Grant MorrisonBorn: 31 January 1960
Glasgow, Scotland
Abducted by aliens in Kathmandu. Met Jesus Christ while terribly ill. Spends evenings chatting with starstruck strippers about Quantum Mechanics. Throughly modern and best buds with Barry Sonnefeld, Robbie Williams and My Chemical Romace and living the dream of comic nerds worldwide. You ready? Brace yourself. Grant Morrison is a bald, self-styled scottish shaman known for being a bit off kilter and writing comic books that are nonlinear, self-reflecting and will almost definitely make your head hurt. With a brain that seemingly never stops spilling out ideas and a drive to keep pushing things in stranger, psychedelic directions: he's several parallel universes beyond the dreams of the nearest future (or something). Equally at home writing mainstream superhero comics for DC and creating more esoteric fare for people that like to chew big metaphysical ideas: he's half man / half brand with a flavor all of his own. Starting out as a countercultural legend and producing such crazy weirdness with the Doom Patrol and the animal rights trumpeting Animal Man he then moved upwards to create the epoch making (in comics terms at least) The Invisibles that managed to combine all the preoccupations of a generation (conspiracy theories, drugs and UFOs) all in the same place and then he succesfully managed to raid the mainstream (or if you prefer: "sell-out" - but that's up to you) with his run on JLA and The New X-Men and has since managed to affix his special strangeness into the DNA of Superman (see: All Star Superman with Frank Quitely) and Batman (with his long-running Batman run which now comes to - what? - about a dozen different books). And - if you prefer your books without pictures - well he's also written Supergods which not only sets out the tell the history of the superhero but also (and this is probably just a cosmic coincidence right?) tells his own (pretty bizzare it must be said) life story too. Of course - thanks to the sheer density of the stuff he writes (probably more information content per square inch than any other comic writer: not with words but just with how much stuff tends to being going on - and how much stuff ends up refering to other stuff) - the internet adores him (all those links below are just a minute fraction of the stuff that's out there): seeing how much stuff he can give you to unpack and how many things he can give you to say (I only exaggerate slighly when I say he doesn't have fans - he has scholars). Love him or hate him (and some people do both depending on which period of his life you're talking about) he bestrides the comics landscape like a colossus and at this point can do whatever the hell he wants (see: Dinosaurs vs. Aliens - his next project).
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Links: Warren Ellis Comic Book Resources Interview with Grant Morrison, Grant Morrison talk, My Top Ten Grant Morrison Comics Can Beat Up Your Top Ten Grant Morrison Comics, LinkMachineGo, Super Amazing Blogo Culture 7000 Article: The Tragedy of Mind Grabber Man or Grant Morrison's Evolution as a Writer, Hooded Utilitarian Article: Grant Morrison, Transcendence, and Shitty Art, GraphiContent: Parataxis, Grant Morrison & Why People Hate His Endings - A Snippet, The Gold In Us Will Survive In You.
Selected works: Animal Man, Doom Patrol, Batman: Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, Flex Mentallo, The Invisibles, Marvel Boy, JLA: Earth Two, Fantastic Four: 1234, X-Men: New X-Men, The Filth, We3, Sebastian O, Seaguy, Vimanarama, Seven Soldiers of Victory, Superman: All Star Superman, Batman: Batman and Son, Batman: The Black Glove, Batman: Batman R.I.P., Final Crisis, Grant Morrison's 18 Days, Batman: Batman and Robin, Supergods, Joe The Barbarian, Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne, Batman: Time and the Batman, Batman: Batman Incorporated.
All comments welcome.
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