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Underground > Comic Books >

Best of Grant Morrison ?

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13:02 / 22.08.04

There are talks of releasing a Grant Morrison Omnibus that would collect the various other stories he's done for Vertigo such as Kill Your Boyfriend.

(source: here )

15:00 / 22.08.04

What else would be in the Omnibus? I can only think of his Swamp Thing run. Also, a quick Seaguy TPB is good news, hopefully they'll do the same for We3 and Vinanarama once they're finished.

16:21 / 22.08.04

maybe Flex Mentallo could be reprinted in Omnibus format ?

Our Lady Has Left the Building

16:39 / 22.08.04

The only other thing I can think of is 'The Mystery Play', if they can get the rights to 'St Swithins Day' that would be worth putting in.

17:08 / 22.08.04

He also did a two-issue story in Hellblazer, and the Kid Eternity mini (3 Prestige format issues, IIRC). Those plus the other books listed here (four issues of Swamp Thing, Kill Your Boyfriend, Mystery Play) would already make for a pretty sizeable TPB, over 300 pages if I'm figuring it right. Kind of thematically scattered, but I suppose I'd still buy a copy.

19:03 / 22.08.04

There's the "New Toys" story Grant and Quitely did for the Weird War Tales anthology revamp from a few years ago...

Dan Fish - @Fish1k

20:27 / 22.08.04

New Toys is my favourite comic EVER.

I've seen the DCU Secret Origins stuff suggested as well, though whether a vertigo anthology would include these is anyones guess. I'd like to see New Adventures of Hitler and stuff like that, but as they weren't vertigo, I guess they are long shots.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

21:16 / 22.08.04

Which reminds me... does anyone have the last couple of parts of "Bible John"? I just found a bunch of old Crisis and Revolver today while packing to move house, and all my 80s George M nostalgia kicked in...

miss wonderstarr

09:40 / 24.08.04

I've probably got the run of Bible John at my parents' house, which reminds me I really should dig them out before they succumb to damp. Maybe it's time for a mature re-appreciation of what at the time seemed pretentious meandering.

Is The Mystery Play worth getting? And Kill Your Boyfriend for that matter. I think these are the only major GM works I missed, although I don't remember that Swamp Thing run either. Were they the issues where that lesbian couple tried to get John to impregnate one of them?

There's also Dare with Rian Hughes by the way, from Revolver. It was pretty magnificent. By contrast I think Kid Eternity is Moz at his laziest and most predictable: story is cut-up-lite, a few references to occult gods, "dark" reworking of an unknown character for the sake of it. But I remain very much underwhelmed by Arkham Asylum as well. St Swithins Day on the other hand is lovely, intelligent, touching: very simple and straightforward and much more effective than the classical-quotes/fragmentation/shock aesthetic too prevalent in post-Watchmen superhero revisionism.

Scrubb is on a downward spiral

10:01 / 24.08.04

I thought Mystery Play was available as a TPB anyway.

Regrettable Juvenilia

10:10 / 24.08.04

To answer one of your questions, kovacs: Kill Your Boyfriend is the best thing Morrison has ever done. 100% prog- and pomposity-free, smart as a whip, sexy as big boots, sharp as a special face-knife used for stabbing faces.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

10:58 / 24.08.04

There's also his Batman:Legends of the Dark Night run ("Gothic"), which I picked up for a fiver the other week in MegaCity... it's pretty good, but I remember it being better, although Klaus Janson's art is also pretty lovely.

11:11 / 24.08.04

I'm guessing that this will take te same form as Neil Gaiman's midnight days and simply serrve as a recepticle for Morrison's miscellanious fill-in work on various DC titles...

miss wonderstarr

11:13 / 24.08.04

Thanks I am bidding for Kill Your Boyf on ebay now, and I think it's also on Amazon for £7. Yeah I forgot Gothic... also overrated in my opinion. Janson's artwork is quite clumsy though. I think Morrison is, considering he's a top-ranking big gun writer, let down way too often by artists (eg. New X-Men, some of The Invisibles, erm... that Zenith interlude.)

edit: yeah and Doom Patrol until Richard Case became more talented, and pretty much every issue of Animal Man. Shoddy artwork.

18:15 / 24.08.04

I don't remember that Swamp Thing run either. Were they the issues where that lesbian couple tried to get John to impregnate one of them?

Nah, that was a Hellblazer annual by Neil Gaiman. Morrison co-authored (whatever that means) the first four issues of Mark Millar's Swamp Thing run, after which Millar continued on his own. It was quite good, and the rest of Millar's run wasn't bad either.

18:22 / 24.08.04

Grant also co-authored, again w/Millar, a 12-issue run of THE FLASH when Mark Waid took a break.

19:33 / 24.08.04

His Flash run with Millar was great; although Millar's final 3-issue solo arc, about the Black Flash (which was like death embodied for speedsters, a la the Black Racer), was kind of dumb, as I recall. I'd love to see the Morrison/Millar FLASH year reprinted.

miss wonderstarr

21:58 / 24.08.04

thanks for the correction Simplist. Yeah miscellany like the GM Swamp Thing, which I guess I never saw, would be nice in a collected edition though TrueFans like myself (!) would probably have a lot of the contents already.

At the risk of being corrected again, but what the hey it's all bonus knowledge, was the GM Flash story the one about how everyone can run, and there was like a global call-out where everyone had to help the Flash by jogging or whatever they could manage?

READER: no kovacs that was a Waid story.

ME: OK!

07:35 / 25.08.04

yes kovacs that was a millar/morrison story, which riffed a lot from millar having worked in the past on sonic the comic. saddam hussein in trainers running for our lives - some things are just important y'know?

Haus of Mystery

08:36 / 25.08.04

Gothic had a massive effect when I was 14, mainly because it's a genuinely creepy ghost story - Young Bruce being cained by his headmaster, glancing across to realise he has no shadow etc... I also LOVE Klaus Janson's 'clumsy' artwork.

The Flash run could do with being reprinted in it's entirety, but judging by DC's jihad on Millar's work, it's unlikely.

miss wonderstarr

09:47 / 25.08.04

I read some comics pro saying recently how he'd first read Arkham Asylum at age 9. Not only did this make me feel ancient, but it struck me how that, like Gothic and The Killing Joke, three disappointing and generally overrated Batman books in my opinion, would probably have seemed a lot better if I'd read them at that age rather than my late teens.

Dan Fish - @Fish1k

08:51 / 26.08.04

The Flash run could do with being reprinted in it's entirety, but judging by DC's jihad on Millar's work, it's unlikely.

They've just reprinted Millars Superman Adventures in the smaller digest format, I could see Flash doing well in that format.

00:26 / 30.08.04

There's also the short King Mob story "Hexy" from some old Vertigo anthology.

13:31 / 02.09.04

>>>I read some comics pro saying recently how he'd first read Arkham Asylum at age 9.<<<

In my wee column in the first issue of Seaguy, I said I was 14 when I read Arkham Asylum, is that what you mean? Or someone else?

Loooooved it at the time, still parts of it that I do, but if the same thing were to come out today (and written by someone as unknown as Grant was then) I'd likely give it a pass...

13:11 / 06.09.04

The Secret Origins story about the original JLA's cave headquarters would fit nicely in this type of collection. I like it more than any of Morrison's other JLA work. Anyone else read it?

miss wonderstarr

15:53 / 06.09.04

In my wee column in the first issue of Seaguy, I said I was 14 when I read Arkham Asylum, is that what you mean? Or someone else?

I'm afraid I am still waiting for the TPB of Seaguy so it wasn't that... I think it was some kind of online column.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

16:49 / 06.09.04

Also, does anyone know if the GM Animal Man Secret Origin is in the trades?

goodkingwenceslaus

19:37 / 06.09.04

On GM Secret Origins!
I wrote a lot about that JLA story ("Ghosts of Stone") here:

http://ynot.motime.com/1076646398#216115

it's absolutely magnificent

also:
yes, the Animal Man Secret Origin is in the 2nd TPB volume of Animal Man

I think Secret Origins may very well have been the finest "mainstream" anthology of the eighties (not like there was much competition, but still!), and I'm overjoyed to find people talking about it here!

Dave

13:31 / 07.09.04

Grant wrote a JLA story that was drawn by Curt Swan and has never been reprinted anywhere???

Aww, mannn....

Who drew the Animal Man Secret Origins story??? It's in the 2nd Animal Man paperback?? I don't remember it being in there -- gotta check it out when I get home!

14:04 / 07.09.04

Yeah, first story. Tom Grummett, iirc.

miss wonderstarr

21:49 / 07.09.04

I got Kill Your Boyf on ebay this week for £5 -- gosh it's very thin isn't it, a single-issue monthly? -- and I am certainly expecting good things from it when I get round to reading it. At the moment I am still working thru a story-arc of Morrison JLA every night.

10:13 / 08.09.04

there's another gm SO story - the last issue of the late eighties run i think, it's a flash story and an earth 1/2 thing where barry and jay meet up, along with some old baddies, and keystone and central kind of get reintegrated. sgood, but my memory, as you see, is wobbly.

A

13:48 / 11.09.04

Yeah, I've got that Flash one. It's the first meeting of the two Flashes. Barry rescues Jay (and all of Keystone City) from the vibratory prison (or something) that the Shade and a couple of other Super Villains have put them in. It's pretty neat.

Poke it with a stick

10:57 / 12.09.04

I always kind of liked Big Dave - very much of its time, but brilliantly funny.

miss wonderstarr

14:11 / 12.09.04

I see that a forthcoming Hellblazer collected volume ("Rare Cuts" or something similar) is listed on Amazon as authored by Morrison -- I didn't think he'd done enough on that title to make up a book, but sounds interesting.

Are GM's Flash episodes available in any TPB? I did a quick search but could only find Waid graphic albums.

NB. "Big Dave" was co-authored by Millar, at least for the first two, which I dug out of storage over the weekend and admired anew.

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