Ignition City TPB Cover Painting - Felipe Massafera

Ignition City by Warren Ellis. Or as I like to say: Another Avatar series where they went digging in a famous writer's trash can and fished out an idea that was one line long.

And it kind of shows here. An interesting set-up where our protagonist and main character Mary Raven gets notified that her father was killed at Ignition City, the last active spaceport on Earth.

I'll leave the rest for you to read the book. It's actually very enjoyable.

Warren Ellis is credited as writing the book, but it feels more like he just plotted an outline of a story idea and then Avatar had someone ghost write it. There's some really interesting elements, but it just didn't have enough pages or a strong enough (actual) writer to really fill this idea out fully. Yet for some reason I really enjoy this series. Like a lot more than I should. Probably because the setting is so interesting and what world building there was, is great. Some Flash Gordon, a bit of Buck Rogers, a nod to Warlord of Mars, and echo of later League of Extraordinary Gentlemen wrapped in a murder mystery.

It brings me back to what I like to think is the golden age of sci-fi. Stories that were written before we had good enough telescopes and probes to know that there was no life on Mars (or before we accidently killed that life).

Pictured here are Mary Raven, Lightning Bowman, Gayle Ransom, Marshall Pomeroy channeling some Rocketeer action, and a partially cut off Bronco.

Gouache over graphite on watercolor board with an image area of 12" x 19"