Word Balloons: 'Red' film based on spy graphic novel

Bruce Willis stars as Frank Moses in "Red," opening this weekend in theaters. "Red" is based on the comic book miniseries by writer Warren Ellis and artist Cully Hamner.

Moses is a retired black ops officer who is targeted for assassination, causing him to reassemble his old unit. The film, directed by Robert Schwentke, also stars Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Mary Louise Parker and Helen Mirren.

Ellis is one of the more acclaimed comic-book writers of the past 20 years; he broke into comics in 1990, and was working for Marvel Comics by 1994. The following is a selection of a few of the writer's graphic novel works outside of the superhero genre:

Jack Cross: Ellis wrote four issues about this anti-terrorist agent for DC Comics in 2005. Gary Erskine was the artist. A new collection of the four-issue series was released this month from DC.