROOKED LITTLE VEIN temporary tattoos. They’re lovely little things with the snake on them. These tattoos are going to be given away at the San Diego convention — at my CLV signing, at the HarperCollins booth, and probably at the Avatar booth too.

(I can’t send you the tattoos, so please don’t ask.)

If you’re going, grab one of the tattoos, put it on, and take a photo of yourself wearing it at the convention. Send it to crookedlittlevein@googlemail.com as an attachment by August 7. These photos will be scanned by experts, scientists and perverts from a variety of different disciplines, and the owners of the five favourite photos will each win a signed copy of CROOKED LITTLE VEIN.

(So send it from an email address you actually check, because HarperCollins will contact the winners on the email address you send the photo from to get your details.)

Why August 7? I won’t be checking before then as I’m en route to Arizona immediately after SDCC, to sign comics and boil alive at Atomic Comics in Mesa.

Also, for those attending the show, I should add that the good people at Fox Atomic will be giving away special CROOKED LITTLE VEIN t-shirts to prize-wheel winners at their booth. (I can’t get you the t-shirts either.)

And so it is said.

– W

Notes: cigarette breaks are built into all signing times. I do not include sessions with the press in this public schedule, nor my meetings. I’m pretty much working from 9am to 1am every day of the show. These are the times you can catch me in public to have your books mutilated or listen to me slurring into a microphone:

Wednesday
6.00pm – 8.30pm
Avatar Press booth (#2800)

Thursday
11:00am – 1:30pm
4:00pm – 6:30pm
Avatar Press booth (#2800)

Avatar Press party — I’ll appear sometime between 9pm – 2am – no, I can’t get you in there

Friday
10:00am – 12:30pm
Avatar Press booth (#2800)

CROOKED LITTLE VEIN signing
2pm – 4pm
Mysterious Galaxy booth (#1119 – 1123)

Saturday
10:30am to 1:30pm
Avatar Press booth (#2800)

4:15pm-5:15pm
Room 6A
Re\Visioned: Tomb Raider: A GameTap Exclusive Animated Series: the panel will showcase a full episode by Warren Ellis and an exclusive preview of upcoming episodes.

9:00pm-11:00pm
Room 6CDEF
Spotlight on Warren Ellis: two hours of Q&A with the audience.

Sunday
10:00am to 12:30pm
2:00pm to 4:00pm
Avatar Press booth (#2800)

As in direct-to-internet TV, as opposed to D2DVD/direct-to-DVD. In the serial form, the most recent big push in d21 has been SANCTUARY: notable for its visible budget, its fan-friendly casting and its pay model.

The other shoe just dropped at Sci-Fi Channel:

SCI FI Channel will revive its popular original show Farscape as a Web-based series of short films on SCIFI.COM’s SCI FI Pulse broadband network, part of a slate of new original online programming.

SCI FI has ordered 10 webisodes of Farscape, to be produced by Brian Henson and Robert Halmi Jr. and produced by The Jim Henson Co., in association with RHI Entertainment.

The series will expand the Farscape universe, but the network had no announcements on casting or premiere dates.

A near-perfect solution for FARSCAPE, which couldn’t grow its audience on Sci-Fi Channel in season 4 but which does have a massive, active internet fanbase. Including, yes, people who do say “frell” in actual conversation. Now, here’s the trick: do they offer it free to the web and make their money back on the DVD, or do they pay-gate it?

(Also, I saw a trailer for FLASH GORDON, which has, even in this 30-second tease, that unique “made in Vancouver with bits we nicked off the STARGATE sets” feel. And no rocketships.)

Every week — and I mean, every single week — something happens on the face of this planet that I could not reasonably have predicted. Every single week, the planet does not disappoint.

Cervical piercing.

Even more interestingly: the piercee in question is FTM, and the piercing, a personal symbol of the ownership and control he has over his body, has been placed prior to a planned radical hysterectomy.

Friday
Avatar Press booth (#2800)

Warren Ellis signing (10:00am to 12:30pm)

CROOKED LITTLE VEIN signing 2pm-4pm at Mysterious Galaxy booth

Saturday
Avatar Press booth
Warren Ellis signing (10:30am to 1:30pm)

Tomb Raider Panel (4:15pm to 5:15pm)

Warren Ellis signing (5:30pm to 7:00pm)

Sunday
Avatar Press booth

Warren Ellis signing (10:00am to 12:30pm)

Warren Ellis signing (2:00pm to 4:00pm)

Friday
2pm – 4pm
at the Mysterious Galaxy booth
(don’t ask me where that is)

Wednesday
Avatar Press booth (#2800)

Warren Ellis signing (6:00pm to 8:30pm)

(note: cigarette breaks are built into all signing times)

Thursday
Avatar Press booth

Warren Ellis signing (11:00 to 1:30)
Warren Ellis signing (4:00 to 6:30)

Avatar party 9pm – 2am

4:15pm-5:15pm
Re\Visioned: Tomb Raider: A GameTap Exclusive Animated Series?
In celebration of the 10th Anniversary of Tomb Raider, GameTap has assembled legendary artists and writers including Jim Lee (Batman: Hush, WildC.A.T.s), Warren Ellis (The Authority, Transmetropolitan), Peter Chung (Aeon Flux, Animatrix), Gail Simone (Wonder Woman, Birds of Prey), and Brian Pulido (Lady Death, The Darkness) to participate in the first season of GameTap?s newest original series, Re\Visioned. Each artist and writer applied their unique talents to reinvent leading lady Lara Croft in his or her own way, creating a new animated series airing exclusively on GameTap.com. Join us for an all-star panel as these industry legends share their creative experiences in bringing a gaming icon to life. Moderated by series creator Ricardo Sanchez, the panel will showcase a full episode by Warren Ellis and an exclusive preview of upcoming episodes. Room 6A

9:00pm-11:00pm
Spotlight on Warren Ellis
Warren Ellis (Authority, Black Summer) is not only one of the most critically acclaimed writers of comic books but also one of the most outspoken. Don’t miss this chance to see him talk about everything from modern technology to how he crafts a tale, and get special sneak peaks of his new Avatar titles Doktor Sleepless, Black Summer, and some amazing surprise project announcements! Room 6CDEF

http://www.warrenellis.com/

Bad Signal email diary

http://www.the-engine.net/forum/

http://www.myspace.com/warrenellis

http://warren-ellis.livejournal.com/

http://www.pownce.com/ellis/

Thanks to the sainted Donna Ricci, the page in question:

Apparently today’s ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY features me in their Hot 100 list of creative people. The PR magicians at HarperCollins yanked my listing off Nexis — others have told me that I’m right next to JK Rowling on the list — and it seems that this is what they used:

85
Warren Ellis
‘CROOKED LITTLE VEIN’
AGE 39

WHY HIM
A hugely acclaimed, acidic comic-book scribe, Ellis expands his repertoire this July with a brilliantly nasty and weird detective novel, Crooked Little Vein.

ENERGY BARS
Ellis found it “murderous” to find time to write it: “It came down to banging out a thousand words a day in the pub before I started the day’s comics work. If it wasn’t for Red Bull and Silk Cut cigarettes, the damn thing would never have seen the light of day.”

You’ll note that, after receiving the crate of Red Bull, I am now blatantly angling for a container vessel full of Silk Cut.

A few times a year, I get invited to what the organisers describe as “small sf conventions” — mini-cons with no more than one or two hundred attendees. I did one once, I think because Norman Spinrad had attended this particular one in the past and seemed to have had a good time. It was called Wincon V, and I think it remains my worst convention experience ever.

So, on the assumption that conventions looking to invite me will be putting convention, conventions, sf, con, cons, contact and the like into the search engine first — no. No way in hell. Sorry. I would rather cut out my own stomach with an old butter knife. Which is not a million miles away from what attending Wincon V was like.

Please return to your duties.

Well, this is just fucking weird.

I just heard from Rich Johnston, who gave me the following list of Eagle Awards given out in Bristol on Saturday Night:

Favourite Comics Writer
WARREN ELLIS

Favourite New Comicbook
NEXTWAVE

Favourite Comics Story published during 2006
NEXTWAVE

Favourite Comics Villain
DIRK ANGER

Roll of Honour
WARREN ELLIS

This is so wrong.

myspace

email diary

livejournal

my messageboard

my messageboard’s social network system

flickr

last.fm

Second Life columns at Reuters

CASTLEVANIA: DRACULA’S CURSE workblog

(These are the active ones: have previously had presences on places like Xpeeps, Comicspace, MyNetSpot, Consumating, Suicide Girls, but have pared things back to the ones that are personally useful and/or interesting. Haven’t got rid of Facebook yet, but am obviously going to because it’s useless.)

Email is still warrene @ aol.com.

ROCKET PIRATES Alert

Serial catastrophic email failures have completely wrecked my plans. I swear, God waits for me to attempt something and then shits in my computer.

If I contacted you to approve you for ROCKET PIRATES, then please please email me as soon as possible at warrene@aol.com.

Due to those email failures and a few other things, I don’t have certain materials required for launch. So we’re going to go in January. New site, new year. That does, however, give us a month’s buffer to work out some stuff.

I’m not taking submissions at the above email address.

Nothing’s ever fucking simple, is it?

Feel free to post this far and wide. ROCKET PIRATES: 2007 or suicide.

Me interviewed by graphic novelist Neil Kleid at Newsarama.

It appears that I’m going to be attending the San Diego Comics Convention in 2007.

I was talking to William at Avatar last month, and he was saying I should do SD again one day. So I said, sure, get me a business class flight, a decent hotel room, and security because Niki’s convinced one of us is going to get shot at a big convention one day, and you’re on. Knowing full well that all that would not happen.

Which is my usual mistake.

He came back a week later and said, I’ve sorted all that, you are now a guest of Avatar Press at the 2007 San Diego Comics Convention.

Shit.

When I touch down, it will have been ten years since I attended SDCC. It’s more than doubled in attendance size since then. I said for years that I’ll never go back, but dogma is ugly, and I should take another look
and see what’s changed. I’m trusting that William won’t lock me to a table for nine hours a day. Given the insane lines for me to deface books at Heroes Con this past summer, I would probably die. Three hours is about my limit: after that, my right hand gets pulped from having to shake with everyone who brings a book.

So there you go. I will be a guest of Avatar Press at San Diego in 2007.

I will, of course, require nurses.

(You KNEW I was going to say that.)