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In the comics scene for sure, but in a "here's the 6 classic graphic novels you have to read" sense where most people have maybe read the first issue for the cred then nothing else. Although Ellis got cancelled a few years back, so he has been downplayed in normie spaces.
I read all of it, but I always thought it was a niche (not a comic book guy, it was recommended to me by one). Also I missed his cancellation, what did he do?
The short version is that he is/was attracted to a certain sort of woman highly represented by his fan base, is famous enough to take advantage of it, and managed this lifestyle poorly. His status in the comics/nerdy interest world was sufficient to allow him to form a sort of rolling soft harem of young (younger than him anyway) women around the English-speaking world. His particular approach (game?) seems to have been to make these women feel special and unique, and that they had a special and unique relationship with him.
Based on the hit-site (https://somanyofus.com/) that his "victims" made, he seems to have made at least 60 or so young women feel that they had a special, unique relationship with him, many simultaneously. The Pick Up people call this “spinning plates”, keeping multiple, limited commitment, relationships all going at once. His particular approach seems to have really made these damaged women think that there was more of a future to the relationship than there really was, and he seemed prone to ‘ghosting’ them without warning. Some famous men are able to manage something not unlike this, but they usually do so through honesty about the limited future of the relationship, where these women seem to genuinely feel to have been strung along then unceremoniously dropped without notice.
Reading some of the statements in the above website, it also gives a bit of a soft cult leader vibe too. He had a rather large online presence in the 00s and interacted with his fan groups a lot, more than I’ve seen with a lot of popular artists who tend to keep a more distant approach through an agent or assistant etc. He seemed to be personally running the Warren Ellis fan forums and appointing admins/mods etc. I was very active online then, but was never much of a comics reader, though many of my friends were. I don’t remember any other artists/authors being this directly involved in their own fandoms. He paid a lot of attention to his forums, fan groups, and the events they held, always keeping an eye out for one of his "type" of woman, who he would then begin to directly message.
The hit-site is worth reading, I think, at least for young (and maybe not so young) men. Particularly the “Testimonials” (https://somanyofus.com/testimonials)
It’s an incredible collection of the wide variety of red flags they may encounter interacting with modern, western women, and object lessons on the dangers of mishandling your interactions with the same.
Thanks for the exhaustive reply. What's the type of woman you're referring to, though? Should I be able to infer that from context? (Aside from "young, attractive") Sorry if that's on the website you linked, I haven't read it yet
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How many others just saw this post in the comments feed and went "Wait, why would Neil Gaiman be moderating Warren Ellis fan forums?" before clicking it?
You got me, it appears Neil used Ellis's playbook too.
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It appeared to me to be the typical 'guy who likes kinky things who got consent before engaging but isn't handsome enough to retain consent in the face of metoo' thing, but he apologised for it and who, aside from The Shadow, knows what lurks in the hearts of men?
What did you think of transmetropolitan? I might be disappointed in him, but that doesn't affect his work and Ellis is one of my favourite modern authors. Transmetropolitan was the last work of his I read though (it was basically impossible to get here for a long time) and I found it a bit of a slog. His later works are a lot more editor friendly.
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