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The Grant Morrison Interview Archive

  
  

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H3ct0r L1m4
03:54 / 11.06.08
mine too, Finder. hopefully there will be a log there...
 
 
H3ct0r L1m4
04:21 / 11.06.08
uh... blog
 
 
Cowboy Scientist
02:26 / 13.06.08
Check this one, It's totally insane! WE ARE GODS!
 
 
The Falcon
22:01 / 13.06.08
It's really embarrassing, even to watch.
 
 
andrewdrilon
05:40 / 03.07.08
Grant's revamped website is up.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
07:49 / 03.07.08
WHY IS THERE NO FORUM?
 
 
Triplets
08:51 / 03.07.08
You know, the cruelest thing George could do right now would be to put a forum link on his site that sends people to Barbelith.
 
 
H3ct0r L1m4
22:24 / 03.07.08
the image gallery is the most updated section there, lots of celeb pics, hehe.
 
 
This Sunday
22:42 / 03.07.08
WHY IS THERE NO FORUM?

Haus, you've been here how long? Surely you know we're the official Grant Morrison fanclub and forum. We also do wankmagickz. But mostly, we're a GM forum.

Anyhow, I have to say, in response to video-linky above, I did love how quickly Morrison said yes to that god question. It's disturbingly rare to find individuals who know that when someone asks that, you have to say "Yes." The rest of it (and the sloppy tossing in of Transmetropolitan) was kinda... I'm assuming that was aimed to geeks and yet...
 
 
HCE
01:17 / 08.07.08
His wife wears what look like extremely uncomfortable shoes.
 
 
Alex's Grandma
01:29 / 08.07.08
Those shoes should be extremely uncomfortable, but it depends on what you're into.

If worn by a character who's happy enough to walk around on one's back, they can, I suppose, be very beautiful.
 
 
H3ct0r L1m4
21:13 / 14.07.08
Grant Morrison at SDCC 08 [banging my head on the wall for not saving money to go]:

THURSDAY:

10:45-11:45 Reinventing the Page: Stan Lee and Grant Morrison Talk Virgin Comics— Two of the most important creators in the history of comic books team up to discuss the bold new frontiers being explored in the art of storytelling. Legendary creator Stan Lee (Spider-Man, Hulk, Iron Man, X-Men) shares his insights on the world of comics and presents never-before-revealed hints of his new superhero universe with Virgin Comics. Joining Stan is prolific creator Grant Morrison (New X-Men, All Star Superman, Final Crisis), contemporary comics' most active mind, who will discuss his new Virgin Comics animated online series MBX while offering his own insights on comics and engaging with Stan in a once-in-a-lifetime conversation about the long history and boundless future of their beloved medium. Ballroom 20
Categories: Animation | Comic Books | Webcomics | Writers & Writing


3:30-4:30 Entertainment Weekly’s The Visionaries: Comic Creators— Jim Lee (All-Star Batman & Robin), John Cassaday (The Astonishing X-Men), Matt Fraction (Casanova), Mike Mignola (Hellboy), Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead), Colleen Doran (A Distant Soil), and Grant Morrison (Final Crisis) are the writers and artists blazing a path into the future of comics. Coming from both the mainstream and the independent worlds, these men and women can provide unique insights into the comics landscape. Moderated by Entertainment Weekly staff editor Nisha Gopalan. Room 6A
Categories: Comic Books | Comic-Con Special Guest Spotlights & Appearances


FRIDAY:

2:15-3:15 DC: Batman: No Rest for The Dark Knight— Batman is the original dark hero. He lives a life pledged to helping the helpless and punishing the guilty, but this summer everything is going to change. With a blockbuster hit in theatres and a darker storyline than ever before, now's the time to celebrate the minds behind the bat! Senior editor Michael Marts, Grant Morrison (Batman), Paul Dini (Detective Comics), Dustin Nguyen (Detective Comics), Brian Azzarello (Joker), and others discuss the mythos of the Bat and what looms ahead for our hero. Room 6A
Categories: Comic Books | Superheroes



4:30-5:30 Vertigo: View of the Future— Vertigo is a more than a name. It’s the imprint that delivers smart, provocative, and edgy books. Be here to find out what’s in store for your favorite Vertigo titles as well as some major new projects that will be announced here for the first time! Hosted by senior VP—executive editor, Vertigo, Karen Berger, group editor Shelly Bond, and senior editor Will Dennis, this panel is not to be missed, especially considering the talent in tow: Brian Azzarello (100 Bullets, Joker), Mark Buckingham (Fables), David Lapham (Young Liars), Grant Morrison (Seaguy),—Matt Sturges (House of Mystery), Matt Wagner (Madame Xanadu), Bill Willingham (Fables, House of Mystery), G. Willow Wilson (Air), Brian Wood (DMZ, Northlanders), and others! Room 5AB
Categories: Comic Books | Comic-Con Special Guest Spotlights & Appearances


6:00-7:00 DCU: Final Crisis Management— The Final Crisis is here! Senior VP-executive editor Dan DiDio talks with Grant Morrison (Batman, Final Crisis), J.G. Jones (Final Crisis), Geoff Johns (Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds), Brad Meltzer (DCU: Last Will and Testament), Greg Rucka (Final Crisis: Revelations), Phillip Tan (Final Crisis: Revelations), and others! Catch a glimpse of what will be one of the most talked-about events of the summer! Room 6A
Categories: Comic Books | Comic-Con Special Guest Spotlights & Appearances | Superheroes


SATURDAY


12:45-2:00 DC: A Guide to Your Universe— Dan DiDio (senior VP/executive editor, DCU), Jann Jones (senior coordinating editor, DCU), and Ian Sattler (senior story editor, DCU), and countless DCU talent gather for a panel that’s not to be missed. Now that the Final Crisis is upon us, what lies ahead for your favorite heroes? Join Keith Giffen (Reign in Hell, Ambush Bug: Year None), Geoff Johns (Action Comics, Green Lantern), Aaron Lopresti (Wonder Woman), Brad Meltzer (DCU: Last Will and Testament), Grant Morrison (Batman, Final Crisis), Gail Simone (Wonder Woman), Phillip Tan (Final Crisis: Revelations), Peter Tomasi (Green Lantern Corps), Judd Winick (Titans), and others to get the answers. Room 6B
Categories: Comic Books | Comic-Con Special Guest Spotlights & Appearances


2:15-3:15 Grant Morrison and Gerard Way: Born Under a Black Sun— Grant Morrison (The Invisibles) and Gerard Way (The Umbrella Academy) discuss death, death, and everything: comics, culture, the war on youth, and how you can fight back. This panel will change your life! Room 6B
Categories: Comic Books | Writers & Writing


SUNDAY

2:45-3:45 Virgin Comics: Grant Morrison and Deepak Chopra: The Spirit of the Superhero— The tradition continues! As Virgin Comics gears up to launch the new animated on-line series MBX, series writer Grant Morrison (New X-Men, Superman, Final Crisis) once again teams with best-selling author and Virgin Comics co-founder Deepak Chopra (The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, Buddha: A Story of Enlightenment) to talk...superheroes! Join the ongoing conversation investigating the id, ego, superego, and spirituality of the superhero—we’re talking social theory with sound effects, four colors fused with existentialism. Two of the greatest minds of comics and culture talking comics and culture—this is not to be missed! Ballroom 20
Categories: Comic Books | Superheroes | Writers & Writing


source
 
 
H3ct0r L1m4
01:47 / 16.07.08
i new HEAD is up at GM's website since last Sunday. only realized now.
 
 
bencher
13:36 / 16.07.08
That's probably the straightest HEAD column I've read(compared to his previous posts), but very very exciting - more Seaguy next week!
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
13:51 / 16.07.08
I fear sometimes that RSS will ultimately have the effect on you chaps that the jet engine had on the zeppelin. But not yet, damn it. Not yet.
 
 
Malio
17:35 / 21.07.08
Grant Morrison on Final Crisis #2.
 
 
HCE
22:22 / 21.07.08
There's certainly a head up something of his.
 
 
FinderWolf
19:11 / 25.07.08
Morrison and Stan Lee at ComicCon this weekend.

Stan Lee to Morrison: "I sure wish you'd stop showing me up!"
 
 
FinderWolf
20:25 / 25.07.08
(the above quote was in the Newsarama coverage of this panel but, I note, didn't get mentioned in the Comic Book Resources panel linked above)
 
 
H3ct0r L1m4
21:19 / 25.07.08
it seemed to have been pretty uneventful, eh? but with Gm at 8 panels this year, hopefully some interesting footage of some of them will surface anytime on youtube.
 
 
H3ct0r L1m4
22:00 / 29.07.08
report on "The Spirit of the Superhero" panel with Deepak Chopra at SDCC08

"The superhero might be the way out of western culture's death lock. It's really important that we start telling new stories, as opposed to the bleak, apocalyptic ones we've been telling. Otherwise our culture is about to commit suicide."

it doesn't seem to have been too different from last year's panel with Chopra. but i liked the hand metaphor, which reminded me of THE FILTH.
 
 
FinderWolf
01:12 / 30.07.08
I particularly enjoyed hearing Morrison talk about (in another SDCC panel) how now, after 9/11, we see so much solider-worship in our culture (and in other cultures as well), and we now need to move beyond 'solider' to something else - problem-solver, non-violent (or least not solely violent) Buddha-nature personas... and that's what superheroes have an insight into and an angle on.
 
 
FinderWolf
01:14 / 30.07.08
(well, Buddha is non-violent but not all superheroes are totally non-violent - that's what I was trying to cram into that sentence)
 
 
Mug Chum
02:25 / 30.07.08
I think my overall taste today in funny papers was very much influenced by some of Morrison's eloquence in speaking out against (years ago in interviews) all that faux seriousness in that it helped me to define more precisely in my head what I don't like in it and to map that overall aesthetics/ sensitivity and what usually comes with it, or what creates it etc (and I'm sure it also contributed to refine why I hate Ennis' military wankery so much, Millar, Bendis, some of Ellis' etc). But GM seems to be somewhat behind in that area as well... it seems as if he's repeating the same argument, while a bit stuck on this early 00's buzz (with glorious exceptions, of course) instead of going full throttle on the other aspect. All Star Superzen Lebowski was plenty awesome, for instance -- but you'd expect more of Flex's/DP's high vistas of imagination (whatever that would entail for today's feel and 'clothing'). And I felt the "casanova lover is the new warrior" was sorely absent in the Batman that was supposed to be the hairy chested lovegod superspy (Bond minus misoginy). Almost like it's still in a Filth hangover of sorts, still processing deaths and ends of the world, a overall sense of fear and uncertainty. I don't know if I'm making sense, just typing while pished.

And the overall catterpillar argument sounds so much like that sort of evangelical strain that wants to foment a war with Iran so it can create a WWIII, so it can create the nuclear war, so it can create the end of the world, so it can create the judgement day, so Jesus can come down and strip his cock out. Only instead of all that, it's climate change (or all of the world's current shit) and supercontext-speak (not that it was the only thing to raise an eyebrow about, but that stood out for me since I remember him saying that already and seeing Ken Urgh Wilber critiquing people who try to make a difference as divisive and part of the problem and that it's all going ok, or something to that effect).
 
 
Aha! I am Klarion
12:44 / 30.07.08
Holy split infinitives and run-on-sentences Batman! Can you unpack that last paragraph a little. I think that you have something fairly interesting to say, but the way it came out was somewhat muddled.
 
 
H3ct0r L1m4
12:47 / 30.07.08
you do make sense, zip.

i find Morrison's change in point of view [that happened somewhere mid-Invisibles] very interesting but sometimes reflective of a "conformist Zen stand".

not that his characters never act, they do, a lot; but it bothers me a bit the implied argument that when characters realize they're part of an organic social system that fixes itself they just have to let go [while still playing their part in the duality model to make the same system work].

they're supposed to overcome their own limitations in order to achieve better things.

if the faerie invasion from the future in SEVEN SOLDIERS is a "necessary evil" that came to show what we could have become so it could be prevented [which was brilliant in itself] then the counter action is a much needed "necessary good".

this has worked fine in Comics: Superman never ceases to dismantle Luthor's plans to get rid of him [although we still have to see how ASS ends] and Batman never ceases to dance around the Joker's anarchic plans to bring mayhem to Gotham.

but i can't take that it's fine to abuse the planet resources without giving back, without making its system sustainable. if a consumerist westerner that becomes an overweight diabetic is going to turn into a spirit of light, so let's leave at that? or let go off private companies sponsoring civil wars in other countries under the banner of counter-terrorism and holy scriptures so they can exploit their natural resources?

one could argue this is me talking under the illusion of Ego. sometimes it's necessary to do so, to try to fix the Matrix a little bit, to become agents of change for good, even if it's only changing ourselves [which is what most of us will be able to do, we're really lazy].

GM's argument also brought me back to the late George Carlin's routine about Earth, and how it'll outlive our attempts to exploit it. i'm of the mind it can indeed shake its shoulders and get rid of us, as it's already doing.

but we have to look for ourselves, otherwise Life will be made even more miserable. finding and applying new energy resources to prevent killing more people for fuel; preventing lung cancer and related diseases caused by smoke emissions; preventing crime caused by lack of opportunities, unfair distribution of monetary resources and poor social values. and so forth.

the Earth can do without us, but we can't do without it, and ourselves for that matter. sure, there's a lot of emotional detritus we have to get rid of, like the weight of guilt, but we can't just sit back and say all the cruelty is OK because it's part of our journey into spiritual illumination. the argument seems to embrace the same "culture suicide" that Morrison and Chopra said we must try to change.

am I misreading GM's arguments? because well, i've been accused lately of not getting what people write in arguments. if that was the case here, please let me know. but other than that, conformist Zen stands bother me when there's so much that can be done.
 
 
Mug Chum
13:23 / 30.07.08
Adam - I was a bit drunk, but I can't see what's not to understand, I'm afraid (or better yet, I'm not sure I'd be able to write it much differently, even when sober).

Hector - yeah, it pretty much always comes off on those notes for me as well. It managed to hit interesting points in the specific workings inside things like Invisibles (as something to contemplate or to use as a starting point to the narrative and the mixed metaphysical (/linguistic) poetics), but it ultimately never reached a satisfying conclusion for its own sense of being nagged by "Ah, zen for 'I can't be bothered'!" (even if people keep telling me The Filth synthesizes the two in a more nuanced manner, I can't really see it).
 
 
Aha! I am Klarion
14:27 / 30.07.08
I thought you were saying something to that effect. I have a similar problem with Morrison's worldview (which, as you mention has a weird feedback built into the system where descent is built into the structure: "Your disagreement is apart of the system. Some people are born protesters.").

However, I think this differs from Wilber's scheme, in that Morrison's worldview is linear (it is moving towards a moment of magical transcendence), while Wilber's is stable (which, even if excepting of a Gaia or meta-organism concept, there is no grantee of social, spiritual, or physical, or magical evolution; the system simply is).

I think Wilber would dismiss much of Morrison's worldview as the post-modern confusion in the extreme (which if we follow his axioms, then it most certainly is).

While I favor Wilber's rational and intellectual view; I think that Morrison's perspective has more emotional and spiritual (in the subjective sense) creditability.
 
 
Mug Chum
14:50 / 30.07.08
Which is something I appreciate in his work. A lot, actually.

I think my dislike of (the extremely little I know of) Wilber stems mostly from the way he is utterly dismissive when talking about "activists" (quotes there for the way he says the word with humourous emphasis) which reminded me a bit too much of Morrison saying crap like "protesters just want to meet policemen" and that type of... well, urgh.
 
 
H3ct0r L1m4
14:52 / 30.07.08
me too, Adam [and Zip].

the thing is, even considering the System as something 'that just is', it seems to me that Morrison states that in Fiction we're to expect opposing forces to clash, and play their parts in the Ying\Yang dance.

but that in Life [not arguing Life As Fiction here, but we as well could] we're not to oppose anything, as both Them and Us are part of the same System, two sides of the same coin.

it's still all very Zen, but not all cops give up because 'crime will always exist'. i like what's spiritual in the metaphor about the carterpillar that turns into a 5th dimension butterfly\higher being, but not when eating leaves is equalled to exploiting the Earth or other people being OK.

because to me it sounded like it's almost like saying it's OK for poor people to die of starvation and deseases as they're playing their part in the big scheme of things. this is religious rethoric at its worst. i so hope to be wrong this time.
 
 
H3ct0r L1m4
17:22 / 30.07.08
Pulp Secret / Newsarama video interview on MBX and Batman, just an update on those projects.
 
 
H3ct0r L1m4
15:44 / 31.07.08
last couple of SDCC reports on panels Morrison was in:

BORN UNDER A DARK SUN - the one he did with My Chemical Romance's Gerard Way, and seems to have been a bit disappointing [if you were expecting what was in the panel's description] with some awkward moments due to Way's fans and how he dealt with them.

EW's Comics Visionaries - the one presented by the magazine's Nisha Gopalan, with this folks: Jim Lee ("All Star Batman & Robin," "Wildcats"), John Cassaday ("Astonishing X-Men," "Planetary"), Matt Fraction ("Uncanny X-Men," "Casanova"), Mike Mignola ("Hellboy," "B.P.R.D."), Robert Kirkman ("The Walking Dead," "Invincible") and Colleen Doran ("Comic Book Tattoo," "A Distant Soil").
 
 
H3ct0r L1m4
00:18 / 01.08.08
DVD Town SDCC interview; a small tidbit:

You know, Millar´s a bullsh---er. I´ve known him for… he was my protégé for ten years. I know him better than anybody on the planet and… uh… he´s a bullsh---er.
 
 
Aha! I am Klarion
00:58 / 01.08.08
You have to say "off the record..."
 
 
Signifier
22:50 / 12.08.08
"On comics, magic, life and death,", over at PW Comics Week.
 
  

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