Grant Morrison. Discuss.

[Matteo]

A perverse part of me was tempted to leave this thread with just the title. But I suppose I should put down my thoughts first and let others weigh in. Elsewhere, on the What are you reading thread, I've mentioned some brief comments over time, but my latest foray into the mind of GM has persuaded me to start a separate thread.

I first read his work in the early 90's when I picked up almost his entire run of Doom Patrol for about 20p a copy - it was a shop advertising in Comics International and his name was not even mentioned; just the title which intrigued me and I thought for that price worth a punt. I thought it was strange, crazy and fun. A few years ago I filled in the few gaps and now I have the omnibus.

A few years later my local comic dealer recommended The Invisibles. Again, he didn't say "by Grant Morrison!!" but simply that he thought it was good. I started buying the issues every month and it was (is) good. Very good. And unlike anything I'd read before. A bit more structured than Doom Patrol and more "adult" and some strange concepts and, toward the end especially, occasionally coming close to stepping over the line separating weird and "huh?", but superb. Over the years it received repeated readings and I now own the omnibus.

Of course, since then (more or less) his reputation has grown and his name is mentioned in the same breathe as Gaiman and Moore. In an effort to see whether this reputation is deserved I have bought other graphic novels and collections which I list below with some brief comments:

- Animal Man: good stories, great character development, but leave the fourth wall alone...
- The Filth: stepped over that line...(see "what are reading")
- We3: wonderful story
- All Star Superman: excellent and thoughtful
- New X-Men: great fun, a bit mad, but fun
- his Batman run: very good, restrained but not too restrained
- The Flash: nothing special, could be anyone writing
- Seven Soldiers: another fun one, obviously he liked the source material
- Joe the Barbarian: clever
- Superman-Action Comics: trying to be too clever resulting in a mess
- Nameless: bizarre, nasty, a bit confusing, but ultimately good

It boggles my mind that the person who wrote All Star Superman and The Filth are the same person. I assume that on certain, well-established, titles his excesses are controlled by "the powers that be" because when he lets go he can really let go. Unfortunately, that letting go can degenerate into a mess (e.g. The Filth and Action Comics - for different reasons).

My feeling is that he is at his best when he is given some freedom but with someone telling him "err...no Grant you can't say that, or that, and certainly not that and he can't do that", because the guy can write, he really can. He comes up with interesting ideas, crazy concepts and thoughtful situations and characters. Unfortunately he often disappears up his own you know what.

Anyway, that's enough from me. Discuss.

 

[HareBrain]

I agree with you on The Invisibles -- have read two or three times will probably do so again before long. I found it amazingly exciting (and frustrating) on both reads. It is almost the initiatory experience he (somewhat big-headedly) claims it to be, in my opinion. I mentioned him in the acknowledgements page of my novel on the strength of its effect on me and my ideas.

Nameless I didn't get on with. Couldn't really see the point of it. But I might read it again to try to get some value for money out of it.

The Filth, I can see where you're coming from. Towards the end I thought I could see where he was coming from -- is it about our attitude to what might be called the grosser parts of physical existence, including our own bodies, with a kind of female bent? The fact that he's a chaos magician ties in a bit with that. I could be completely wrong, though, and I'd need to reread it, which I might do soon.

Joe the Barbarian is a wonderful book.

I've also read Supergods, part a history of comic books and part autobio, which I'd recommend to anyone interested in his work. I liked it even though I have no interest in superheroes.

 

[The Big Peat]

I have only read The Invisibles and I think HB pretty much sums up my position there. He shot for the moon and very nearly got it. The way the conflict changes is still one of the biggest influences on how I view life.

I should really read his other stuff.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Ah, something from my reading era.

Enjoyed his Zenith series in 2000AD, which was helped by Steve Yowell's stark black and white artwork.

Animal Man - think I came across this via a UK reprint - interesting, but not something I've ever been compelled to re-read.

Doom Patrol - quite wonderful for its unique bizarreness, but it still managed to retain a strong and coherent - and sometimes surprising - plot. Still have this on my shelves and keep thinking to re-read again but haven't yet.

Not read anything since, not least because I parted from comics in the early 1990's and never went back. Doom Patrol was enough for me to make Grant Morrison one of the stand-out writers of the time, along with Neil Gaiman (Sandman), Jamie Delano (Hellblazer), and of course some of the works of Alan Moore and Frank Miller.

 

[Lucien21]

Arkham Asylum is brilliant.

 

[Sargeant_Fox]

One or two years ago I finally bought the DC 1,000,000 omnibus, a dream come true: to read my favorite DC crossover in its entirety, when for a whole month he entire DC line was plotted by Morrison's mad ideas. Sadly not every writer rose to his standards, but the scope of the thing was staggering.

I still remember a time when Doom Patrol wasn't traded, a legend everyone talked about with reverence; and when they started getting traded, the joy of reading them one by one as they came out, the excruciating wait, the excitement when a new release was announced, the satisfaction of seeing the six volumes on my shelf.

Incredibly, I've been postponing Animal Man for years now, I don't know why. But I think I needed to keep a distance after the disappointment that was Final Crisis; Morrison dropped a lot in my admiration after that. But going through DC 1,000,000 again I was reminded why I love his comics so much.