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CREATOR PROFILE:

GRANT MORRISON

Biography:

“Grant Morrison is five feet eleven inches tall and has dark brown hair and hazel eyes. His favourite colour is turquoise. His favourite foods are chocolate, salt and vinegar chips, salads and spicy foreign muck. He has an appendectomy scar. His mother is called Agnes, his dad is called Walter and his sister is called Leigh. His favourite animal is a cat and his favourite girl is called Magdalena. His is single, heterosexual (with possible latent homosexual tendencies), and is currently quite wealthy. His work has been described as gibberish. That’s all there is to him.”
Biographical details from The Invisibles #1

Well not quite all. He now sports a shaved head. Also, he was born in 1960 and raised in Glasgow. As a child he immersed himself in mystery and science fiction writing and collecting American comics. But then in 1976, punk hit the nation. “I was utterly transformed by it.” He formed a band. “If you stand in front of people and sing songs that you’ve written, you get an immediate response, either they jump up and down or they hit you with beer bottles. I really like that and I miss it a lot.” Brimming with attitude and always controversial, Grant has been writing comics professionally since 1978. But why write comics for a living? “I’d just always wanted to write, from way back. And I’d written a couple of novels as a teenager… But then I saw Warrior come out, and at this point I hadn’t read comics for years. The stuff Alan Moore was doing seemed interesting enough to give me the idea that maybe there was something worth doing in comics, and that the kind of work I was interested in might actually be appropriate for comics than for novels… I’d rather communicate with lots of people than a few. One of the reasons I do comics rather than write books is that nobody buys books any more. If you do a comic that sells a million and manages one good idea, it’s better than doing a book which sells 2,000 and has a lot of good ideas.”

Essential Reading:


All-Star Superman
with Frank Quitely
DC, 2006-2008

All-Star Superman is one of the most critically acclaimed mainstream comic book series in recent memory. Grant Morrison takes Superman back to basics and create a new vision of the World’s First Superhero. Following a desperate mission to rescue a team of astronauts from the Sun, Superman’s whole body is super-charged with solar power - to the point where it will kill him. Now the world’s greatest superhero must set his affairs in order, beginning by telling Lois Lane the truth about Clark Kent’s secret identity, and taking in a series of Herculean trials which will change Superman’s world forever.



The Filth
with Chris Weston & Gary Erskine
DC/Vertigo, 2004

To outward appearances Greg Feely is a meek lonely man caring for his sick cat, Tony. But Greg Feely is really a parapersonality, created as a recuperative vessel for Ned Slade, a top operative in The Hand - an extradimensional cleanup squad charged with maintaining society’s even keel, cleaning up disruptive anti-persons that threaten social hygiene. Slade is needed back on the job to hunt down the most dangerous anti-person yet - the rouge Hand agent, Spartacus Hughes. The Filth is a savage satire of new millennium sex, politics and identity.



We3
with Frank Quitely
DC/Vertigo, 2005

We3 is an eerie tale mixing science fiction and horror… with cute furry animals. Three innocent pets - a dog, a cat and a rabbit - have been converted into deadly cyborgs by a sinister military weapons program. With nervous systems amplified to match their terrifying mechanical exoskeletons, the members of Animal Weapon 3 have the firepower of a battalion between them. But they are just the program’s prototypes, and now that their testing is complete they’re slated to be permanently de-commissioned. Seizing their one chance to make a desperate run for freedom, the We3 team are relentlessly pursued by their makers and must navigate a frightening and confusing world where their instincts and heightened abilities make them as much a threat as those hunting them - but a world, nonetheless, in which somewhere there is something called home.



New X-Men
with Frank Quitely
Marvel, 2001-2004

Sixteen million mutants dead - and that was just the beginning. In one bold stroke, Grant Morrison propells the X-Men into the 21st century, masterminding a challenging new direction for Marvel’s mutant heroes that began with the destruction of Genosha and never let up. Regarded as the most innovative thinker of the current comic-book renaissance, Morrison proceeded to turn the mutant-hero genre on its ear. Gone were the gaudy spandex costumes - replaced by slick, black leather and an attitude to match.



The Invisibles
DC/Vertigo, 1994-2000

On 22 December 2012, history will end. Two opposing forces battle to claim control of the new universe that will prevail beyond that apocalyptic event. On the one side wait the Archons of the Outer Church, inhuman forces of control and tyranny. The Archons and their human agents already control governments, media and armies. On the opposing side stand The Invisibles, a loose network of freedom fighters and occult terrorists pledged to sabotage and undermine the structures of power. This is the choice: Timeless Freedom or Eternal Control.

Grant Morrison says:
This is the comic I’ve wanted to write all my life - a comic about everything; action, philosophy, paranoia, sex, magic, biography, travel, drugs, religion, UFO’s… you can make your own list. And when it reaches its conclusion, somewhere down the line, I promise to reveal who runs the world, why our lives are the way they are and exactly what happens to us when we die.

 

Bibliography:

Graphic Novels:
Batman & Robin: Batman Reborn (2010)
All-Star Superman (2006-2008)
The Filth (2004)
We3 (2004)
Seaguy (2004)
The Mystery Play (1994)
Sebastian O (1993)
Arkham Asylum (1989)

The Invisibles (1994-2000):
1: You Say You Want A Revolution
2: Apocalipstick
3: Entropy In The UK
4: Bloody Hell In America
5: Counting To None
6: Kissing Mister Quimper
7: The Invisible Kingdom

New X-Men (2001-2004):
1: E Is For Extinction
2: Imperial
3: New Worlds
4: Riot At Xavier’s
5: Assault On Weapon Plus
6: Planet X
7: Here Comes Tomorrow

Justice League Of America (1996-2001):
Earth 2
1: New World Order
2: American Dreams
3: Rock Of Ages
4: Strength In Numbers
5: Justice For All
6: World War 3

Animal Man (1988-1990)
1: Animal Man
2: Deus Ex Machina
3: Origin Of The Species

Doom Patrol (1989-1993)
1: Crawling From The Wreckage
2: The Painting That Ate Paris

Prose:
Lovely Biscuits (1998)

Other Comics:
Fantastic Four 1234 (2001)
Marvel Boy (2000-2001)
Flex Mentallo (1996)
Kill Your Boyfriend (1995)
Big Dave (1993)
Kid Eternity (1991)
Dare (1990-1991)
Bible John (1990)
The New Adventures Of Hitler (1990)
St Swithin’s Day (1990)
Zenith (1987-2000)

Interviews:
The Comics Journal #176

Links:

Official Site:
Grant Morrison

Online Resources:
Paul Gravett’s Articles
A Moment Of Morrison
Barbelith: The Bomb

Publishers:
2000AD

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