Bad Signal is a comic book series created in 2003

2003 in comics

-January:* January 2: Kid Colt artist Jack Keller dies at age 80.- April :* Action Comics #800: Double-sized anniversary issue, "A Hero's Journey," by Joe Kelly, Pascual Ferry, and Duncan Rouleau...

 by Warren Ellis

Warren Ellis

Warren Girard Ellis is an English author of comics, novels, and television, who is well-known for sociocultural commentary, both through his online presence and through his writing, which covers transhumanist themes...

 and Jacen Burrows

Jacen Burrows

Jacen Burrows is a San Diego born American artist best known for his work on various comic books from Avatar Press.-Biography:He graduated from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 1996 with a degree in Sequential Art...

, and published by Avatar Press

Avatar Press

Avatar Press is an independent American publisher of comic books, founded in 1996 by William A. Christensen, and based in Rantoul, Illinois.Avatar initially published only mini-series; however, they have since begun to branch out...

.

The series is a comic book in name only, as it actually combines Ellis' commentary on bizarre, obscure news articles from around the world (but mostly the US) with many and various artistic interpretations of those stories. The language is, characteristically, bleak and witty and the illustrations are either satirical or tragic, and occasionally a bit of both. Bad Signal is a tour through the strangest human obsessions that Ellis et al. could find and becomes, eventually, a meditation on the contemporary tendency toward obsessive behaviour in the first place.

Mailing list

Bad Signal is also the name that Ellis has given to his subscription mailing list on which he spouts various words of wisdom about his comics, TV, and film production, as well as life in the 21st century, culture and technology, and world politics. It runs parallel to his personal website but they do not often carry exactly the same content. This Bad Signal is available in print, but is primarily accessible through Flirble's Mailing Lists. He typically posts to the mailing list from his PDA while at the pub.