Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Comic Books >

Best selections to indoctrinate someone to grant morrison's work?

03:23 / 23.03.06

i have an interested and willing burgeoning comic reader (we work together at a comic shop; she's a 19-year-old girl if that's necessary information) and after me talking up grant morrison non-stop all the time, she's ready to borrow some stuff (from me or from the shop) and see what all (my) fuss is about.

i was curious if anyone had any thoughts on what would be best to start her out with. i was thinking i'd mix light (seaguy and we3) with heavy (the first two phases of zenith and the full run of the invisibles) and then see what she thinks.

but if you think there's better gateway books into the world of morrison adulation, i'd love to hear your thoughts. thanks!

03:34 / 23.03.06

The first thing of his that I read was Volume 1 of The Invisibles. I think giving her that and Kill Your Boyfriend would work pretty well. KYB usually goes over well with people and has the advantage of being a small, self contained book.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

05:17 / 23.03.06

Kill Your Boyfriend is probably your best bet, yeah -- it's self-contained, with a pretty strong female central character, explores some of his primary postmodern themes, and is kick-ass. You know, the Bond sells it.

After that, I say you had directly into Doom Patrol, because it's important to infect her brain completely...

06:06 / 23.03.06

Why not WE3?

06:36 / 23.03.06

What kind of comics is she into normally? List some and we can find analogous stuff in G-Phresh's work.

His newer pieces tend to be lighter and more tightly written: Seven Soldiers, We3 and Vinmanarama! come to mind. Maybe some ASS?

Deffo Seven Soldiers. People need more hammer-raining corpses and shouting buildings in their lives. Trong Struth.

miss wonderstarr

07:08 / 23.03.06

Seven Soldiers I think demands quite a lot of attention, commitment and probably background knowledge of the way the DCU works.

Zenith I and II I would say are really quite light, rather than heavy.

Invisibles book I is let down by nasty artwork after the end of Yeowell's run.

--- I would recommend ---

We3: gorgeous, self-contained, sweet, intelligent, poignant.

St Swithin's Day: ditto, actually, though more dated.

Earth 2 if she knows anything about and has any interest in the DC big-hitters. Again, self-contained, accessible and fantastic to look at.

Kill Your Boyfriend: same reasons, though a very different type of gorgeousness.

The trouble with Zenith is that it starts off as a relatively standard modern-superhero story, and might seem a little predictable, even "babyish" to an adult reader (linear story about rounding up all the retired heroes -- Nazi voodoo villain) -- especially now

i) the clever cultural references are 18 years out of date
ii) every superhero comic has clever cultural references

However, in Book III I think Zenith grows into one of the greatest tales Morrison has ever told, with art that for me ranks even higher than Quitely.

I think you'd have to give some sense of Morrison's fascination with magic, text-as-sigil, chaos-vs-order and so on, and The Invisibles might be the only place for that. I just don't think it's a very accessible or attractive comic book.

NB. did I read right and this young woman is working in a comic shop, but hasn't read any Grant Morrison?

miss wonderstarr

07:16 / 23.03.06

Post-script:

ASS is supposed to be a way in for new readers with no knowledge of the Superman mythos, so that might be a good test case.

My own route into the master-mysteries of Morrison was (after Zenith and St Swithin's Day) though Doom Patrol. I'm just not sure how it holds up now, especially while (as is the case with a lot of GM's work) the art is really below-par. Richard Case's work picks up enormously during the series, but for the first issues it is, as I remember, incompetent and ugly.

07:18 / 23.03.06

agree that invisibles is a bit dense and inaccessible as entry level comics, how about Promethea as a good general intro to comics as something more than comics and taking it from there?

miss wonderstarr

07:24 / 23.03.06

I've never worked in a comic shop but I'm a little surprised that they'd employ someone who needs to be shown that comics can be complex and intelligent, when there must be a lot of informed fans out there who wouldn't mind the job.

If your friend needs a more general education in why comics can be really interesting, challenging and rewarding, then the list might be very different.

07:41 / 23.03.06

I don't know, when I worked in a comic shop we had guys that were anime, card game, and beanie baby experts, but even they had a general knowledge of the mainstream comic book stuff. (I'm curious as to what the Pokemon guy is up to these days)

07:43 / 23.03.06

Oh, and maybe the Invisibles in America trade (I forget the title). Slim, somewhat self contained, gorgeous art, and may pique interest in the earlier trades.

08:05 / 23.03.06

Add another vote for Bloody Hell in America - it's the shortest, sharpest and possibly best of the Invisibles trades, especially in terms of the crazy ideas to action ratio. It feels like the most fucked up episode of the X-Files mixed with James Bond and Tarantino. Anyone who doesn't like this should just stop reading comics, it's as simple as that.

I would suggest leaving Seven Soldiers until later. It's a big, sprawling read, and probably does require a deep-ish knowledge of the DCU or at least a 24/7 connection to the wiki, that thing was invaluable when reading SS - espicially for my partner, who doesn't usually read super-hero stuff and found most of the SS continuity to be pretty mind-boggling.

Also, Doom Patrol is awesome. If your friend has ever read Sandman, she can get past the art in DP. The characters in the Patrol are some of the best and most orignal I've ever seen in any comic, let alone one from Morrison. It's a treat for the imagination I tells ya! Who here doesn't love Danny the Street? Is Rebis not the mokst badass character ever (dig those glasses)?

08:18 / 23.03.06

I think it depends.

I'll say the same thing I recommend to everyone who wants to give comics to people. Think about the individual person and their tastes: favourite movies, television shows and books (or at least as much as you know).

My pitch is generally telling them that he's the second coming of Philip K. Dick. I don't even mention that he writes comics until BAM they get a stack of them.

My picks:

We3 is always a great one
Seaguy is pretty good too if they're in to Adult Swim stuff
Arkham Asylum
The Cassandra Nova story arc of New X-Men
The first JLA trade
One of the Seven Soldiers miniseries
Sebastian O (maybe and only for a few people)

And I think you'll notice one very well known thing is off that list. I love the first INvisibles trade but it is, well...not the most accessible book out there for a lot of people. I'd rather try and segue someone in to Filth and Invisibles and the really crazy stuff. I wanted to avoid large, daunting works that might be a bit too abstract for a lot of potential readers at first. Get them with the more mainstream, accessible things and then show them some of the really crazy, visionary works.

09:02 / 23.03.06

Oi, Kovacs. At what point does captainkyle say this:

I've never worked in a comic shop but I'm a little surprised that they'd employ someone who needs to be shown that comics can be complex and intelligent

?

miss wonderstarr

09:06 / 23.03.06

Oi yourself, "Triplets Loves H.A.T."

Captainkyle didn't say it. Doctorbeck said "how about Promethea as a good general intro to comics as something more than comics".

This indicated to me that the person in question (hypothetical in this case as Doctorbeck doesn't actually know her) wouldn't have much idea about the potential of comics as an intelligent and challenging medium ("more than comics").

Maybe I was wrong.

09:37 / 23.03.06

Well, all we know so far from capitan kyle is that she doesn't know much about Mortensen's comics not that she can't read intellistuff or that she's a thicko.

miss wonderstarr

10:06 / 23.03.06

That's true. Doctorbeck was perhaps suggesting a different kind of person, with less knowledge about comics in general.

10:27 / 23.03.06

Yeah I'd just give her Kill Your Boyfriend and WE3 Initially since they are short and self contained with consistantly beautiful art.

I can definitely second the need for finding out what the person in question likes, but if she's interested in finding out and looking for a starting point I'd go there.

10:49 / 23.03.06

I'm going to go out in a different direction and say MARVEL BOY. It's self-contained, relatively straightforward, and showcases GM's superheroic storytelling as well as touches of his weirder side.

10:59 / 23.03.06

If she's in any way familiar with X-men comics I'd use Morrison's X-men run as a starting point for indoctrination. It's a great run and familiarity goes along way.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

11:57 / 23.03.06

I'd say hold off on WE3 unless they're into comics already- it wouldn't make it hard to follow or anything if they weren't, I just think they'd get more out of it having read a few others first. Also action comics may seem something of a let-down for ever afterwards.

14:34 / 23.03.06

I'd put 'We3' right behind 'Kill Your Boyfriend' on a list of first-things-to-show, actually. If other action comics don't measure up, fuck'em. That's like not having a world-class meal because you're afraid the local McDonalds won't measure up. And I've given it to non-comics reading types and some of the manga-only crowd, and nobody seems to have problems following it.
Actually, unless they're absolutely sold on a property already, as with, perhaps, 'JLA' or 'X-Men', the one to three issue deals might be best. Should be selected on the basis of the individual, though. If they love Wilde, it's 'Sebastion O', but if they're going for a superheroey family comedy, go with 'Vimanarama'. 'The Filth' ought to appeal to a broader market than it's reaching, I think, but unless you're reading it in one sitting, beginning to end, it's probably not a very good introduction to Morrisonia.

15:26 / 23.03.06

So the "Coyote Gospel" one-shot in Animal Man would just be me, then?

15:41 / 23.03.06

I got into him by reading the first Invisibles trade. Great place to start and has kept me searching out his stuff ever since. Plus that first issue pretty much shows you what the man is about. If you're down with it, go for more.

15:45 / 23.03.06

My only real problem with 'The Invisibles' is its color scheme. Putting every page through a neonesque solarization krilian moodring filter could only immensely improve.
All Morrison works should be brightly colored, except for 'St. Swithins Day' I suppose.

16:01 / 23.03.06

So the "Coyote Gospel" one-shot in Animal Man would just be me, then?

Not at all. I think that excellently encapsulates the vast majority of themes in GM's American writing up to and including The Filth. Great comic, but you'd probably have to suffer through that 'conscious' B'wana Beast story in the trade first, at which point patience might be on the wane.

The first stuff I read was Zoids as a kid and Batman 'Gothic' (probably Arkham too, but it's that scene at the start of the former when Whisper sets a guy on fire that sticks, because it was fucking terrifying) as a teen. The first stuff I read with a notion of 'Scottish Vertigo author' was late on in Invisibles vol.2 (#20?), which was tremendously confusing, but compelling nonetheless.

I'd support 'Coyote Gospel' though, further to any infos about the person who you're introducing, Capt. K.

03:44 / 24.03.06

D'oh, I forgot The Coyote Gospel.

That would be on my list too.

I'd just be wary about giving someone ALL of the Invisibles or New X-Men or one of his longer things at the very start. If they don't like it then its quite daunting. If they don't like We3, its 3 issues they read.

But I do see the other side of it being that its one of his best works.

05:10 / 24.03.06

I was introduced to his work through one of the Invisibles issues. It was an issue in Volume 2 where they had some scenes from the future. I read it once and thought, "well, I'm not sure what the point of that was." And then a couple weeks later, I found myself drawn to it again. And this kept up until I started buying Invisibles regularly. Strangest experience I've ever had with a writing of any kind. I reckon he put a little magic in that one. Get's you hooked.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

06:00 / 24.03.06

Oddly, I got hooked on The Invisibles by reading the very final chapter of the final trade, and being so...enamoured with the Quitely art and the complete lack of narrative structure and. Um. I don't know why, but I proceeded to buy the rest of the series.

Backwards, I was really weird. Eventually I got the first one, which I held off on because the Yeowell art wasn't anything close to what I like in my art.

06:57 / 24.03.06

awesome! this whole thread is very helpful: thanks, all. i won't see her again until saturday, so i have about another day to plan and pull everything.

and, yes: she doesn't know everything there is to know about comics (she's more into manga and is an enthusiastic worker) but she's working her way through stuff and wants to hit the high notes, or at least the stuff that sounds interesting and rewarding. right now she's plowing through the 'crisis on infinite earths' tpb, so i think it's safe to say 1. she likes the dc characters more than others; and 2. she isn't cowed by complex continuity-heavy miniseries.

mostly, for the past month and a half (we both just started working at the shop earlier this year) she's been hearing me knock down everyone who comes in with "oh, bendis is SO good" or "brubaker is going to revolutionize the x-universe" with a morrison-centric remark, so when she asked me to recommend some stuff to get to know him, i was happy to oblige and offer to loan her the books in question. (i'm sort of a freak and have lucked up getting cheap books from friends and auctions, to the point where i have doubles of morrison's mainstream work i'm able to loan out to interested friends or just use as reading copies).

anyway, this week has been nuts and i've no time to do much of anything but work, write, and sleep when i can, but thanks again for your posts because friday night i'll have a little free time to put together a little morrison stack to give her, and i'll be sure to heed as much of your advice as i can. and i'll definitely let you know what she thinks!