Garth Ennis


Garth Ennis is a Northern Ireland-born American comics writer, best known for the Vertigo series Preacher with artist Steve Dillon and his nine-year run on Marvel Comics' Punisher franchise. He has collaborated with artists such as Dillon and Glenn Fabry on Preacher, John McCrea on Hitman, Marc Silvestri on The Darkness, and Carlos Ezquerra on both Preacher and Hitman.

Career

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 John McCrea, it told the story of a young, 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 later got their own American comics series, Dicks, from Caliber in 1997, and several follow-ups from Avatar. Ennis was later critical of his writing debut, which he describes as "the kind of thing that was doing well at the time. With hindsight, what Troubled Souls really represented was naked ambition. It was a direct attempt to get published. And that was the road that seemed most likely to lead me to success".
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the two Troubles stories it was collected as a graphic novel in 1990, but religious protests led to it being quickly withdrawn from sale, apparently on the orders of publisher Robert Maxwell.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, Emerald Isle, and the twenty-part epic Judgment Day. Ennis also contributed the surreal Time Flies, dealing with time-travel paradoxes and Nazis.
Ennis' first work on an American comic came in 1991 when he took over DC Comics's horror title Hellblazer, which he wrote until 1994. 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 allowed 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 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 from 1996 to 2001, veering wildly from violent action to humor 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.
His work has won him recognition in the comics industry, including nominations for the Comics Buyer's Guide Award for Favorite Writer in 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000. Ennis is also known for his disdain for superhero stories and characters, a genre that had dominated the American comic book industry for decades. He prefers more "grounded" characters such as the Punisher, John Constantine, or Nick Fury. An avid reader of British war comics during his formative years, Ennis did not read superhero comics until his late teens, at which point he found them ridiculous. He has stated : "I find most superhero stories completely meaningless. Which is not to say I don’t think there’s potential for the genre – Alan Moore and Warren Ellis have both done interesting work with the notion of what it might be like to be and think beyond human, see Miracleman, Watchmen and Supergod. But so long as the industry is geared towards fulfilling audience demand – ie, for the same brightly coloured characters doing the same thing forever – you’re never going to see any real growth. The stories can’t end, so they’ll never mean anything." As a World War II aficionado, he finds characters like Captain America "borderline offensive, because to me the reality of World War II was very human people, ordinary flesh-and-blood guys who slogged it out in miserable, flooded foxholes. So adding some fantasy superhero narrative, that has always annoyed me a little bit." Although he has written a number of superhero stories, Ennis has tried to "subvert" the genre as well as he could. He does, however, like Superman and Wonder Woman. In the 1995 one-shot special Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe, Ennis has the Punisher kill every single superhero and supervillain on Earth.
After the end of Hitman, Ennis was hired at 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 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 and one-shots. The creators of ' have attributed Ennis's The Punisher MAX run as one of the major influences on the film. While at Marvel, Ennis also wrote stories for Spider-Man, Ghost Rider, 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 for DC; The Pro for Image Comics; The Authority for Wildstorm; Just a Pilgrim for Black Bull Press, and 303, Chronicles of Wormwood, and a western comic book, Streets of Glory for Avatar Press.
In 2002, an interview with Ennis was published in Writers on Comic Scriptwriting.
In 2006, it was announced that Ennis would write a new creator-owned extended series titled The Boys, originally published by Wildstorm. After six issues, The Boys was cancelled by Wildstorm. Ennis later explained that this was because DC Comics were uneasy with the anti-superhero tone of the work. The series was picked up by Dynamite Entertainment. The Boys was illustrated by Darick Robertson, who previously worked with Ennis on the Marvel series ' and '. The Boys ran for 72 issues, and concluded in 2012.
Ennis wrote the first arc of WildStorm's Midnighter 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 World War I 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 and a Punisher project reuniting him with artist Steve Dillon. He has also worked with Jimmy Palmiotti on Back to Brooklyn, a crime-based limited series for Image Comics.
In 2011 Ennis wrote and directed a short film, Stitched, produced to drum up support for a possible feature and to promote the Avatar series of the same name.
On 19 April 2012, Dynamite published The Shadow No. 1 written by Ennis, featuring the pulp character. In a surprise move, Ennis attempted to crowdfund a children's book through the Kickstarter platform.
Ennis returned to Marvel, reuniting with artist Goran Parlov, with ' in 2013. In keeping with Ennis's subversion of superhero tropes, the MAX series stripped Nick Fury of his more science fiction trappings in favour of real-world military and CIA situations, centering on the First Indochina War. That same year, with artist Howard Chaykin, Ennis wrote the seven-issue Dynamite miniseries Red Team.
In 2014, Avatar published his sci-fi horror series, inspired by the movie Prometheus Also that year, Ennis returned to writing War Stories.
Artist John McCrea reunited with Ennis on Six Pack, a miniseries from DC in 2015, following the adventures of the supporting characters from their previous Hitman series. He also wrote a series for Marvel, Where Monsters Dwell, part of the Secret Wars event.
Preacher, the AMC series adapted from his comic of the same name, premiered in 2016. The Boys was also adapted into a TV series by Amazon and premiered in 2019.

Personal life

Ennis is an atheist. He is an enthusiastic student of the history of World War II.

Awards