Oakies, in my never ending (now four year long) quest of turning this place into more than narutochat I have promoted comic series', heroes and villains. Though with a western bias. Now I am gunna broaden my aim, to reflect my view than comics and manga and manhua and bd etc are all the same and that anime and cartoons and whatever are also the same. I am going to cover the dreamweavers, the masterminds behind this all, and highlight some select works of theirs. The writers and artists behind comics, behind cartoons etc. Instead of well I don't want this to be an article for the mainsite or whatever because this isn't one. This doesn't represent GW. I truely want GW to be a better place for discussing comics (includes all countries of origin) and cartoons(likewise... anime are still cartoons and don't you forget it buster!) and such. Hopefully by reading this you might download the recommended reads .

If you have any suggestions, feel free to PM me with a breif who they are, reasons why, what they've done and maybe some useful weblinks. (Don't post suggestions in this topic, let's keep this one about the man)

Who better to start than one of the best comic writers around?

GRANT MORRISON

Why Him?

Morrison has a fantastic approach to writting comics. they are not merely stories but a means for him to express his views, thoughts and opinions. From experimenting with the very medium, to highlighting key social issues, Morrison constantly injects something new and interesting. Morrison's comics have a strong sense of self awareness and using the comics as a way to show us his world... and claiming to have been abducted by aliens, we can tell it's one hell of a world. Known as the "revamp guy", Grant Morrison has a habit of taking obscure, stale or failing characters and series and totally revitalising them. With DC's Final Crisis around the corner, I believe everybody should be aware of this guy. And also he's a brit, and did you really think I'd start this off with someone who isn't a brit?

Recommended reading
Animal Man 1-26(I think)
JLA: Rock of ages
Allstar Superman
The invisibles
Seven Soldiers

Career

This guy rocks, one of the leading figures in the british comics invasion of the 1980s, his humble roots can be traced back to writing Doctor Who, Spiderman and Zoids comics for Marvel UK and of course the old british staple 2000AD where he created Zenith, a comic series which explores the political state of britain in the late 80s, culture and the generation gap.

Thanks to this Grant Morrison got the chance to make it big and he did... really big. Animal Man. A minor hero before, Morrison got pretty much total control and totally revamped the character. A hero balancing his career abd his real life with his super hero life, while his animal rights views took over (Morrison himself a vegetarian). This was the time where the brit invasion took place, Alan Moore tok over swamp thing, Neil Gaimen took over Sandman, etc etc. Morrison's Animal man stood out with it's strong stance on animal rights, focusing on themes such as animal experimentation, vegetarianism, conservation and indeed man's interaction with the animal kingdom but also exploring the role o being a super hero, and it's impact on a man's personal life. Animal Man is also roddn the DC universe as being one of the few heroes whose identity is pretty public knowledge and early in the series this is something Animal man had to deal with as Mirror master invaded his home (like 15 or something years before this theme would be expanded on in Identity Crisis). Starting with "The coyote gospel" the animal man comic would start to break the forth wall and would reference the very nature of the comic or even Morrison himself at points. Morrison's run on Animal man is still one of the best mainstream comics I've ever read

His next works would include Doom patrol. A series which broke boundries and was steeped heavily in parody, self awareness and several artistic references such as dadaism which are not exactly common in the comic world. Aided with high calibre artists he turned Doom Patrol into a classic. Around the same time he also worked on Arkham Asylum, a comic series which truely played with the insanity of the batman cast.

In the mid 90s Morrison would go on to write for a relaunch of the justice League, this comic featured DC's flagship characters as they battled against world or universe threatening opponents. This series really played up the image of the DC heroes as gods as they watched over earth from the moon, descending when needed. He would also hark back to the classic Crisis on multiple earths story in the graphic novel Earth2, featuring the justice League encounter an alternate reality version of themselves. Carrying on from where Zenith left off, Morrison would then create The Invisibles, again playing on pop culture. I will admit my knowledge on this series is somewhat non-existant (I am torrenting it atm. I have read about the fact that writting this series damaged him and made him ill, which is kinda interesting) so if someone wants to come in and educate us, please do.

Grant Morrison would then work for Marvel with a run on the new x-men. This would become controversial as he introduced new characters, killed some off (Jean Grey, masses of mutants) and generally did what the revamp guy does best, shook shit up in an otherwise stale comic series. A run that would prove so controversial amoung Marvel that they basically had to rewrite and retcon everything (ironic because he was apparently hired by Marvel to show that they can accept new ideas). Morrison would go on to do critically acclaimed titles for DC's vertigo before the Eisener award winning Seven Soldiers. A series of seven individuals who battle against a common foe, but who never interact with each other. He would then go on to create another award winning series, that of All star Superman. A series which provides us with an iconic superman, with stories following a very silver-age fashion.
In 2006 the guy went on to write batman starting with Batman and son, and building up to the resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul. he is still writting for Batman. Grant Morrison was also one of the righters on DC's 52. One of the best comics of recent years, a year long weekly title following several different characters and their stories during a year without batman, Superman or Wonder Woman.
Grant Morrison will also be writting Final Crisis, said to literally be the final crisis of the DC universe and end the whole retconning syndrome from Crisis on infinate earths to zero hour to infinate crisis. It is rumoured that some may die, but whether that's true or not, with morrison at the helm, things definately will change.

Interviews

http://www.barbelith.com/old/interviews/interview_1.shtml
http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=111900


Join me again in two weeks time where I will look into everybody's favourite superstar comics writter, the tarantino of comics, Frank Goddamn Millar! (note: I will try and not let my hatred for his work affect my article in any way)

Grant Morrison is my favorite comic writer ever, because he genuinely believes he was abducted by UFOs and all sorts of crazy shit.

Kaworu I could have put this on the front page, it seems like a pretty active article series.

I honestly think Grant Morrison is overrated. Not bad: some of his stuff is great, and all of it's at least interesting. But the dude seriously needs to pull his head out from deep inside his metaphysical arsehole... I read a couple trades of the Invisibles,and it was just frustrating. Every time he went onto what seemed like an interesting idea or any time there was any kind of narrative forming, he'd suddenly go on these bigass patronising pseudo-hippie rants about, say, how cities are destroying our souls or how the educational system turns people into lobotomised drones. "Wow, I never realised it was a bad thing to be a faceless cog in the industrialist system, Mr. Morrison! Thanks for pointing that out in a five-page spiel jammed into the comic from nowhere just as I was starting to get interested in what happens next!". It was just gratuitous bullshit rambling, and whenever he actually does make an interesting point/idea, he just drops it there like a complete fucking non-sequitor (or whatever the phrase is). It's like he felt that actually having people be able to understand what he was going on about would somehow devalue it. he's the Thomas Pynchon of comics, making interesting statements but suffocating them under the weight of his own ego.

Not that I'm against comic writers tacking deeper themes than people in leotards punching one another, but I just think they should do it well and not just stick in a bunch of religious imagery and shit whenever there's a blank spot in a panel. And that they should learn that 'deep' and 'incomprehensible' are not nessecarily the same things.

Steel, I wanted this (and future ones) here to get discussion and activity going in this forum specifically (after four years I am still dedicated) and having it as a front page article would get the discussion away from here, which is not what I want to do.

thecatamites, I'm pretytmuch used to the whole dragging the reader aside and doing shit. It's a pretty english thing and is done in everything from Star Wars Novels to Sonic The Comic, so I kinda embrace those moments. It don't really break the pace for me but slow it down so that what happens next has more impact.

I've read about We3, and there's a movie being made around it, written by Morrison himself, so maybe it'll be the first ever good comic to movie adaption (who knows?)