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Underground > Comic Books >

Igor Kordey not crazy about working with Grant Morrison????

07:05 / 04.10.03

This is a clip from the Kordey interview up at THE PULSE.

"That's why I was slightly frustrated in working with Grant Morrison, as a fellow with the same background as me, 'cause we never managed to establish any contact and that was one of the reasons for my failure with "New X-Men".

He had a deal with the editors not to let artists approach him or call him, and I just couldn't have a chance to feel his visions and goals about the characters and concepts. What I had to start with, were brief first drafts of the scripts, lack of sketches from other artists on the project - they were late with their parts of the story etc. (for example, I've got an assignment to do book #120, and after I did the job, they gave me not the next but #119). It was confusing and frustrating."

This is very revealing; Grant pulls a diva and makes a deal not to be "bothered" by his artists AND it turns out that the books were late cause the scripts were late and\or incomplete.
I personaly think that's a load of shit. Grant\Marvel have said numerous times that the books were late cause of "artist issues" and that the scripts were finised way upfront. And the whole deal where Grant doesn't like to talk to the artists doesn't sound like a Morrison thing to do. What do u guys think?

07:21 / 04.10.03

Actually I've heard this to be true. Many artists say it's very hard to get ahold of Morrison, I think some of that's covered in Anarchy for the Masses, and some interviews floating around the web with different artists. What I hadn't heard was that he officially asked the editors to keep the artists away. I could really care less, it's just his style. Maybe he feels too much talking with the artist will give the artist too much input into his story. Maybe he just can't be bothered. If artists know that about him and can't deal with it they can find another story to draw.

07:25 / 04.10.03

i read a post by bachalo on millarworld a couple of months ago that said something to the tone of "grant morrison, the greatest writer i've worked with but never spoken to"

Not to say that kordey is justified, at this point who the hell knows what happened. Just wanted to interject what i have experienced in regard to your topic.

07:31 / 04.10.03

Kordey's comments don't really need to be justified. All he said was that he was frustrated he didn't get a chance to talk with Morrison, and he felt his art on New X-Men was a failure.

10:48 / 04.10.03

It seems likely to me that different writers have different styles of writing and different interactions with the artists concerned. It doesn't particularly surprise me that artist/writer pairs don't always mesh well. And I wouldn't be surprised if Grant was trying to create a slightly different feeling in his books - where the plot and the art clash and collide occasionally. I've commented lots of times on the feeling of disconnection in New X-men and that Grant's built a lot of ambiguity into it. Maybe he's done that by writing it ambigiously and not letting the writers ask him what he meant.

13:42 / 04.10.03

Ethan van Sciver, without suggesting he 'failed', said pretty much the same thing here.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

13:54 / 04.10.03

That sort of thing isn't unknown in comics, tho. Jack Kirby made it a point never to talk to his inkers until the early 70's, when he finally saw that one fo them was erasing all of his background detail to make the pages easier to ink. There is a lot to be said for finishing something and just washing your hands of it.

15:35 / 04.10.03

In a way its a great compliment for Grant to give the artist free reign on his writing. Some writers cough-Claremont-cough don't trust their artists to illustrate their writing properly and maintain constant contact and even spell everything out in dialogue boxes just so that the reader can't get it wrong.
Grant trusts the artists and Claremont doesn't.

yawn - thing's buddy

16:29 / 04.10.03

yeah - but in all honesty, I've felt a lot of gm's stuff has been let down by poor art (ridgeway eclipse shocker!) - I'm not blaming his methods - but I would say increased collaboration usually makes for a better overall comic - wonder what the 'deal' is with quitely?

16:51 / 04.10.03

Grant seems to need to work with people that 'get' his scripts.
I expect that Phil, Frank and Chris Weston get plenty of access should they need it. They're his obvious favourites.

18:11 / 04.10.03

not to say some of the art "really bugged" Grant during the NXM run [quoting the CBR interview]. just speculating here, but maybe he didn't bother talking to Kordey since he knew the guy he was busy on CABLE, rushing to meet Quitely's deadlines and never liked his art at all. maybe the problem is even with editors, not freelancers. there was a rumour about Grant not having good relations with Marvel's Mike Powers, one of the people supposed to put artists in touch with him.

in any case you can tell by the "'Nuff Said" silent issue that Grant left a lot to the artist's strenghs and interpretation. I wonder how a FILTH script looks like, though.

both rawk and yawn have a point, anyway.

18:32 / 04.10.03

I've heard that it is (or was) a Marvel policy to have communication between writer and artist done exclusively through the editor. Dunno if that's accurate but it's what I've been told in the past.

Grant *is* a tough one to get a hold of at times, and it's actually Kristan who's the liason. I've rarely had a problem though, if I have a question or need anything it's usually not long before I get a reply...

23:17 / 04.10.03

Maybe it's because when he tried to, Dave McKean kicked his arse on Arkham Asylum.

I'm joking.

It's his decision to do what he wants ultimately and I'm his reader not his artist.

Ethan Van Sciver

06:19 / 05.10.03

I never got to speak to Grant on the phone, but he or Kristan almost always promptly answered my emails. I think he wants his privacy, doesn't trust people he doesn't have a personal relationship with all that much, and is interested in seeing an artist interpret his scripts without his extra-added input. In that order.

In my own opinion, if Igor 'failed' on NXM, it's because his heart wasn't in it. He wasn't rushed (he always had 6-8 weeks per script, if I recall)and he absolutely insisted on inking his own work, despite everyone's objection. We all loved his storytelling. It was just sloppily inked. Morrison's scripts were so complex and difficult, I can't imagine anyone doing one of them justice if he also had another monthly title going. Those stories were just too important.

15:07 / 05.10.03

I've read elsewhere Igor completed one of the stories on 'Imperial' in five days?

Will try to find link.

I'm Rick Jones, bitch

15:31 / 05.10.03

I was reading Imperial today. It shows.

16:23 / 05.10.03

Thanks to Cameron and Ethan for their balanced insights and comments. It's always fascinating to hear the background behind artistic creations. Your disclosure is much appreciated.

yawn - thing's buddy

19:14 / 05.10.03

Yours Sincerely,

dlotemp.

03:54 / 06.10.03

"Morrison's scripts were so complex and difficult, I can't imagine anyone doing one of them justice if he also had another monthly title going. Those stories were just too important."-Ethan Van Sciver

Please tell me you're fucking kidding. Morrison's stories are "just too important"? Even if the other story you're illustrating is Cable? The Cable, the half robot half human, ass kickin giant gun shootin, rebel soldier, mutants rights activist, son of Cyclops, was born in our time but lived in the future and came back to fight Apocalypse, tough guy with a heart of gold Cable? You must be joking, because nothing is more important than illustrating a Cable comic.

Ethan Van Sciver

06:08 / 06.10.03

Duncan:

re: Completing Imperial in five days: He may have, I don't know. But there is an urban myth that Igor was put into a spot where he would have a couple of days to complete an entire issue because either Frank Quitely or myself couldn't manage it, and that is untrue. In my case, editorial would look at the pace I was working at, and realize ahead of time that it would be safer to hand the next one over to Igor. It gives the X-Men editorial office far less credit than they deserve to imagine that they would wait until it was 5 days before the book went to print before they changed their plans and called in Igor Kordey. It never happened.

Jack Denfeld, you're probably right. Cable is cooler than the X-Men.

13:30 / 06.10.03

Fair enough; it did sound a bit ludicrous. I thought it maybe came from an interview he did; and it is something that seems to have gained a degree of credence. I think he was also working on that MAX Black Widow series at the time, as well as Cable/Agent X, which may be why.

And while credit may be due the x-office, they did actually manage to fuck up a double page spread, which was none too impressive.

11:58 / 07.10.03

I suppose we all miss Kordey's expertise on Cable from his NXM issues. Okay, I am being sweet. Those NXM issues are horse-shit drafts. But I keep working myself through the strokes to find out with much regret how he actually "got" the expressions and gestures of the characters -Wolverine and Jean mostly.

I'm also fine with the "here's the script, follow your guts" policy and vanishing after delivering the written job. I don't think that's the whole part of playing the diva. But where I do think you've got a full Diva is in the scripts themselves -for as much I've seen of GM scripts-, in which poetic pretentiousness sometimes seems to overlap that fact that they are supposed to be comic-book scripts in the first place.

Whatever. I suppose the root of the shite started when they told the chap that his friend and collaborator Quitely was slow and that other undobutedly talented guys were going to start putting in paper all those wonderful concepts and stories he and Frank had pulled out of the hat from the very beginning and before.

Oh, yes, I did miss Quitely, but not for the other artists. It was just so glaring that it was another of those neat writer-artist comic book conceptions you would like to last forever.

12:05 / 07.10.03

Oh, and the guys at the x-office are lousy drunkards, right. I'll never forgive Marvel for not protecting the GM/FQ's NXM as they so much did with Millar/Hitch's Ultimates. Wo. Here comes Ultimate Cap.

Fak'ye.

12:10 / 07.10.03

I thought Kordey did a good job on the Fantomex/Weapon XII storyline. He was much better coloured, which helped.

18:25 / 07.10.03

To be fair to Kordey, I've cast an eye over his work on the 'God Loves, Man Kills II' arc in X-Treme X-Men in the store a couple of times (can't bring myself to actually buy/read it, sorry) and he looks much, MUCH better with someone else on the inks. Even his Cable stuff, which is rougher, looks way better than his nXm stuff. I think Ethan's assessment that the man should not've been inking his own pages is dead on.

Interesting to hear about Morrisson's working style, although this doesn't surprise me too much. Read Paul O'Brien's annotations of the mess the X-bullpen was in around the time of the Image shakeup and you find that all kinds of behind the scenes craziness goes on from time to time.

In the light of this I think it's interesting how many people I've heard online arguing about the Xorn issue - how he's holding his arms, whether you see parts of a face beneath the helmet, etc. It's not clear exactly what the artists knew, what was a hint and what was No-Prize material....