Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Grant Morrison Interview at arthur mag

i know Grant Morrison is a mixed bag for lots of people -- personally i get a huge mad rush on his ideas and endeavors

a quote from the article -
" ... I'm hoping the prose stuff will be the next continuation of where I want to go. The comics audience is becoming more and more compressed and unpleasant. It's really sad. After I did Seaguy and so many people said didn't get it, I felt completely exasperated.

... many of my readers seem to now be unaware of storytelling structures beyond the Hollywood three-act, and the literalism is so rife that nobody seems to be able to deal with symbolic content anymore."

did anyone pick up Sea Guy & WE 3? thoughts?

what about other Morrison stuff?

I guess I have a love-hate affair with Grant Morrison's work. However, if there's one comic book creator I would like to sit down and question, it's probably him.

I got Seaguy & WE3 (1st issue), on the recommendation of one of the guys at my CBS. WE3, loved the artwork; unsure about the story - at this point it seems like The Incredible Journey updated for 2004.

Seaguy - mixed feelings, overall I enjoyed it. Initially, I was at odds with Morrison's vision of heroism in today's culture (and wrote as much elsewhere) - but after thinking more about it, I'd more sympathetic to (what I interpreted to be) his message. The heroes have been wiped out, the mega-corps rule our minds and it all went over the cliff quite a while ago.

Nevertheless, how this message comes to us courtesy of an entertainment mega-corp remains a baffling enigma and makes me doubt my interpretation.

Quite frankly, I didn't get the Egypt-on-the-moon scene, but maybe it deserves a re-read and some more contemplation.

So I'm not clear where Grant Morrison is coming from. There was an interview with him in the book Anarchy for the Masses, in which he was going on about revolution and new paradigms in one sentence, then salivating at the idea of all the video games he was going to market in the next. Never sure if he's tongue in cheek, deluded or hypocritcal. But I could say the same thing about myself...

I passed on SeaGuy and We3. I read his Animal Man, DP, JLA, Nex X-Men, and The Filth. Sometimes it takes me several re-reads to get an opinion about what he's saying (I never presume to completely know) but I generally enjoy his work. I've read online interviews about an upcoming 7 Soldiers project for DC. I look forward to it.

Grant Morrison is da MAN! (well... i recon) ESPECIALLY LURVED his paticular JLA reign at time!

Hmmmm... lately i've heard that his in cahoots with Wolfman and Perez i THINK to do a CRISIS 2 due next year it seems? ALSO! his supposedly mean't to be workin on a paticular Superman project too!

AA

I can't think of anything I'd like to see LESS than "Crisis 2". I hope this is a horrid rumour.

I liked Seaguy. Didn't love it, but thought it was intriguing. It dort of hot on some of the same ideas as The Filth, but without the, well, filth. Problem is, it was meant to be the first of several Seaguy minis and I doubt that'll happen now with sales.

I think I like Morrison better when he takes on super-heroes, even if he spins them a little different that usual. Like Space Boy, I've read his Animal Man, Doom Patrol, JLA, New X-Men, and The Filth. I didn't care for The Filth, which is why I passed on Seaguy and WE3. Since he'll be doing super-heroes with the Seven Soldiers, I'll look into it.

Morrison's superheroes are amazing... love the clear enthusiasm his artists bring to his scripts -- it's like they're playing this challenge game with each other in the work (look at the difference between Howard Porter's JLA with Morrison and then Waid -- i swear Porter's work suddenly goes to sleep during JLA Tower of Babel storyline)

i also like most of Morrison's other stuff -- the filth was one of the best things i read in recent years -- the individual issues tended to be hysterically funny in concept & execution for me (like the issue where the LA porn producer attacks every working womb in the region with 5' tall floating attack sperm and is taken out by a Filth agent spraying the producer's bum with estrogen from the banana-shaped gun), even if the series finale slid towards sentimentality -- the work illustrated the difficult matter of processing the scuzz, pain, experience and wounds to get to a better position within us/with each other ... and it was important to see that played out in a comic book (where I was able to understand that idea in a much more visceral way)

i do think there's a time in MOST of his work where his process doesn't cohere or the experiment he's trying begins to unravel (New X-Men's first year is great IMO but gradually diminishes over the next 2 years)

never sure if it's editorial interference, just part of the wild madcap ride he's on, a bad day for the artist, or i'm just not on the right frequency to recieve the message

and just for full disclosure:
i'm working on an essay (hopefully to adapt into a chapter of my PhD dissertation) - bopping around ideas in my head right now -- about Warren Ellis, Alan Moore and Grant Morrison as their work relates to creating magic/changing history/crossing tribal lines expertly/as a cultural performance & exchange between writer, artist, company, readers

because NO ONE at UCLA seems to think about comic books like this (even if they do read them), i turn to all y'all for those conversations -- because we're smarter about comic books and i think that comics are still unique mechanisms to create, develop and experiment with ideas

Agree with you, Andy, I love a lot of Morrison's work. His JLA showed an amazing respect and insight to the characters while updating some very tired villians like the Key. He's always at his best when, even if he isn't 'colouring between the lines' he knows where those line are.

Loved his DC1Million because the otherness of many of the ideas seemed, well, futuristic. They were to the present like we would be in mediaval times.

Didn't think he did as well with Xmen because that final 6 part alternate future storyline seemed pretty indulgent when there was so much happening in the present.

Sea Guy was alright, despite the enjoyable wierdness it didn't connect on a human level for me.

We3 is amazing. Sparingly written, it doesn't over anthropamorphise the talking animals, they are creatures of instinct given terrifying weaponary.
It does not make the military or scientists simple villians either. In 2 it points out how the girl who freed them is directly responsible for the deaths of many people.
there's at least one phd in this one too.

lol, we agree on that

and Sea Guy worked for me when i read it in 1 sitting (i had set it aside for that purpose)

it's such a simple idea - the secret origin of the moon -- told as a hero-quest in a time when general consensus is that there are no heroes because all the villains are gone (a little timely, no?), the imaginary talking fish buddy sidekick (reminiscent perhaps of how strange bits of childhood nostalgia cling as we get older), the reduction of a miracle (the creation of life - Xoo) to daily-use product as a multi-purpose paste (cleaning supply to any-food), the roots of civilization being in Egypt not Europe, the sublime villainy of mediocrity (made real by corporate branding, amusement parks & those floating eyes/"I's"???)

all of it was really cool for me

i even liked that the comic seemed to exist in various forms, including a kind of hieroglyphic where comics are used as multi-layered symbolic language

"Sea Guy" could mean, alternately,
*"Sea Guy", literally, that this superhero is aquatic
*"C Guy", meaning the average guy
*"See, Guy", meaning take a look - a warning or a command

i didn't think of this before reading your post, but the sea guy story could be used as a mirror of the current retcon-frenzy clmate in comics.

Sea Guy's story started out as traight forward hero mythology, but as it progresses it becomes darker, more complex and less optimistic. The story reaches an ambiguous conclusion and then is rebooted back to it's start, with a few minor differences. Though he prolly dint mean that.

Picked p JLA classified. didn't intend to but the art was great and i'm interested in the characters. it was only when i'd reread it a couple of times that i realised Grant wrote it.

I enjoy the way he's been pushing the technology towards futuristic possibilities with the gelatin-ware, dustcams and a truly cosmic villian Goriako is interesting and the Squire could become a fave for me. Am amazed that the artist managed to pull of a costume like that and make it work.

That's an interesting view of the story - there really is a frenzy of retcons and revive-the-old in comics these days. Driven by merchandising and exploitation, or are people (the companies and the readers) trying to recapture the golden age of comics because the new stuff doesn't sell? With this interpretation, I guess Morrison is saying it doesn't work, because Sea Guy fails in the hero business and just settles back into his routine life, with a new sidekick.

great points, psychout
gave me more to think about

and is GORAIKO not one of the best new creations in recent years??? an anime hero with his own theme song?

I LOVED IT

Anyone keeping up with Morrison's other "threesomes" We3 - Vinamarama?

I thought the art in We3 was astounding. The story seemed a bit goofy at the start, and I sure don't like blood & gore stories. However, we had animals acting in a species-appropriate way - not like the Legion of Super-Pets - and that's pretty rare in comics. The ending surprised me - maybe wrapped up a little miraculously.

Vinamarama is fun, too. A mix of western/white teenage culture with traditional and mythical eastern lives. Romantic comedy delivered with Morrison's dramatic and roving imagination. An eastern city hidden under a British grocery shop ... an ancient warrior come back to life to claim his (?) reborn or destined love, who just happens to be the main teen character's arranged bride-to-be.

I haven't seen Vinamarama on the shelf, which is a bit sad. I had been planning to check it out. I didn't put it on my pull list because I wasn't sure I'd like it. Ah, well, maybe it'll come out in trade.

Come to think of it, I haven't seen it at my shop either. Likely I just missed it, though.