GRANT MORRISON POLL

For me, Vol 1 of the Invisibles is his best work, though in subsequent volumes what would become his trademark problems in my eyes came more to the fore: a slew of rapid-fire dazzling ideas getting in the way of coherent storytelling. I love Doom Patrol as well, probably his best balance of weirdness and superheroic soap opera, and Zenith deserves props.

In later years, Seaguy stands out for its sheer exuberance, and I really enjoyed The Filth, despite it suffering from some of the faults I mentioned earlier.

I think if I had read all of the New Adventures of Hitler I would vote for it. But I have not, so it must be Zenith or Seaguy.

I agree that with Chap that Volume 1 of Invisibles is probably the best thing he's ever done, because he manages to combine impressive ideas with tight plots and a surreal edge. Volume 2 is almost as good, but by Volume 3 the whole thing has become pretty much hit and miss. Doom Patrol is more solid throughout and has somewhat better characterization, but heights of genius are a tad lower there. Some of the shorter works of course have the benefit of being more compact and therefore not succumbing to the sort of incoherence the longer works often do. But I still gotta go for The Invisibles, because despite its shortcomings few comics have ever made me as excited both emotionally and intellectually as it did during the best parts.

If I could vote for a single issue though, I'd vote for the last issue of Animal Man. Few 24-page comics have managed to be both totally postmodern and sweetly sentimental in the way it does.

Seaguy or The Invisibles will win this but I think the correct answer is We3.

No, the correct answer is FLEX MENTALLO or DOOM PATROL.

If I could vote for a single issue though, I'd vote for the last issue of Animal Man.

is that the OMG Animal Man is a comics character!!! issue? My new theory is that this is not actually that great an idea, and merely represents a rather tired kind of postmodernism.

I know this is a just a meaningless poll, but I spent way too long agonizing over it. In the end, I had to go with the Invisibles, since it was pretty much a distillation of pretty much everything I had read or watched from the ages of 15 to 28. For single issues, though, I think I'd go with Doom Patrol #63, which just kills me every time I read it.

I love the last ish of Animal Man to bits but it also strikes me as pretty much a lift from the epilogue of Alasdair Gray's Lanark - the apologetic metafictional tone is very similar.

I am really tempted to vote for Zenith as being the only good comic about British superheroes ever, but Book IV is noticeably weaker than the other ones.

Perhaps I shall vote for BIG DAVE.

Not listed: St Swithins Day, Bible John, ZOIDS (and other early Marvel UK stuff), WildCATS (arf), The Authority (arf arf), DC One Million, the Millar collabs.

Of those, I've never read Bible John but I think DC1M and St Swithins might even have picked up a vote maybe! DC1M is probably my favourite ever mental crossover event, certainly.

I voted JLA as it's totally constructed from Thrill Power whilst still having an average of at least one wtf! idea every issue. I mean, shaving the Shaggy Man, come on; what is there not to love about that?

Although Zenith Phases 2 & 3 have their moments.

My new theory is that this is not actually that great an idea, and merely represents a rather tired kind of postmodernism.

I don't think the idea of a character meeting his creator is necessarily new or great in itself (though I can't remember any comic book where it would've been done to this length, instead of just as a singular gag), but the way that issue is written is pretty great. All the talk about story and genre conventions is spot-on (it's quite clear already at this point that Morrison doesn't much care about Milleresque "dark and edgy" superhero stories), and the endings he gives to both Animal Man and himself are really quite touching.

(though I can't remember any comic book where it would've been done to this length, instead of just as a singular gag)

Dave Sim spun it out for about ten issues! Also in a very interesting way.

The best Morrison single issue is from Animal Man, but it isn't the final issue. It's the Wiley Coyote issue. FACT.

"the filth" could have been twice as long

What a toughie. I have read (almost) all of these Grant Morrisons! Doom Patrol, New X-Men, Invisibles, and Flex Mentallo are probably in my all-time top ten comics ever. I guess since his Spawn run was omitted from the poll, I'd have to go with Invisibles. It's patchy, and I've outgrown a lot of the things I found exciting about it the first time 'round, but it's still pretty amazing.

torn between:

-Animal Man (tight narrative, agree with Tuomas about the ending)
-New X-Men (maybe didn't hit the heights of some of his crazier stuff but was consistent and the most fun i've had reading x-men since i was a kid)
-Invisibles (kinda sums up all his strengths & flaws)

if someone went with doom patrol or JLA, i would understand.

i've had cbr's of Flex Mentallo for years but never got around to reading (actually i think they got lost with my last laptop). ;_;

flex mentallo, having found it in my teens and having had it make me significantly more happy to be alive for a good couple days in my teens. if i had to say which was 'best' of these i'd have more trouble, i have yet to square which of these works impacted on me on what kind of levels, 'good art' (ech) vs being moved in a specifically targeted way (LOOK UP) vs just plain pandering aspirationalism (man, it'd be so cool to be a superspy against the forces of conformism! especially if it meant getting to take drugs and have sex a lot!). this forum should be renamed 'i'm rather fond of grant morrison', he's actually mentioned in every single thread updated this week.

(n.b. 1) i am aware that there are probably people on barbelith who think that invisibles does a better job of subverting its jamesbondisms than it actually does. 2)don't get me wrong, i totally wuv james bond)

The art is a bit off-putting in the Animal Man reprints.

should GM's different Batman stories have been presented separately? The Hush (or whatever it was from LOTDK) is very different in tone from the current Batman run.

Just because it's looming large in my head these days (also it's amazing) All Star Supes.

If All Star Superman were done yet I might have picked it, but I'm gonna say 7 Soldiers (with profuse apologies to The Invisibles, which I think is actually better in its later volumes than earlier ones).

Speaking of All Star Supes - where's Mxyzptlk? And Brainiac? They're important enough figures in the mythos that I'm surprised they haven't shown up yet. Well, I guess LOSH Brainiac did, unless I'm misremembering that.

Flex Mentallo is good, but it also feels, I dunno, somehow a bit too compressed. Like everything is a signifier for something else, and the actual story isn't that joyful to read. The final payoff is pretty great, admittedly.

I liked We3 a lot, but it felt a bit too short for a totally different reason. Here the story was the main point, and it was simple yet gripping, with lovely (maybe that's the wrong word) characters, but it was over too soon! I would've wanted their journey to last longer! Though I guess Morrison said everything he wanted to say in that short space. Seaguy had a similar problem, it just felt like the sort of odyssey Seaguy was going through should've been longer. But I hear there's gonna be sequels for that, maybe that'll correct things.

One more thing that makes Doom Patrol and especially The Invisibles my favourites is sheer length of them. Morrison had years to run free with them, so he could just throw in issues which only explored the background of a certain character or had some odd subplot that had little to do with the big story. That sort of freedom and length meant that the stories had air to breath, that it wasn't just about the Big Ideas and signifiers and metaphors, but also about sense of adventure and interesting, three-dimensional characters. I'm not sure if any publisher is gonna give him that sort freedom again to run with a big series for years, but I hope it's gonna happen some day.

I've been thinking about picking up 7 Soldiers... Does it make any sense for someone with a limited knowledge of DC universe?

7 soldiers is very self-contained.

Myx was in the chronobeast issue, wasn't he? Or am I thinking of something else?

That was the 5th Dimensional Superman. Close enough.

Voted Big Dave. Also missing and among his best: A Glass Of Water.

The Hush (or whatever it was from LOTDK)

this was Gothic.

Doom Patrol INCLUDING Flex Mentallo would be my vote if I could do that. I was away from comics between childhood and adulthood, and when I stumbled into a comics shop for the first time it was Doom Patrol (then mid-run) that I picked up and was hooked on: some sequence with Cliff running around saying, "Shit!" and Crazy Jane looking for him. It looked interesting so I bought it and the few issues before it, and was HOOKED. I hadn't read Watchmen or anything at that stage, and I was very into surrealism, and I went all, "Wow, I never thought anyone could do stuff like this with superheroes!"

By the way, whatever happened to Richard Case?

Also, Tuomas spot-on re Animal Man: that issue manages the rare feat of combining cleverdick postmodernism with actual emotional heft; whereas postmodernism normally either gives me the shits or leaves me impressed in a detatched sort of way, but not involved.

I have to go for Doom Patrol, as it's the best synthesis of all his good points: the thrill power, the forehead-slapping longterm plotting, the one-liners, the great characters, ideas, and the occasional all-purpose WTF-ness. (I mean you, Sex Men.)

But also because when I bought them as they came out, the last six or so issues were SO EXCITING.

Arkham Asylum, I think, is the only one that's actively bad.

Arkham Asylum is unforgivably beautiful, but storywise, yeah, It's on the messy side. Read an awful like "Here, you're English, do some Alan Moore voodoo!" Lurved it at the time, but then I was a litwanky college student when it came out, in the deepest throes of my studies of Postmodernity. Hasn't aged spectacularly well.

a lot of people are using the word 'postmodern' on this thread. maybe as many as a half dozen.

The story's not the problem with Arkham, the art is! Invisibles (esp vol 3) I suppose, but it could easily be JLA/Zenith/We3/Seaguy/Seven Soldiers/Doom Patrol/All-Star... oh I've listed nearly everything of his I've read. Invisibles cos it comes closest to encompassing it all, all his work seems a piece.

Yeah, he always said Invisibles was his "Here's everything" work. I think that's one of the reasons why I love it, along with everything. It meant a lot to me, and I'm even fond of the faults in the last volume.

I would definitely click an "ALL OF IT" button, though. The only thing that I started but couldn't finish was Marvel Boy. Also, it was nice to see Skrull Kill Krew getting a whole page in the recent Secret Invasion: Secret Files thing :)

Also it's been said before (not least by me), but fucking hell, he can write endings.

Actually, maybe I should book a day off for All-Star Superman 12 :) Which has I think been his most flawless work - the Bizarro story could maybe have been two issues, but other than that it's all gold, in my opinion.

Also the future history of Superman, as apparently ghostwritten by Grant in Man of Tomorrow #1,000,000!

For what it's worth, I'd like to exclaim my praise for Marvel Boy. It's not my favorite (probably Flex), but it's joyous in it's irreverence - I can't think of another modern comic that can beat in in terms of pure velocity.

Doom Patrol: But also because when I bought them as they came out, the last six or so issues were SO EXCITING.

So, so, so OTM.

those last eight or so issues of Doom Patrol maybe ruined comics for me forever

I mean I still love 'em (obviously) ('em being the comics) but nothing has come close to matching that experience

although I might go see a local community theater presentation of Li'l Abner tomorrow and maybe that'll make me forget Doom Patrol ever existed

We3

(ANOTHER FAVE)

KILL YOUR BOYFRIEND - I recall reading it five or six times the night I purchased it. The only comparable experience that leaps to mind is CHUNGKING EXPRESS, which I saw twice the night I rented it.

Kill Your Boyfriend was actually the first Morrison comic I read. I remember it made a big impression on me back then, but I've been kind of wary of rereading it, because I'm not sure if I'd find it as great now as I did when I was 16. It is his ultimate teenage rebellion story, isn't it? Though I haven't yet become old and cynical enough to hate teenage rebellion stories, so maybe I should just read it again to see if it holds together.

i have hated teenage rebellion stories since i was 14

looking in my old boxes of comics to find 7S resulted in two more missing from this poll i bought as an impressionable but distrustful-of-being-pandered-to teenager: 'kid eternity', and 'steed and mrs peel' (with ian gibson!); don't worry, though, both of them a bit crap. probably more so than kill yr boyf or st swithins day.

The correct answer is Doom Patrol.

Or Kill Yr Boyfriend.

remember it made a big impression on me back then, but I've been kind of wary of rereading it, because I'm not sure if I'd find it as great now as I did when I was 16.

I was a bit older than 16 when I read Kill Your Boyfriend, which maybe is why I consider it to be puerile rubbish.

how many readers of this thread like pretty much everything that Grant Morrison has written? I like a lot of his stuff, but I also reckon that a lot of what he does is not good at all.

Well, out of the stuff I've read, I'd rate them like this:

Classic, even if not perfect all the way through (few Morrison comic are "perfect" in the same sense something like Watchmen is though, nor are they supposed to be):
* The Invisibles
* Doom Patrol
* Seven Soldiers
* We3

Good. Mostly great but not total classics because they're hindered by Morrison's typical flaws: the plots being badly paced, hard to follow, or downright indecipherable, and/or bad characterization:
* Animal Man
* The Filth
* Flex Mentallo (I think this was perfect on a thematical level, but the actual plot wasn't that fun to read and the characters were kinda boring)
* New X-Men
* Marvel Boy

Not very good:
* Arkham Asylum

Not sure about these:
* Kill Your Boyrfriend (haven't reread this for 10+ years, maybe it isn't as good as I thought it was back then)
* Mystery Play (I've only read this once, years ago, and I don't think I really got it, maybe it would become clearer if I'd reread it now)
* Seaguy (this was mostly quite good but felt too short, can't really give a total judgement before I've read the coming sequels)

Most've of his comics I've only read some time after they'd originally came out (i.e. as collected books), so I've had the privilege of reading the reviews before picking them up. The Invisibles is the only series of his that I started reading while it was still ongoing. I'm pretty sure he's done his share of mediocre stuff, but mostly I've missed it because it hasn't gotten much acclaim.

Didn't he do a Batman miniseries called "Gothic" or something? I remember it felt a like rather generic "dark and gritty" Batman story with few interesting things in it. In fact I can't really remember anything about the whole story, which is quite rare for a Morrison comic, so it must've been pretty bland.

how come no one mentions Kid Eternity on these GMo threads?

I mostly agree with Tuomas' list, except for Animal Man, which I'd rate as classic, 7 Soldiers, which I'd rate as good, and Seaguy, which I'd rate as classic.

(Airport internet = classic)

I think Animal Man has some great singular issues, but a lot of it also just Morrison testing the waters. The idea of an animal rights superhero is interesting, but Morrison doesn't really develop if further enough before all the meta madness begins. (If you compare Animal Man to the environmentalist issues in Concrete, I think Paul Chadwick manages to write a much more interesting and nuanced take on the idea of a super-being tackling illegal political activism.) And as great as the payoff to all those meta issues is, I think they go on for a bit too long. There were so many pages devoted to talk about continuities and the characters addressing the reader that at some pooint it made go, "Okay, I got the idea already, can we move on now?". Plus the issues where AM avenged the death of his family and went back in time to try to warn them didn't really seem to have much point to them. (Though the conversation between was immortal characters in the 60s cafe was great.) Like I said, I think several of the individual issues were great, it's just that it felt Morrison didn't really have any sort of bigger plan as to do with the character, besides the meta story. And the meta story could've easily been done to any character whatsoever. In the end I thought neither Animal Man or any of the supporting cast were really that interesting as characters, especially if you compare AM to what Morrison was doing in Doom Patrol around the same time. For example, the one special quality of Animal Man as a superhero was that he had a family, but the family was basically written as stereotypical ciphers. The most inteteresting thing Morrison got out of them was killing them.

My flatmate who doesn't post to ILC says he would vote for the unsurpassed thrill-power of FRANKENSTEIN, if you could take it standing apart from Seven Soldiers; Zenith otherwise. I probably would've voted for Frankenstein in a similar fashion, but I think I voted for Seaguy. Or, um, Flex Mentallo, but I may've been blurring Doom Patrol Flex content w/the Flex miniseries itself.

I obviously need to re-read Seaguy, because to me it didn't seem that good when it first came out.

how come no one mentions Kid Eternity on these GMo threads?

because it is not good.

amazing how great Fegredo became as soon as he stopped painting.

Ugh, there was a pretty awful phase when it was seen as the height of sophistication to have painted art in comics. I blame early 90s 2000 AD.

Seaguy rules, but'll prob rule more once the next two come out. Isn't Frankenstein! (while MAGNIFICENT) better in its SS context? On its own I don't think it has the same weight.

All Star Superman - I have really liked this one. I think it benefits from the more low key style compared to much of Morrison's a new idea every page style.

Animal Man - I read about the whole run of this when it was coming out new, but I have not read it again since my return to comics. It was a good read at the time and very different.

Arkham Asylum - I read this one when it came out new in hardcover and I seem to recall that the artwork was really hard to follow. I'll read it again eventually.

Batman - One of Morrison's first assignments at DC was doing a Batman/vampire story in Legends of the Dark Knight. I read that when it was new and liked it again reading it last year. His current run has had a couple of clunkers like the Ra's Al Ghul story and the one issue Joker story, but the rest has been really good. I'm curious to see what exactly is going to be the payoff on Batman RIP.

Final Crisis - Too early to tell on this one, but I am on for the ride.
The Invisibles - I've read up the first four trades. It seemed to get off to a slow start and the next two trades were great and the fourth Bloody Hell in America really interesting.

JLA - I couldn't get into the first two trades, but criminy the guy was kind of saddled with an oddball version of JLA at the start. The Rock of Ages was excellent. I haven't read past the next book, which was also pretty good. Howard Porter's artwork seemed to get better as the book went on, I don't know if they changed inkers or he just improved, but I liked his stuff better later on. The layouts of some of the pages were kind of confusing on the early arcs.

New X-Men - It got off to a good start and had some good ideas through out the run. I do agree that the whole ending with Xorn/Magneto was a bit off and the last arc which seemed to be a playoff the Death of Jean Gray and Days of Future Past was a bit like a watered down version of the Invisibles. There was some good ideas all through out, but it won't be the first book to re-read.

Seven Soldiers - I'm only into the second trade. The artwork on this series, all of it, has been universally excellent. I'm curious to see how it all plays out, even though it looks like 52 that none of the good ideas were really picked up on by DC. All I know is that someone should somehow free I Spyder and use him, as he is about the most wicked looking roughneck super hero in quite some time. At least going by the issue #0 which opens the first trade, he has again tapped into the Invisibles, but I think with better results (at least so far).

Zenith - I had the trade of this a long time ago and remember it being an excellent read, but the details on it are long lost to the fog. It seems to be a hard one to track down these days.

These I have not read:

Big Dave
Dare
Doom Patrol
The Filth
Flex Mentallo
Judge Dredd: Inferno
Kill Your Boyfriend
The Mystery Play
The New Adventures of Hitler
Really & Truly
Seaguy
Sebastian O
Vinamarama
We3

Something I have not read in years and is not mentioned, I remember that Morrison did a great short story in Hellblazer back when it was getting started. I've got to track that one down for a reading.

As for voting, being that I have not read Doom Patrol and a couple of his other creator owned stories, it might change my vote down the line.

For now, I will have to go with The Invisibles, as this seems to be the book that has centered most of his ideas. Although I would say

I remember getting some London comics convention catalogue, with a Fegredo picture of Kid Eternity saying something along the lines of, "No, I didn't understand it either."

Arf.

Here's my schema:

ESSENTIAL:
All Star Superman
Doom Patrol
The Invisibles
Seaguy
Seven Soldiers of Victory
We3

QUITE GOOD:
Arkham Asylum/Gothic/Batman
his bits of 52
Final Crisis
Flex Mentallo
JLA/DC One Million
Marvel Boy
The New Adventures of Hitler
New X-Men
Zenith

BE CAREFUL:
Animal Man
Fantastic Four: 1234
The Filth
Sebastian O
St. Swithin's Day
Vimanarama

FOR FANATICS ONLY:
Dare
Kill Your Boyfriend
The Mystery Play

HAVEN'T READ:
Bible John
Big Dave
Judge Dredd: Inferno
Really & Truly
Zoids etc.

What don't you like about 1234? It's the only FF thing I've ever really liked. I also adore The Filth, but there's no way anyone could be surprised at someone disliking it.

which reminds me, I bought all four issues of FF 1234 and never got round to reading them. Duh. Must have a look for them.

i remember being v impressed with dare when i first read it, i found the issues of revolver in a cardboard box just now and looked at it and thought "hang on — dan dare gets done up the arse by the mekon? that's just not right"

I probably would have voted for "St Swithin's Day" had it been included.

Also, no "Gideon Stargrave in 'The Entropy Concerto'" = no cred, sorry ;)

Man, I forgot how much I loved Vimanarama, but I am a sucker for Philip Bond, and "local" references

Let's do that too:

ESSENTIAL:
Animal Man
Doom Patrol
The Invisibles
Seaguy
JLA/DC One Million

ALMOST THERE:
Zenith
Gothic
The Filth
Seven Soldiers of Victory
All Star Superman

QUITE GOOD:
Batman
52
Final Crisis
Flex Mentallo
Marvel Boy
New X-Men
St. Swithin's Day
Vimanarama

NEVER LIKED AS MUCH AS I WANTED:
We3

BE CAREFUL:
Fantastic Four: 1234
Sebastian O
Arkham Asylum
Dare

FOR FANATICS ONLY:
Kill Your Boyfriend
The Mystery Play
Doom Force!

HAVEN'T READ:
Bible John
Big Dave
Judge Dredd: Inferno
Really & Truly
Zoids The New Adventures of Hitler
Flash

Zoids The New Adventures of Hitler

I'd love to read this one!

Can you people tell me why you all ranked Seaguy among his top comics ever? Because I thought it had some interesting ideas and themes, and a great visual world, but it felt like it was simply too short to explore all of these properly. For example, Chubby's death was certainly a dramatic moment, but I thought it would've worked better if these characters would've had more time to develop. Now we barely got to know the poor floating fish! I'm willing to give Morrison the benefit of a doubt and not judge the wjole story until I see what happens in the sequels, but as such I wouldn't yet rate Seaguy among his absolute best works.

It isn't that short... I mean, it ran for three issues, the same as We3 or Vinanamanaramarubbish.

Yeah, but We3 at least has a simple story that doesn't really require more space. (I haven't read Vinanarama.)

I don't know, I liked the elegance of Seaguy, the way the last frame was the same as the first, and so on. I'm not sure it would really have gained from having more length to tell *that* story, even if I approve of their being more Seaguy issues telling the further adventures of Seaguy.

off-topic question - in Finland, do people typically read US comics in English, or in translation?

In English. Most Finnish people under 40 know English pretty well, because it's been taught in elementary schools (starting from the 3rd grade) here at least since the 80s. And comic book fans being more nerdy than you're average folks, they've probably even better at the language. (I've certainly learnt at least some of my English vocabulary from English-language comics ever since I started reading them at 13.) A lot of the more kiddie and teen oriented stuff has been translated into Finnish, stuff like Carl Barks, newspaper strips, several superhero titles back in the day when superheroes were still aimed at preteens, etc. But when it comes to the more adult-oriented stuff, the publisher's have realized that it usually isn't worth it to translate the mainstream US stuff, because adult comic fans here tend to prefer to buy the originals. So what's been translated are mostly the biggest classics, like Maus, DKR, Hate, Ghost World, etc. Even Sandman failed to sell beyond two or three translated collections.

I think Watchmen was translated into Finnish only a couple of years ago, but I haven't checked that edition. I think I should some day, just to see how the hell they've managed (or failed) to convey all that Moore wordplay into Finnish.

I'm pretty grateful though that a big bunch of 2000AD titles has been translated into Finnish since the 80s, since the original English versions of a lot of that stuff are much harder to find than US mainstream comics. As a preteen the biggest parts of my comics diet were Marvel superheroes and 2000AD.

(I've certainly learnt at least some of my English vocabulary from English-language comics ever since I started reading them at 13.)

I hope to meet you one day, and have you say "Borag Thung Earthlett, it is clobbering time!"

Has anyone here actually read Really and Truly? I recall some comments on Barbelith years ago that it was profoundly stupid, but I've never actually seen it (though, it's apparently in this Rian Hughes hardcover that just came out).

Yes, I read it - part of the 2000AD "Summer Offensive" when Morrison, Millar and John Smith took over the comic for 8 enjoyable weeks. I really liked it - it was amiably trippy nonsense and basically an excuse for Rian Hughes to draw a bunch of wacko Morrison characters. No plot, wouldn't stand up on its own but as a five-page blast in the middle of 2000AD it was great.

Big Dave, from the same publishing event, was better tho.

Really and Truly was a fun piece of fluff, yeah. I like Ryan Hughes, and it was very well suited to him. I read an interview where Morrison claimed to have written it in a single sitting whilst drunk off his face.

(As it happens I was actually planning to come back to ILC with a hott new identity of "Scuba Trooper" but I couldn't be arsed to go through the registration process again.)

I read an interview in Edgy Style Mag at the time where Morrison said he wrote it in one afternoon on E. And Tom OTM.

Seaguy as it stands is WACKY and WACKY people vote for it. Don't lend them money.

Mark Millar's Unfunnies is WACKY. Seaguy is FUN.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I meant WACKY in the context of choosing it above a lot of other things Grant's written. I love it! And yeah it's FUN, and far too sad to be just wacky.

I'm not sure if most of you have already read it, but I found this Morrison interview from 2003 about what he plans to do a sentient DC Universe, and it's absolutely hilarious! Does the guy always talk like that?

http://www.comixexperience.com/fbr0503.htm

That's genius!

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

holy shit that's a lot of lurkers!

Yeah, good turnout!

I'm thinking of doing two Moore polls, pre- and post- Watchmen. Watchmen will appear on neither. Good idea?

New Adventures Of Hitler totally robbed! I voted Big Dave cos I thought Hitler would get 'nuff respect anyway.

yes, good idea chap.

Tuomas: no, Morrison doesn't always talk like a parody interview that someone has made up for their web column. But the parody is definitely based on his interview persona, which is reliably entertaining.

(He had a completely different and equally entertaining interview persona in the '80s and early '90s, which was directly cribbed from studying how Morrissey used the music press to say amusing things that made you interested in him as an author, rather than talking about how he made the music he wanted to and if anyone else liked it it was a bonus.)

Oh dear, I didn't notice the diclaimer which obviously states that it's fiction. I got the link from the Barbelith Wiki, where it was offered as a proof for Morrison's plans of making the DC Universe sentient, so I guess it fooled them too. Or maybe they just put it there as a joke.

Does anyone know a link to a proper interview or article where Morrison talks about the sentient DC Universe, I'd love to read more about his plans?

This just reminded me... there was a time when I was v deep in buying up/getting high/reading (and reading deeply into) all the Invisibles trades fairly quickly (and going thru an interesting/odd/hard stage of my life at the same time, luckily enough) when I actually thought with the correct alignment of EVERYTHING this "Sentient DC Universe" idea of GM's might result in Batman turning up in the newspapers, etc, or at least the actual emergence of superheroes on our world. Bizarrely, the main drug involved really was the book itself. It was a great time, tho it didn't quite work out.

Actually, I sort of thought that's what GM was trying to pull off with JLA Classified. That sort of seemed like an explicit attempt to push elements of the DC Universe into our universe, right? It's been a while since I read that, but, given Morrison's assertions that he's chatting with Metron and summoning Ragged Robin-looking girlfriends for himself, I could certainly understand expecting him to successfully force superheroes into existence (Though, if I recall correctly, we'd just end up with the Ultramarines, right? Isn't that who ends up in our universe at the end? Man, I need to re-read those.)

Are you maybe thinking of his two issues of The Authority?

Btw, now that 2012 is only three years ahead, do you think Morrison has made any special plans for it? Maybe a new Invisibles miniseries to make the end of the world go smoother?

No, I know he was going in the same direction in the Authority, but wasn't the cube universe in JLA Classified implied to be our universe? Or was that just some rampant speculation I imposed on the story? As I said, I need to reread those.

Yes indeed. See also ALL STAR SUPERMAN #10...

ANOTHER BIT OF PRAISE, THIS TIME FOR AN ITEM THAT HAS GONE HITHERTO UNMENTIONED:

"THE HUMAN RACE" from his Flash stint with Millar; sublime straighforward superheroics, if I may say so. 'S good to single out a nice termite to counter all the white elephants listed above.

Yes, I meant to mention it hitherto, it was great stuff. VERY stereotypically Morrison, though - imaginary childhood friend and the world saving itself. But it still brings a smile every time I think about it.

has this been posted

http://imgur.com/a/FNtXl/noscript

I just saw that! What the hell?

Looks like the recolouring might've been done according to Frank Quitely's wishes:

FQ: [On Flex Mentallo] That was the first time I’d been coloured by someone else. When I drew it I had a very clear image in my mind of how it was going to look and it looked very different, mostly in a way I didn’t particularly like. Bits of it worked but too much for me didn’t work, either on personal taste or on storytelling. There are things you can do with colouring that help the narrative flow, and others that can be quite jarring. Peter Doherty (Shaolin Cowboy) is re-colouring it. Peter’s natural palette is quite similar to mine – quite realistic, believable and not super-saturated. Jamie (Grant, All-Star Superman colourist], his natural palette is saturated colours and I think, generally, All-Star Superman worked.

...but it's still pretty stupid. The original colours look great, and a story like this certainly doesn't need "realistic, believable" colours. And since you have to pay crazy money to acquire the original issues, these will effectually become the official version of FM, kinda like Lucas's silly CGIzed Special Editions are the official Star Wars now.

Seriously, it doesn't seem like there's anything DC couldn't fuck up when it comes to collecting their old comics. Is this recolouring the reason we had to wait for almost a year and a half for the FM to come out after it was announced?

hey, did anyone get the We3 deluxe edition

did quitely like how ASS's colors looked? because i thought that was a hideous comic, color-wise

It's weird; I don't have a huge problem with recoloring if it keeps the spirit of the original work (see the Simonson Thor Omnibus for the best example), but this Flex Mentallo seems odd. It's such a radical change.

Is this recolouring the reason we had to wait for almost a year and a half for the FM to come out after it was announced?

can only assume so. was excited to get this tomorrow. now I'm... slightly less excited? I dunno. never read the original.

I can't make a big enough :/ face about this. The color plays a major part in what works so well about Flex Mentallo. The new coloring does look nice, but that's kinda beside the point.

Eh. Maybe the price on the back issues will severely drop once this is out so I can have both.

I have We3 deluxe.

Eh, the colors are different but it looks like there's more nuanced shading on some bits. Still looks great, just a little different. Plus it's Flex Mentallo and they didn't screw up page layouts or story flow and the new colorist isn't a hack.... so I accept this.

I have We3 "Deluxe." New pages are good, but the paper quality is dire and the binding is awful - it's a very cheap TPB in stiff covers, in no way actually "deluxe."

Those new colours don't read Flex Mentallo to me, nor anything close to as good as Shaolin Cowboy, but it's possible the rest of it looks better.

I hate hate hate new coloring for comics reprints.

I'm in favour if the original colours are shit or broken.

Had a quick flip through in a bookshop while waiting for the bus I'm on: looks really well-designed story-telling-wise, but has a way more miserable and muted feel than I remember the OG sustaining.

Paper might be way better than We3, 91% sure it's still glue binding.

What I've seen of the new colors are more technically accomplished, but they don't fit the feel of the story any better (though are more realistic, which is not always an improvement.)

I'd argue that, in this particular instance, "more realistic" is the exact wrong way to go.

The 'right' way for WE3, sure. Maybe even for SEAGUY in a strange way. But not for FLEX.

got copy of Flexx Mentallo on Saturday, read it, loved it. have no idea what actually transpires in terms of plot lol.

New colourist responds:

Hello there, Peter here, just had this thread pointed out to me and I thought it might be pertinent to add some clarifications to stem some misunderstandings and misapprehensions. First off, Grant wanted the recolouring as he felt the original colour served the story poorly, partially as the technology in 1995 was still pretty primitive so could be improved upon greatly today,and partly because much of it was simply wrong from a narrative point of view. For instance Flex's world is trapped in a perpetual night, something missed in the original mini-series, but an important story point. The collection has been coloured with close consultation with Frank and Grant, something that certainly didn't happen in 1995. Grant supplied a series of requests and answered questions I had regarding story points that might need emphasis via the colour, and I spoke to Frank frequently throughout the process. The pages went to Frank and Grant before they went to DC, in fact I had no editorial input for DC at all. Some people may think that's a bad thing. Secondly, Tom McGraw is credited as colouring the original mini-series but what isn't noted in the credits is that he produced colour guides which were then passed onto a separation house where probably many computer operators then interpreted these guides to give the final files sent to the printer, this was standard procedure until computer equipment became affordable. Non of these will have been approved by either Grant or Frank, most likely they didn't even see them until the issues were printed. So Rich's original statement,"Flex was from a time when more colours and more variance was available" isn't entirely accurate as these were the early days of computer colour and the colourist didn't have direct control over the file presented to the printer. So in 1995 there were many compromises that today simply don't apply. One thing that hasn't been mentioned, many pages are in fact brand new--new scans from the original artwork, processed with much more care than the majority of the scans were 16 years ago. Frank has a number of the original pages squirrelled away at home and he dug out what he had after a conversation where I mentioned the poor quality of the line work in some of the files I had been given to work from. This is the reason there's a few pages of black and white artwork in the back of the book, DC didn't ask for this, it was a idea raised after I and Frank's studio mate, Rob Miller, had scanned the originals. You can spot them if you look carefully, the most obvious being the two page scene where the lieutenant visit the Hoaxer in his cell. The left hand page was done using a new scan, the right hand page a supplied file where the line work looked like it came from a fifth generation xerox. In essence this book represents what the original mini-series would have looked like had both Grant and Frank had some input into the colouring and had the technology been advanced enough in 1995 to do the job one can do today. It's just a shame we couldn't source more artwork and make it as true to Frank's originals as possible but compromises have to be made usually.
Last edited by Peter Doherty; Today at 01:15 PM.

Following a narrative through-line on Flex is difficult, even by Morrison's standards. I am curious if the colour change will help that. Otherwise, not sure this really bothers me tbh.

I guess I can understand liking the originals, but this really sounds like what Grant and Frank wanted. I'm really excited about the new scans from original art. I was going to go pick this up, but it looks like I preordered it on amazon eons ago.

well, in a semi-analogous situation, look at what George Lucas wanted from the original Star Wars trilogy

(which is not a comment on the Flex Mentallo reprint, since I've not read it nor the original, as much as it is a warning that sometimes what the creator wants isn't as good as what we got the first time)

Exactly. These are perfect illustrations of why authorial intent doesn't really matter that much, particularly when a work has been in the public sphere for over a decade. I'm okay with the existence of Special Edition updates of the original work, but not when they essentially try to delete the existence of the original.

Yeah, especially since changes in technology mean that what they might've wanted 15+ years ago is never the same what they want today. Based on the pics linked above, the colouring doesn't look that bad, but there are some examples of pre-digital era comics given a digital recolouring that simply doesn't gel with the original artwork from that era, just like the CGI effect Lucas added to Star Wars don't gel with the general look of the movie. The Daredevil and Killing Joke recolourings are good examples of this.

(x-post to Dan)

I don't know, I think George Lucas was actually involved in directing and editing the scenes he later changed. This sounds like neither Morrison nor Quitely had any real input in the colorist's work, and the colorist didn't even have final say on how it actually came together!

Obviously the only real solution is to publish a new version uncolored, based on the cleaned-up original inked artwork.

So yeah, if DC would release Flex Mentallo with the original colours as a TPB or something to supplement this "deluxe edition", that would be fine. But knowing the "respect" DC has for its books, I doubt that's ever gonna happen. The recoloured Flex will become the official version, just like the CGI Star Wars movies are the official version now.

(xx-post)

Guys, I have to admit I thought the original Flex colors were kind of cool but there were a handful of scenes that were just rainbow lollipop stuff for no real reason. or uncolored stuff like the large scene pictured above where there's the backs of a bunch of superheros and they're all a "shadow" color. Like, I get that it's the version we know and love, but face it -- DC cheaped the fuck out on coloring a lot of titles, especially some Vertigo ones, during that time period.

I don't know, I think George Lucas was actually involved in directing and editing the scenes he later changed. This sounds like neither Morrison nor Quitely had any real input in the colorist's work, and the colorist didn't even have final say on how it actually came together!

Yeah, but anytime you're creating art within a framework where you don't have absolute control of the process, there will always be stumbling blocks in the process of realizing your ideal vision. I totally agree that, should the opportunity arise, you have the right to tweak the original work to better suit that ideal vision, but not at the expense of effectively erasing the original work from existence. That tack essentially says the author's intent should retroactively supersede the audience's established perspective on the work, which I disagree with pretty hardcore.

tbf the "audience" is like the thousand of us who actually own the original and the handful more who downloaded scans

there should be a godwin's law for geek discussions where the conversation becomes moot once george lucas is invoked
call it dan's law

Mmm, I feel like he's a legit artistic spectre to conjure up. If you're doing it like Lucas, you might be doing it wrong.

there should be a godwin's law for geek discussions where the conversation becomes moot once george lucas is invoked
call it dan's law

hahahaha

Lazy comparison, this is a reprint of a comic with some changes. I mean, there's probably more shared territory with the bizarre/tragic reprints of French comics that the US market gets. At least this "creator blessed" version isn't some slipshod thing with bad dialogue changes and gatefold page spreads chopped up.

I thought the Invisibles vol. 3 art changes in the TPB were pretty nice, though, so what do I know?

Also, are we going to have this same discussion when the Invisibles Omnibus version inevitably has some differences?

they're doing that?

i feel like the whole culture of omnibus editions of Mythic Out Of Print Comics is point-missing whatever they do to the colours, anyway

I thought the Invisibles vol. 3 art changes in the TPB were pretty nice, though, so what do I know?

They were done because the original artist didn't manage to convey an essential plot point, so I'd say the tweaking was more justified than here. Though the TPBs for Vol. 2 also censored one page, IIRC because it made a text reference (no pics or anything) to Japanese Lolita porn, which seems like a pretty stupid reason for censorship. (Kinda like the reference to children in the 120 Days of Sodom storyline in Vol. 1 was censored; apparently DC didn't allow Morrison to mention pedophilia, even though it was shown in a negative light.)

http://www.vertigocomics.com/graphic-novels/the-invisibles-omnibus

1536 pages?! Wtf is the point of making it into one volume, to give nerds some exercise while they carry that home from the comic store?

basically

Not sure if it's going to help my yearly read-through if I end up cracking the spine in half after a couple readings.

The Invisibles Omnibus (Hardcover - 21 Aug 2012)
Buy new: £95.81 £84.41

I actually own one of the new pages drawn by Cameron Stewart for V.3 of THE INVISIBLES and it's a pity that there's HONKING BIG WORD BALLOONS covering up some of the beautiful art. I really need to get a frame for it sometime.

I think you've bragged about this before, Matt :)

I dunno. I do agree that Cameron Stewart's Invisibles pages are a massive improvement on the original. I guess I was mostly worked up about the Flex Mentallo changes because I was thinking of the original floppies in terms of the pre-FM collection market. I think they're already starting to drop in price, so it's possible to own both versions without pawning yr valuables. It would just be nice if they at least did a cheapo Vertigo Resurrected-ish collection of the original, untouched version.

new version looks fine imho

Kind of reminds me of We3 or All-Star Superman a little which isn't a bad thing

I looked at the new version in the shop today (and dithered endlessly over whether to buy it or not). It's definitely more subdued looking but still very nice

I have. I'll do it again if given an opportunity.

It only cost me seventy-five bucks, too.

DC cheaped the fuck out on coloring a lot of titles, especially some Vertigo ones, during that time period.

McCraw was one of the best superhero colourists at DC at the time IMO (and one of the worst writers, but that's another matter).

From the shots I've seen, one of the most disgruntling changes is putting lots of shiny figure molding in the colours, where the original supported the "comic booky" nature of the story with flat colours or gentle modelling.

Mandoo the Mysterious is apparently now white? Looks like I scavenged a copy of issue 3 just in time.

OK I don't know what I am talking about, mea culpa

yeah, this actually is a bit crap

apparently now white?

oh gross

They show another bit of whitewashing in that link - now it's two white girls powdering themselves before the mirror in the superhero nightclub rather than one black and one white.

It probably comes down to ignorance on the colorist's part, relying more on b/w prints rather than color copies, but, well, I can't really accept that kind of negligence.

yeah I was reacting to the picture in the (excellent [as ever], go read it everyone) Mindless Ones post. that girl is 100% drawn as black and I'm not thinking highly of Doherty's "ignorance"

anybody got comparison scans up yet?

the original link in this thread, Bleeding Cool and the Mindless Ones post above all have comparisons

I meant for the race switch

the Mindless Ones one does, they added a couple more comparisons at the bottom

the Mindless Ones link has the girl in the powder room before and after

this is basically the third time I've said so in as many posts!

btw did you guys know Flex Mentallo has been recolored?!?

Doherty has responded to a comment on his blog btw, to the effect that he was blithely unaware of any of the raceswitching, except for one white figure he now made black, "my bad obviously."

xp just asking for clarification, it's gonna be okay

you guys care about this way too much

Oh come on, Shakey, deciding for other people how much caring is too much caring is a LOT worse NAGL.

perhaps I need recoloring

http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/252/8411149.jpg

lol

was there a convo on here about gmo's rolling stone interview where he slams chris ware and mark millar?

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/grant-morrison-on-the-death-of-comics-20110822

I was about to say, didn't he do that forever ago? Yeah, we talked about it a bit, around the time we were cringing about his big-company superhero ownership apologism circa-Supergod

hadn't read that. agree w him 100% on chris ware. this too:

I was reading some Alan Moore Marvelman for some reason today. I found one in the back there and I couldn't believe. I pick it up and there are fucking two rapes in it and I suddenly think how many times has somebody been raped in an Alan Moore story? And I couldn't find a single one where someone wasn't raped except for Tom Strong, which I believe was a pastiche. We know Alan Moore isn't a misogynist but fuck, he's obsessed with rape.

http://www.liveforfilms.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/grant-morrison-korse-my-chemical-romance.jpg

"I had a good life. I was a clubber in the Nineties."

agree w him 100% on chris ware.

what is Ware saying that you find so indefensible?

his shit depresses me to no end. i don't find the portrait of humanity he paints accurate or insightful enough to justify its unrelenting miserableness. it's just cruel. shame is that he's such a fucking BRILLIANT designer and draftsman.

reading ware is like watching a child push pins through a mouse.

yes, i am a bleeding hart babby

I don't see that eg Building Stories is miserably unsympathetic, as opposed to supportive (if perhaps distantly observant) of its characters - let's take the one-legged woman as example - and I absolutely don't see how any authorial viewpoint in that book comes from a place of sneering, moneyed privilege. Can you elucidate how you do?

Mmm...I get where you're coming from if you've only read Ware's narrative stuff, contenderizer, but I'm glad I held on to all of my old Acmes because there's some good, dark humor in the ephemera and fake ads (I think most of that stuff may have been reprinted in the eponymous Acme Novelty Library book).

yeah I'm more entertained by his minutiae and side-stories than by his longer narratives

and I absolutely don't see how any authorial viewpoint in that book comes from a place of sneering, moneyed privilege.

ah, i get you. i do not dislike chris ware (as morrisson clearly does) for class-based reasons. i could care less about his background and don't interpret his attitude as one of "sneering, moneyed privilege". i should have started off saying that i agree with morrisson, say, 66%. i object to what i see as ware's sadism and nihilism, a vision that perceives life almost completely in terms of flaws, failures, weakness and emptiness.

agree w deric and shakey about the appeal of his minutia and side stories (i've held onto those old acmes too). they're just as cruel, really, but at least they're funny about it.

Ware's worldview is one informed by his own enormous insecurity and penetrating self-loathing, not sadism or nihilism - he writes characters as flawed and self-sabotaging and internally critical as he perceives himself to be. I can totally see not liking it! but it always reads as ultimately sympathetic and caring to me, not hateful.

they're just as cruel, really, but at least they're funny about it.

yeah the Jimmy Corrigan stuff where he actually is a little kid and Superman is some guy his mom sleeps with etc are still bleak as fuck but the jokes are better.

i get that sic, but i don't see much difference. self-loathing is sadistic by nature, and it tends to nihilism.

i read him as addressing ware's public comments more than his work, but then i found gmo's comments there a bit hard to parse - seemed like a poor transcript or something

Something that crops up in E.M. Forster (Howards End) and also Virginia Woolf (although I can't place a reference) is the notion that if ordinary clerks like Leonard Bast (one of the most condescended-to figures in literature) should attempt to improve themselves by exposing themselves to "high" culture, they would eventually make the horrifying discovery that beneath all of the elevated sentiment there is an esoteric message of profound spiritual desolation, which if
haplessly uncovered will terribly maim them. The proper owners of high culture are shielded from this radioactive kernel of anomie by their ownership of nice country homes, etc, but if they ever let on that life is essentially meaningless and tragic, morality is a lie, not to be born is the best for man and so on, then dire social consequences will surely ensue. (Burroughs: bring it on). The exoteric meaning of high culture is that it is improving, ennobling, a worthy object of aspiration, but the esoteric content is the total destitution of all of these values (and the privilege of being the insider who *knows* they are destitute, and laughs at the pretences of those who still aspire to realize them: thus the ruling class disdain towards any sort of passionate cultural commitment - to them, culture's a bunch of old stuff they keep in their attics, like the picture of Dorian Grey...).

that's an interesting reading of forster and woolf but er why

oh just an implication that maybe GMo isnt the only one who sees a social dimension in nihilism/miserabilism. I've never read Forster or Wolfe, and don't have much more than a passing familiarity (at least, firsthand) with Ware, but when I read GMo's comments, ^^this (which came from here) is what I was first reminded of...

okay, so i finally read (or finished reading) flex mentallo. picked the 2nd and 4th issues back in the day, but never found the others, so this is my first run through the complete story. pretty great. 2nd leg of the "my cat" trilogy that started in animal man and finished in the filth. the recoloring isn't an issue for me, cuz i'm not intimately familiar w the original, and i think it's pretty good when taken on its own. then again, i'm not knowledgeable enough to comment, so...

anyway, i loved the various levels of the story and the way they interact, but was a little disappointed by the obviousness of the conclusion. "shaman"? really? was hoping for a bit more than "reality is what you make it", but as such things go, it's quite powerful, and i'll take new age optimism over tough-guy nihilism anyday.

thought the "shaman" conclusion was a headfake away from the more obvious "shazam"

did morrison grow up poor? i thought it was moore who was all working class aspiration.

Morrison's dad was a lefty/no-nukes/anti-war organizer, don't think his family was exactly posh

Does the FM collection include the essays?

essays? there's a 6 pg fictional publication history/intro, dunno if that's what you're referring to

The original issues had some backmatter fictional essays about the comic book history of Flex. Think the various bits in the back of Bulletproof Coffin. Sounds like that intro may be another version of that.

Speaking of Morrison's dad, the Morrison documentary made it pretty clear Flex is based on him, they even look alike.

thought the "shaman" conclusion was a headfake away from the more obvious "shazam"

well it was, but not a welcome redirect, imo

i thought it was moore who was all working class aspiration.

― Philip Nunez, Monday, 23 April 2012 22:58 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

what does this even mean??

It means he were a workin' clas' l'd from N'rth'mpt'n.

and now he worships a blood sausage in his basement

IMO class isn't a big issue in either Moore's or Morrison's comics. (Except maybe in From Hell, but even that one is kinda paternalistic towards the lower classes.) Sure, they've written comics about large social revolutions, but in those the revolution is brought about by Byronic Messiah figures, not by class conflict. Compare that to, say, Garth Ennis, whose working class sympathies and distrust of the upper classes is rather evident in his comics.

this fucking blood sausage thing has to die

tuomas do you remember the bit in the invisibles w/ the fox-hunt for homeless people

Yeah, but that was a minor detail among larger things. I'm not saying Moore or Morrison never address class, just that it's rarely/never a major theme in their works.

But that's to be expected: they both write for American publishers, and in American mainstream fiction class is hardly a popular subject.

class was a big theme in moore's WildC.A.T.S. run... it really made 12y/o me think....

curious what you mean about the paternalism in From Hell, tuomas

minor work, but wasn't class big in Skizz?

I mean that even though the working class characters aren't portrayed unsympathetically, they aren't really given a voice of their own, perhaps with the sole exception of the woman (won't mention her name so that I won't spoil the ending) Abberline meets in the bar... Mostly they're treated as "poor, lost wretches", like a paternalistic Victorian benefactor would.

(x-post)

I haven't read Skizz, what's it about?

ET, only the alien lands in dole-and-concrete early 80s Britain.

It's basically a rewriting of ET in 80's England.

I think it might be fairer to say that class appears in their stories as appropriate - more so in volume 1&3 of the Invisibles than in volume 2, for example.

I don't know, GM tackles class in America in volume 2

sorry, can't say that with a straight face

Yeah I think you mean race - no I can't do it either.

The Invisibles, omnibus edition: bigger, heavier, and seems to be pretty good so far. I just browsed through it yesterday upon finding it on my front doorstep, but it seems like it'll hold up to multiple readings.

I recently got the New X-Men omnibus as well -- the two together are about 16 or 17 lbs.