Gordon Rennie is a former music journalist turned comics writer, responsible for White Trash: Moronic Inferno, as well as several comic strips for 2000 AD and novels for Warhammer Fantasy. Recently he has been working more in the computer games industry, with comics writing becoming a sideline.
Rennie's first work was published in Blast! magazine in 1991; a metafictional Sherlock Holmes story called "Sherlock Holmes in the Curious Case of the Vanishing Villain", painted by Woodrow Phoenix. It also featured appearances by characters from other Victorian fiction including Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and characters from stories by Edgar Allan Poe.
He then showed his surprising range with the completely different White Trash in the same issue - a satirical journey through the USA, drawn by the New Zealand artist Martin Emond. Both these stories were later collected into one-shot graphic novels and published by Tundra Publishing. Two further planned collaborations with Phoenix, a one-shot graphic novel called "Orson Welles: Special Agent!" and Necronauts, later completed with Frazer Irving, were halted when Tundra Press ceased publishing in 1993.
Rennie's first major series for the 2000 AD family was Missionary Man, which began in Judge Dredd Megazine vol.2 #29 (5/93) and ran between "the Meg" and 2000 AD for 74 episodes before finishing in 2002. Other original series have included Witch World (1997) and Rain Dogs (2000). He also took over the exploits of the perennial Judge Dredd villain Mean Machine (2000-01), as well as the return of the original Rogue Trooper (2002-04).
Among his most celebrated work for 2000 AD is the miniseries Necronauts (2000-01), in which Harry Houdini, Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Fort, and (inevitably) H. P. Lovecraft team up to defeat an incomprehensibly alien menace that seeks to destroy the human race. This was quickly followed up by the ongoing series Caballistics, Inc. (41 episodes as of August 2005), a story about a recently privatized team of occult researchers, which pleased fans with its combination of pop-cultural references and labyrinthine conspiracies.
By 2004, Rennie had become the "number two" writer on the Judge Dredd strip, following up a number of subplots initiated by its principal author, John Wagner, as well as developing his own situations and guest characters, some of whom have spun-off into popular stories of their own. While the lengthier, "epic" Judge Dredd adventures are typically scripted by Wagner, Rennie was awarded one in 2005. This story, "Blood Trails," ran for ten episodes beginning in 2000 AD prog 1440 (5/25/05).
His novels for Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 include Zavant, Ulli and Marquand, the Kal Jerico stories Bloodquest, and Execution Hour and 'Shadow Point for Battlefleet Gothic.
Rennie is known for maintaining close links with the fan community, for example by contributing to small press comics such as Solar Wind, despite a public persona he describes as "a grumpy Scottish git."
Bibliography[]
Comics[]
- Bloodquest: Eye of Terror Trilogy (with Colin MacNeil, Black Library, 256 pages, 2005, ISBN 1-84416-146-3) collects:
- Bloodquest (104 pages, 1999, ISBN 1-84154-108-7)
- Bloodquest: Into the Eye of Terror (54 pages, 2001, ISBN 1-84154-126-5)
- Bloodquest: The Daemon's Mark (96 pages, 2003, ISBN 1-84416-057-2)
- Kal Jerico: Underhive Bounty Hunter (Necromunda series, Black Library, 176 pages, 2005, ISBN 1-84416-254-0) collects:
- Kal Jerico (with Karl Kopinski, 54 pages, 2000, ISBN 1-84154-041-2)
- Kal Jerico II: Contracts and Agendas (with Wayne Reynolds, 54 pages, 2001, ISBN 1-84154-209-1)
- The Life and Time of Ulli & Marquand and Their Misadventures in Mordheim, City of the Damned (with Gavin Thorpe, Mike Perkins, and Karl Kopinski, Black Library, 80 pages, 2002, ISBN 1-84154-211-3)
- Daemonifuge: Judgement of Tears (with Kev Walker and Karl Richardson, Black Library, 88 pages, 2003, ISBN 1-84154-240-7)
- Whatever Happened To?:
- "Maria" (with Graham Manley, in Judge Dredd Megazine #215, 2004)
- "John 'Giant' Clay" (with Rufus Dayglo, in Judge Dredd Megazine #216, 2004)
- "Conrad Conn" (with Carlos Trigo, in Judge Dredd Megazine #218, 2004)
- "The Gribligs" (with Steve Roberts, in Judge Dredd Megazine #219, 2004)
- Deff Skwadron (with Paul Jeacock, Black Library, 64 pages, 2003, ISBN 1-84416-069-6)
Novels[]
Warhammer 40,000[]
- Gothic War Series
- The Gothic War (Omnibus, 2010, ISBN 1-84416-900-6) contains the following:
- Execution Hour (2001, ISBN 0-74341-165-X)
- Shadowpoint (2003, ISBN 0743443268)
- The Gothic War (Omnibus, 2010, ISBN 1-84416-900-6) contains the following:
- Necromunda series
- Blood Royal (with Will McDermott, 2005, ISBN 1-84416-190-0)
Warhammer[]
- Zavant (2002, ISBN 0743411749)
Awards[]
- 2004 Graphic Novel of the Year, Diamond Comics Awards (for Necronauts)
- 2006 Screenplay (video games), British Academy of Film and Television Arts nomination for writing the script for the Rogue Trooper game[1]