Morrison On Moore

In an interview for Comic Heroes, Grant Morrison, in his infinitely terrifying forward-thinking, pre-empts Alan Moore's criticism of his working on an updating of the Watchmen concept for DC.

Alan Moore has said previously that DC (and Marvel too, he doesn't keep his criticisms focused solely on his former major employers) keeps going back to the well, that the industry right now is creatively bankrupt and devoid of new concepts; Grant Morrison (and I love him for this, I really do) has said on the nature of [comic book] stories:

"They're designed to be told over and over again. If you were an Aboriginal kid or a tribal shaman, that's what you'd do, you'd participate in the recycling of old stories, the 'revamping' of characters and scenarios, the explaining away of plot holes. Some to the job with more skill than others, but if you work with Marvel, DC or other companies' pulp fiction characters, you're basically repainting pictures of the ancestors on cave walls."

So yes. That's brilliant, that's true. We reverberate stories through time, through word of mouth, through anecdotes. Resident Evil 4: Afterlife, a continuation of the semi-popular film series, retcons the previous three films within the first... fifteen, twenty minutes of the opening act. Removes so many plot points that it's a completely different beast, though still completely recognisable. Memetic story telling, perhaps? It's how children tell stories in the playground, how we tell our friends about last night. We change details, we make ourselves look better, or worse, and we continually change what has come before. Recycling, revamping.

God, I love it when Grant Morrison makes sense. I mean, I love him all the time, I love his work because it's challenging and different, but when his thoughts come together in this perfect form of... coherence... it's all the better.

And I know that I've been bitching and moaning about Alan Moore the past few posts, but that doesn't mean I'm not a fan. His latest (and apparently final, barring League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) comic book series, Neonomicon, is a complete mindfuck of a read, and I intend to pick that up whenever I can. Though, that being said, I don't know if #2 has even been released yet. I should probably check that out...

Who Betters The Watchmen?

I've been thinking about Alan Moore a lot recently. I picked up the first issue of his new magazine "Dodgem Logic", and it was interesting, very much so, and it's help put Zenith! in position again, in my head. Underground magazine publishing, yes. But that's not what I was thinking about. I was thinking about Watchmen, his opinions on the comic book industry since Watchmen, and my own opinions on Watchmen and similar works.

There's this great interview with Alan Moore by Adi Tantimedh over at Bleeding Cool (click to read) that also played a hand in the way I'm thinking right now. Talking about how DC have offered Alan the rights to Watchmen back if he gives them permission-- perhaps a blessing?-- to work on sequels, prequels, all the terrifying marketable machine bits that would make them a whole lot of money. But the fans, as much as they love Watchmen (for some right reason and some wrong) wouldn't enjoy a Watchmen sequel. They wouldn't. If you've even got a passing knowledge of comics, you know that Watchmen is this pure thing, this nigh-untouchable project that cannot be continued, extended, whatever. I don't care about film adaptations, really. I don't think they damage the source material. So what if they changed elements? Philip Pullman once said that: "every film has to make changes to the story that the original book tells — not to change the outcome, but to make it fit the dimensions and the medium of film." and that's perfectly fine, in my opinion. You have to make the film the distilled version of the book-- how else can you get the story out in the best way?

But I digress.

History Lesson: Alan Moore assumed he'd get the rights to Watchmen back in the 80s. But DC never let it out of print, it's always been available, so that never came about. A lot of shit happened between then and now, and so we're in this weird position where Alan Moore is divorcing himself from the comic book industry and his old friends (he's fallen out with David Lloyd over the V for Vendetta adaptation, and now he's fallen out with Dave Gibbons over the Watchmen film) because of this project from the mid-eighties.

I think Alan Moore insults the industry when he makes himself out to be the pinnacle of literary artistry. I get bored of that. He was good, in his day, but what has he done that became as big as Watchmen or V for Vendetta (which I don't actually like)? Sure, his Top Ten projects have been big, but they're not on the same scale, are they?

A few quotes of interest from that interview that kind of anger me:

"I could ask about why Marvel Comics are churning out or planning to bring out my ancient MARVELMAN stories, which are even older, if they had a viable idea of their own in the quarter-century since I wrote those works."

Because they were good? Because they stand up? Because a whole generation or two has heard of the Marvelman stories, the epic stories that Moore, Steve Bissette, Neil Gaiman and co. worked on and want to experience them for themselves? How is that unfair? Since I started reading comics, since I really got into them in my teens, I've wanted to read Marvel/Miracleman. Since I read about the legal troubles between Gaiman and Todd McFarlane I wanted to see what the fuss was about. I mean, this is important stuff. This is British comics that made a difference. And they've been locked in legal limbo for years and I want to read them. Sure, I would prefer to have the originals in my hand, but if Marvel are going to reprint the Moore/Gaiman runs, why shouldn't I leap at that chance? Stop ruining my enjoyment, Alan Moore.

"Just simply get some of your top-flight talent to put out a book that the wider public outside of the comics field find as interesting or as appealing as the stuff that I wrote 25 years ago. It shouldn’t be too big an ask, should it?"

This is something I intend to talk about below, but I thought I'd share it here first...

"They must have one creator, surely, in the entire American industry that could do equivalent work to something I did 25 years ago. "

Is it wrong that I find this to be horrifically arrogant of him? Like there was a Golden Age of Comics that started and ended with Alan Moore, and no one else can compete? I've enjoyed comics since. Yes. But the thing is... when was the last time there was a comic book written that had the same literary, mainstream punch as Watchmen? Or Maus, for instance? Maus won a Pulitzer! Sin City could count, but I feel like that was more of a maxi-series, and the film was what made people pay attention.

The eighties were good, no doubt. We had so many transcendental series come out-- Moore's Swamp Thing, Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, Miller's The Dark Knight Returns as well as his Year One. Those were epic series that changed the face of the comic book industry. But when has anything changed the face of the industry since? In the 90s it was the domain of Garth Ennis, Warren Ellis and Grant Morrison, with The Preacher, Transmetropolitan and The Invisibles being the go-to for alternate comic book that shift the paradigm. In the 2000s we had Ex Machina, Y, The Last Man, Top 10 and Tom Strong, but... they don't work like I want them to work in the structure of this conversation.

But they weren't the same, I don't think. 12 issues. A maxiseries. Not a 80 issue opus... I'm talking stories that are complete in their entirety within twelve issues. That's not a thing anymore, is it? Grant Morrison came close with All-Star Superman, which I love, but I think I disqualify that in my head because it's Superman. It's not original. I want new content, I want something that makes me think and makes me fall in love with it like I did James Robinson's Starman.

"Just simply get some of your top-flight talent to put out a book that the wider public outside of the comics field find as interesting or as appealing as the stuff that I wrote 25 years ago. It shouldn’t be too big an ask, should it?"

It really shouldn't, no Alan.

Brian K. Vaughan has done some amazing stuff recently, the closest it comes to counting. Ex Machina was superb, a planned maxiseries that recently came to an end. Same as Y, The Last Man. Focused. Painstakingly created. Ex Machina is closer to what I'm thinking than Y, because there was one, consistent art team on that (Tony Harris, tying close to Starman with that, yes) whilst Pia Guerra traded duties with Goran Sudzuka on occasion. Garth Ennis is working with Darick Robertson on The Boys, another planned maxiseries... another finite end...

(And what is it with these specific writers working on these projects? Darick Robertson worked on Transmetropolitan, Garth Ennis on Preacher and now The Boys... Brian K. Vaughan on these maxiseries, too...)

...but do they make sense like Watchmen did, in the context of this conversation? I think Warren Ellis does the most promising work in that field, his projects, such as Ocean, Ministry of Space, Orbital, short, complete works that are beautiful and amazing. He's given us Planetary, but that has ties to the Wildstorm universe so I don't think I can count it-- even though it is the tightest of the projects to be considered. Global Frequency is the inverse of the idea, with one writer and a selection of amazing artists, twelve issues of loosely connected stories. I love that book, but it's not the same. But these titles don't reach the heights established at the heights of the eighties. They don't sell as many copies as Watchmen, they don't make the same amount of money. People aren't scrambling about to scream about them in the daily press. They should be, sure, but they should be something more. Something amazing and ascendant.

I want to see a comic, twelve issues, one complete story, like Camelot 2000, like Watchmen, something that inspires generations. Where would we be without Watchmen? I don't think the comic industry could have lasted without that shot in the arm. But at the same time, we shouldn't be dragging our heels and holding onto the past like we insist on doing. We need to prove Alan Moore wrong, because he's not what he used to be.

I think if Geoff Johns wasn't writing for DC... I don't think his work would be as good. Brian Michael Bendis does good work on Powers, and on Scarlet, but again, not the same. Mike Mignola is my hero and doing something that should become a modern folktale with Hellboy, but it's so far pushing ten trades and promising more, so it's not the 12 issue shape I was talking about. I want something to make us think, and sure, we get that with ongoings, and minis and maxis, but we need to make sure Alan Moore isn't right else we'll be stuck in this horrific rut for the rest of our lives.

Grant Morrison on "Marvel Boy"

"Not only am I working with one of the best comics artists ever, the colouring gauntlet has been thrown down once again with the most incredible video game lighting and atmospherics. The whole thing really becomes something new with issue 3, however, which I'm unusually proud of. Apart from the fact that the potentially impenetrable central idea (HEXUS, THE LIVING CORPORATION) wound up beautifully simple, original and ridiculous all at once, that was the issue I really began to utilise J.G. Jones' preposterous genius to its best effects and decided to rethink the prevailing vogue for cinematic/money shot panel structures and page layouts. Marvel Boy's visual style becomes more like MTV and adverts; from #3 on it's filled with all kinds of new techniques; rapid cuts, strobed lenticular panels, distressed layouts, 64 panel grids, whatever. We've only started to experiment but already MARVEL BOY looks like nothing else around. Some of the stuff J. G. is doing is like an update of the whole Steranko Pop Art approach to the comics page. Instead of Orson Welles, op art and spy movies, J.G.'s using digital editing effects, percussive rhythms, cutting the action closer and harder, illuminated by the frantic glow of the image-crazed hallucination of 21st century media culture and all that. Comics don't need to be like films. They don't need to look like storyboards. This is not to dis the many great comics which have used filmic narrative techniques but I wanted to go back and explore some of the possibilities of comics as music."

-Grant Morrison on "Marvel Boy"

Why Batman Is Awesome #4: "Ready when you are."

Batman is awesome.

Last time around I mentioned how I was just using Grant Morrison's Justice League of America work as an example of how Batman is awesome, and that's all well and good for the reasons I mentioned, but there is one moment, in the sequence I'm about to share, that demonstrates why that's such common sense. After this I'll get to some other creators' work, and we'll see what you think to that-- I'll probably avoid Frank Miller, Alan Moore, all the obvious awesome moments, and go for something a little down key-- Greg Rucka, perhaps, or even better, Ed Brubaker! I know I have a Gail Simone moment that needs to be seen to be believed.

Anyway.

To recap: The Justice League have been replaced by a team calling themselves the Hyper Clan. They came from outer space with their brilliant powers and endearing optimism, and the public loved them. The public loved them a bit too much, and when they announced that they were executing Superman for crimes against humanity, the public didn't... even... blink.

So yeah, Hyper Clan = Evil. Go figure. But how evil? Only one man knows.

Batman.

Just one man. So they sent one of the Hyper Clan to take him down. Let me share with you the before of the above image.

That moment didn't last long, did it?

Batman, who, after being blown out of the sky by one of the Hyper Clan, is presumed dead. They didn't check the fiery wreckage of his Batplane (how awesome a name is that?) and that reaffirmed Bruce's suspicions. He didn't die. Of course he didn't die, he's Batman, and he infiltrated the Hyper Clan's HQ when presumed dead and he began to piece it all together.

One race in the DCU are terrified of fire. That race? Martians. With the abilities of Superman, plus telepathy, they're nearly unstoppable a force, and they had seduced the population of the Earth with their mass mind control ability and taken the JLA down one-by-one. So, what's Batman to do? He may be awesome, but he's not able to take down four Superman-level threats, is he?

Yours, Batman. Your luck has run out. Oh, but wait.... what was the sole weakness of the martians, again? Batman, do you have the answer?

What's Batman to do. Oh, yeah...

To recap again. Superman is down. Wonder Woman is down. Green Lantern defeated. Martian Manhunter off the board (understandably so). Aquaman gone. The Flash down. Who is the only one left standing?

Batman. And the next words out of his mouth?

You can feel the smile eminating off the page. Batman has won already. These guys are terrified of fire, but they still have their powers. "Criminals are a superstitious and cowardly lot", and a criminal is a criminal, even if they're from another world. So using the primal fear of fire, and well aware that these guys are still dangerous, Batman takes them on. And the aftermath?

Yeah, Green Lantern, stow your sarcasm. Also, side note? Three minutes and fifteen seconds. Beat that, bitches. And you know what? That first martian he took down, the one he hung up as a warning and an object of fear for the others? I like to think he took him down without fire. Because he's Batman, and there was no evidence as such. He took down a martian, with all the superior abilities that entails, without any hint of fire. He just scared them to shit. Batman is awesome.

Batman!!

Why Batman Is Awesome #3: "Days, months, years, spent memorising the finite ways there are to hurt and break a man. Preparing for all of them."

Batman is awesome.

I know I've been using Grant Morrison's most recent run on the character to showcase how awesome he is, but Morrison can get to the root of who Batman is and show how brilliant he can be without undermining those around him. Batman had at least one crowning moment of awesome in every arc-- perhaps issue-- of Morrison's Justice League of America run, and so he knows what he's doing.

I'll get to JLA later.

Anyway, in the run up to Final Crisis and the god-bullet incident, and after the poison-cup debacle, Batman was dismantled by the Black Glove, a group of very rich, very influential individuals that dismantled Bruce Wayne, took away his life, his family of crime-fighting side kicks and butler, and then just... shat on his identity. Of course, Batman was ready for this-- he was ready for the Dark Master, after all, and he created a secondary Batman personality to run "in case of emergency". More on that later, of course.

But in the final issue of "Batman RIP", the Black Glove have won. They've buried Batman alive. So, of course, he's fucked, isn't he? He can't possibly escape! The Black Glove have him buried in the Arkham Asylum grounds, they've dressed him in his best cape, and in a while, when his brain is so oxygen deprived he becomes insane, they said they'd disfigure him to resemble the Joker.

Ho ho, these guys are so awesome, they're so bad ass, Batman doesn't stand a chance.

Oh, wait.

Batman thinks of everything. Of course he does. And what does he think of being buried alive?

He's so fucking unimpressed. Because he's Batman, he's been ready for this for years. Buried alive? Year One, child's play. Robin could get out of being buried alive. And in a straitjacket? As per my previous post-- Batman can escape anything. He can escape the Omega Sanction, so why should a casket even impede him?

I'm going to let Batman's internal narration do the rest of the talking for a moment. I can't cut this down without ruining the bad ass flow of how Batman's mind works.

He's done the math. He knows everything about the situation. He knows every dimension of the death trap he's been placed in-- he's fucking Batman-- he's been in every death trap conceivable! Even the inconceivable is nothing to him because his archenemy is the Joker! A guy who evolves every few years into the scariest bastard you could possibly imagine! You can't out him in a box because he'll out think you and turn the tables. He's Batman. Anyway...

At the end of his rope, beaten and battered and brainwashed-- no. You can't stop Batman. He's the greatest hero there will be, or ever was. You can pull the Superman card, but he's got all these powers handed to him on a plate. The Flash has his super speed, Green Lantern his power ring. Heck, Wonder Woman is the princess of a race of Amazons living on an invisible island in Greece. Superman hasn't worked for his powers, but Batman, who is the only truly human on a team of veritable gods, is the greatest. Batman is awesome.

Batman!!

Why Batman Is Awesome #2: "I wanted to taste the flavor of death. I wanted to know that I had finally experienced every eventuality."

Batman is awesome.

Batman prepares himself for every eventuality, and if he can't-- well, that's impossible, he's Batman.

Bruce Wayne took a year out from being Batman to become better. To get away from his grim and gritty demons and emerge a more effective crime fighter. That involved travelling the world, having his fears cut away from him by-- well, I'll show you later maybe. But what he did was, he confronted death. Death. And then he was bad-ass-er.

So obviously, after the "Thogal" ritual, Bruce had some questions. Leading to a conversation with a monk who had some very sinister overtones going for him.

Holy shit! Batman's been poisoned! What's the Caped Crusader to do?!

Oh, wait.

Batman is so awesome that, as force of habit, whenever he dines with someone he switches cups because he's that damn effective. Even off-guard he's not meaning he's the greatest crime fighter ever. That's the point of this. Even when he's not Batman, he's Batman, and you can never trap him.

Right, so, the point: You can never stop Batman. You can leave the country (as in The Dark Knight) and he'll kidnap you right out of your own office tower. You can send him hurtling into the past and he'll fight and punch and think his way to the present, because he's the World's Greatest Detective (more on that later). Batman is awesome.

Batman!!

Why Batman Is Awesome #1: "Radion. Toxic to your kind. I sealed the bullet that killed Orion in my belt for inspection. DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?"

Batman is awesome.

No matter what. No matter you throw at him, he's awesome. Break his back and he returns a year later and beats you and yours to shit. Break his sanity and he reveals that he was expecting it and created a back-up personality capable of kicking your ass straight back to Arkham. Bury him alive... and, well, I'll show you later.

Batman, Bruce Wayne I mean, is currently lost in the past, due to the Forth World dark god Darkseid's Omega Sanction, a sort of teleportation effect that makes the target live through progressively worse lives until their souls are ground to dust.

What Batman did was, he let go of all his baggage about guns, about his agonisingly difficult past, and to save the world he shot the dark god of evil in the shoulder-- he shot to wound-- with a bullet forged from radioactive isotope known as Radion, the one thing that can kill a "New God". He shot a god in the shoulder and saved the universe from the dread shadow that loomed over humanity.

Batman never uses guns. But in this moment, because he knew that he had no other choice, he loaded a god-killing bullet into a god-killing gun and he shot a god. He shot a god.

A point to make: Darkseid was the one who made the bullet. He made the bullet to kill his son, Orion, the dog of war, because of prophecies that announced that the son shall kill the father, and the only way to take him down was to build a bullet-- and shoot it backwards through time. The same bullet that killed Orion helped to kill Darkseid.

And Darkseid, because he's a savvy fucker, sent Batman through all kinds of Hell with his Omega Sanction. He sent Batman into a place where there was no escape. No way to get help. Except he's Batman, mother fucker, and there's always a way when Bruce Wayne is involved.

Regardless, Batman's last word before this went down?

GOTCHA.

So this is how Batman ended up.

Ouch.

Except! Except that's not him and it's actually an evil clone created by Darkseid's minions but more on that later when Dick Grayson, the current Batman, attempts to resurrect his fallen mentor in a Lazarus Pit but discovers Darkseid's evil machinations!

No, this is where Batman ended up.

He's in your past. And he's painting on your walls-- message to the future, mother fuckers!

And where's Bruce Wayne, the Batman, now?

He's in Caveman times, mother fucker, and he's about to beat y'all to shit.

Batman!!

SUPER-SANITY--! #4

I'm going to take a break from the norm and just highlight some links and articles of interest from the past few months that I liked. I'm not feeling particularly super, nor am I feeling very sane, so this will have to do for now...

1) This is an interview done by my dear friend Brian Burchette, talking to Marian Churchland about her first graphic novel "Beast!", and what follows is a short excerpt:

Now I've read the After-word to the book, so I've gotten some of the history of the creation of this title, but let me ask you: How long was the character of Beast actually floating in your mind before you were able to put him on paper?

It's hard to pin-down, because so many of my stories (or initial ideas for stories) have a character that resembles Beast. I think that his specific design, though - the shadowy tendril thing - first showed up in a story I fiddled with briefly a couple years before I began the book, about a girl in medieval Ireland searching for her missing brother in a ruined castle. Sort of a ye-olde Resident Evil, in which the lord of the castle was an oddly polite gentleman-monster. The story never worked out, but the monster stuck around.

2) I'm a big fan of Grant Morrison, and this interview from The Onion's A.V. Club, is really cool and insightful. Morrison is one of the greatest [comic] writers of this generation, up with Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, Julius Schwartz, Neil Gaiman, etc and etc.

GM: Secretly, I’ve always felt I had more in common with the modernist approach than with postmodernism, but I can see where the connection might arise—and to be honest, I’m no academic, so I tend to use these words, like in Alice In Wonderland, to mean what I want them to mean rather than what they actually do mean. I could point to “classical” influences on the style of All-Star Superman, or a “romantic” approach to Batman, but I’m sure any competent English lit professor could shoot me down in flames in an instant. I just do what I do because it feels right. Other people attach labels to that. I aspire in my work to the kind of luminous, “authorless” poetic transparency found in Alan Garner’s brilliant novels Thursbitch and Strandloper, but I’m far from reaching that goal.

3) This is one of the greatest pitches that has never seen publication. There have been many pieces of comic book brilliancy that have been written, pencilled, printed, and then pulped because of questionable content. Swamp Thing meeting Jesus? Written, I believe pencilled, and then scrapped at the last moment because people would get all uproarious. Warren Ellis' greatest issue of Hellblazer was drawn by Phil Jimenez, called "Shoot", and never put on sale. I've read it on the internet, I have it on my laptop, and I treasure the greatness of it. I'll post it up one of these days, but for now, this pitch is one of the greatest untold stories of the DC universe. Written by Alan Moore-- and if you don't know him now, then you can drop off the map of popular culture-- and influencing a legion of writers since, Twilight of the Gods is simply amazing.

...The body of Congo Bill, now over ninety years old, refuses to die. The gorilla mind that has been trapped in it unfairly refuses to let go and is hanging on with a fierce and horrible willpower. Unable to bring himself to kill it outright, Congorilla keeps the shackled and naked old man in special rooms at his apartment, feeds it garbage and hopes it will die soon, but it doesn't. It just lies in the corner and snarls weakly when he enters and fixes him with its ancient glaring eyes as he gives it its food.

4) And finally, this site is the one I turn to whenever I want to find out about the latest in horror. It's amazing, concise, and you should always have a resource when you want some weird shit funnelling into your brain. Oh, and also 5) Warren Ellis' blog, which, heh, is concentrated weird shit being funnelled into a brain.

Less Concerned About Fitting Into The World... Your World That Is.

This is important.

Eight years old, but very important:

Grant Morrison's "The Geek Shall Inherit The Earth" is an article/essay that I printed off and had pinned to my wall for a few years (before the grand de-postering of the bedroom. I never did recover from that. Boo)

An excerpt:

Several cloned sheep, a few embryo harvests and a sequenced human genome into the new century and the class geeks are beginning to look like the only reliable guides to this overlit, super-accelerated Matrix simulation we are all learning to live in.

I admit, yes, it's about, in part, comic books, but it's really about how underground culture isn't underground anymore. Everything is mainstream. What was the popular saying... "if you think it, there's porn of it somewhere on the internet"? So yes. We are the mainstream. All our ideas are making the world what it is, and that's not going to change.

Hey, like my tats? Full sleeved, black and white!

"Truthfully, the job security in this business is uncertain, the hours are long, long and lonely, the audience is increasingly small, fickle and dissatisfied, like 3 of the 7 Dwarves. Respect is nonexistent, success fleeting; you’d be better off in a boy band, where at least you’d get laid before they made you obsolete."
--Grant Morrison on comics.