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PROFILE: A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO GRANT MORRISON "People are constantly telling me they don't understand, no matter how hard I try to make them understand. I don't have anything to say to those people. I've just decided I'll only talk to people who get it." - Grant Morrison Five people stand between the rest of us and the forces of darkness. Everyone on Earth gets superpowers. A sentient corporation is taking over the Earth. A superhero decides to go vegetarian. A young girl hooks up with a mysterious young man and kills her boyfriend. An arrogant pop star who can fly fights bad guys from another dimension. These are all pretty simple concepts, right? Not too hard to understand, not particularly unfamiliar territory, right? So why is it that people feel that they need someone to explain the comics of Grant Morrison to them? It's all pretty simple stuff. Okay, fair enough, that's a a dumbed-down version to prove a point, but the point still stands - there's nothing particularly *difficult* to be found in any of Grant Morrison's comics. From The Invisibles to JLA, from Zenith to Arkham Asylum, from Kill Your Boyfriend to Marvel Boy, Morrison's writing may be fast and frantic, it may be wordy and dense, but he doesn't often leave you hanging without an explanation. His characters frequently indulge in exposition, spouting forth huge wordy monologues explaining exactly what they're doing and at the same time referencing occult knowledge, fringe science, alternative psychology, world history, or whatever was tickling his fancy at the time of writing. Okay, yes. Flex Mentallo is a weird comic. Yes, it's especially dense and multi-layered. There's a lot going on there, even by Morrison's standards. And yes, fine, Doom Patrol was pretty out there too. But weird can be a lot of fun. Both Flex and DP (Flex actually being a Doom Patrol spin-off in a roundabout way of speaking) are examples of high-octane Morrison, all stream-of-consciousness and tangential references and plot twists and weirdness. You gotta understand. Grant gets off on that kind of thing. His primary audience is himself. He takes ideas and runs with them until another one catches his eye, and if he likes two at the same time, then he runs with both of them. But even though Flex Mentallo and Doom Patrol aren't as easy to get into as Marvel Boy and JLA, that doesn't mean they're impenetrable, or any less enjoyable. The key to understanding Morrison is remembering that he's a writer first and foremost. His comics are designed to engage the reader, make them think, make them pause for a moment and reflect on what's been presented to them. When he writes his comics he uses experiences from his own life and things that he's read as source material. Morrison's comics exist as part of a continuum of knowledge that extends beyond the confines of the comic itself. One way to look at them is as introductory texts dealing with a wider body of information. You just have to concentrate a little harder than you normally would when reading the latest issue of Deadpool or Green Lantern. And that's your choice, really. If you want your comics to be mildly distracting on the level of the latest James Cameron film, then that's just fine. But if you want your comics to be stimulating, if you want them to make you think and introduce you to new ideas, then you wouldn't go far wrong in picking up a Grant Morrison comic. Of course, if you're after an action-packed bang-bang-bang hundred-miles-a-minute joyride, there's a goodly amount of that sort of thing in Morrison's back-catalogue as well. He's in this game for a laugh. Comics seem to excite him, give him that "manic pop thrill" that Warren Ellis has mentioned from time to time, and judging from the size of his fan-base, Morrison gives other people that thrill too. Whether it's mile-a-minute cultural referencing or big-budget "special effects", he manages to make both approaches work well, either on their own or in combination. Sure, sometimes it falls flat. Sometimes he doesn't hit the mark - Arkham Asylum tries a bit too hard to be spooky, The Mystery Play loses itself in its own symbolism, and the final chapter of The Invisibles wasn't really satisfying enough as a conclusion to the convoluted and complicated story that had gone before it. Sure, sometimes all the dialogue and exposition about weird theories and odd happenings make him come across as a bit of a tosser, but when Morrison fails, it's usually because he's over-reaches himself, which is better than settling for a tried-and-true formula every time. The fuck-ups come from his attempts to explore the boundaries of comic story-telling and from his desire to make comics as interesting as he possibly can. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that reading Grant Morrison's comics will make you a better person or anything. I'm just saying don't be put off. Dive right in - let it all wash over you. If you read one of his comics and don't like it, give another one a go - Morrison's back catalogue is large enough to be able to find something that tickles your fancy. These can be intense comics, sure. But they're by no means impenetrable. They're not hard to understand. They're not difficult. They're fun. Go on. Try them, and you'll see. Adam Ford's Feet-First Guide to Discovering Grant Morrison (from least dense to most dense) 1. Kill
Your Boyfriend (DC)
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