A CHAT ABOUT CRAFT WITH GRANT MORRISON

By Alex Ness

A CHAT ABOUT CRAFT WITH GRANT MORRISON

I think that Grant Morrison is proof that comics are a wonderful thing. While he is serious, he is also playful, and both aspects of his character appear wonderfully in his work. There is an unfathomed depth in most of his stories, but within them exists a story that can be enjoyed upon many different levels. He has a hard-earned reputation for quality, despite the fact that he has rarely seemed to kowtow to popularity's demands. In fact, one of Grant's appealing aspects to me is his ability to entertain my heart and soul and to inspire my mind.

In this interview, we chat about the methods of his work, his views toward Marvel and DC, and an outlook toward upcoming projects.

AN: Tell me about how you work... are you in a silent, well-lit room, or is it filled with music and cats, what exactly?

GM: It depends. We moved to the country last year, overlooking the beautiful nuclear submarine pens of Loch Long. These days, I'll be working on the lawn, when its sunny, and at my desk in the tower if its not. The surviving pair of cats - I used to have six - wander in and out all day and sometimes sit on me when I'm at the computer.

I almost always listen to music when I write - THE FILTH was written to Momus, Pulp, Chris Morris, The Rutles, Black Box Recorder, Pole, Eminem, Melt Banana, Supercar and The Streets, among other things. SEAGUY was Syd Barrett, Donovan, Noel Coward, the Pet Shop Boys, Julian Cope, N.E.R.D. and Milky. Right now, I'm listening to Missy Elliott and Ludacris doing 'Gossip Folks', one of my favorite songs...and every time I hear 'Rings Around The World' (which just came after Missy on the i-Pod), I smile and think fondly of Warren Ellis. VIMANARAMA! has been indebted to Asian Dub Foundation, Monster Magnet, Ali F Soundsystem and Bobby Friction's Wednesday night Sounds of the New Asian Underground show on Radio 1. In the last few months, doing SEVEN SOLDIERS, I've enjoyed The Handsome Boy Modelling School, the Prodigy album, Kasabian, LCD Soundsystem, the Monkees, Thievery Corporation, Girls Aloud, Graham Coxon's 'Happiness in Magazines', John Lydon, Eminem's 'Encore', Stereo Total, Adam and the Ants, Placebo, 'Otto Spooky' by Momus, Robbie Williams, Sheep On Drugs, Snoop Dogg, Goldfrapp, Kaiser Chiefs and 'Galanga' by MIA. I listen to everything and anything. My favourite from last year is the Goldie Lookin Chain album 'Greatest Hits'. The song 'You Knows I Loves You Baby' is a work of insane, boundary-shattering genius, as far as I'm concerned. 'Half Man/Half Machine'! I listen to the GLC over and over and over again and never get tired. We went to see them play in Los Angeles in March and it was the best gig I've been to this year. I think they've got a new record out soon.

AN: No Smashing Pumpkins, sigh.

GM: Sometimes I get up for a shite or piss, to play a game on telly, or to bang on the guitar and make up songs. Or I go for a walk to the shops or into the hills. Most of the day, I'm at the screen or writing in my notebooks. I've been working practically non-stop for a year to wrap up a number of big projects, so I have no idea what's going on in the real world, although I know the secret identities of the Freedom Fighters and the price of beans in Narnia. It's a simple life.

AN: Why do you write?

GM: I write to live and to make sense of things. Words and voices come out of my head when I ask them to and I write them down and show them to people, at which point the stuff from my head miraculously converts into money, then the money turns into houses and cat food and trips abroad and clothes and savings. I view the process as pure sorcery and treat it with the respect and devotion it deserves.

AN: Do you ever suffer writer's block?

GM: Can't say that I do. Som

AN: When do you write? What do you drink whilst writing?

GM: I get up at 10:00, check the e-mails, work out in the gym for a bit, have breakfast and then write in the afternoon and evening, listening to the loch water lapping and the ducks impersonating Frankie Howerd.

Drink? I try to drink three litres of water a day, usually. Sometimes I'll knock back a couple of glasses of white wine. Sometimes a few cans of Red Bull. On rare occasions I drink Vodka Orange or Vodka Bull if I'm flirting with the amusing but dangerous archetype of 'sozzled writer' for the day. I've also invented the deadly Bullshitter - a cocktail which combines champagne and Red Bull to effervescent and mind-destroying effect. I don't smoke - tobacco, grass, hash, crack cocaine, heroin or kippers.

AN: Your use of Metaphor has confounded numerous "Joe Six-pack" readers and thrilled many critics. Is metaphor the domain of higher levels of thought? If so, does that thereby threaten to alienate those readers who are unable to think upon those planes?

GM: I hope so! God help me, I don't want to be responsible for a small but noisy group of morons busting neurons they can't afford to lose. I'd much rather alienate them than waste time and energy trying to entertain the poor bastards. There are plenty of other people available to do that kind of work. If someone doesn't like or understand what I'm up to, they should just buy someone else's comics. There are loads of great books out there to appeal to every IQ level.

Mike Cotton from Wizard and I were talking at the start of the year and Mike fronted the question, 'Is Grant Morrison too smart for comics?' I was quite surprised. I've been employed as a comic writer for nigh on a hundred years now and my bibliography of successful titles shows no sign of coming to an end, but people always seem to be very concerned that I don't have an audience or that it's dwindling. All I can say is, there may just be some readers who are TOO DUMB for comics but they're not a part of my audience.

So Joe Six-Pack? He can f*** off for a start. I don't know anyone who fits that description. I like to write comics for the sort of people I wouldn't mind having a conversation with. Simple as that.

All stories are filled with metaphor, like all of human life. Perhaps I've been over-enthusiastic, but I've always enjoyed talking about theory and allegory because I figure some readers, like me, might be interested in the elaborate behind-the-scenes thought processes which create the stories they read.

What can I say? I'm not some big intellectual: I grew up as a working class kid in a violent town. My dad was an ex-soldier turned peacenik activist, my mum worked part time in offices, doing shorthand and typing. I left school at 18 never to return but I was lumbered with the precious gift of interpretation by Mr. Thompson, my English teacher, so I like things to have double, triple or quadruple meanings, if possible, with multiple POVs and big spaces for the reader to vanish into and fill up with ideas of his or her own, sort of like 'Lost' on the telly, or like 'The Prisoner' or the films of David Lynch, for instance. My own personal taste doesn't run to literal work or stuff where everything's neatly explained to me and tied in a 'clever' bow. The world's a big, wild mess and I like to reflect that. As a reader, I like to join in and not just watch, if you see what I mean, so as a writer my intention has always been to create experiences which deliberately raise questions or suggest further, untold stories and don't necessarily have one easy solution or outcome. I like to leave people with something to talk about and fire their own imaginations and I'm trying to capture the real patterns of real life.

To elaborate on that, in real life, people say things they<

AN: Is your use of metaphor the means in which comics will finally climb the gate and enter "accepted mediums"?

GM: Comics don't need to climb the gate and enter anything. We're having more fun outside in the sun.

As I said, metaphor occurs naturally in ANY story. The fact that Tolkien's Ring can easily stand in for the Bomb, or for Addiction, or for any number of things - which it can - doesn't seem to hamper people's enjoyment of the elephant fights in 'The Lord of the Rings', so metaphorical content shouldn't be looked upon as anything highbrow or unusual. I tend to see it everywhere, but that's just how I'm wired up. I don't know about you, but I can't look at Godzilla without seeing the atom bomb over Nagasaki, the screaming, hyper-enthusiastic shopgirls of Shibuya, Tokyo, and the devastating smile of the goddess Amaterasu, among other things, all piled on top of one another and representing the very same something.

Metaphor's there to be read or applied if you want to enrich your experience of art. It can just as easily be ignored if all you want to do is watch the action and look at the weird, cool pictures. The same is true of my comics, or anyone else's. There's subtext everywhere, but you don't have to bother with it if it's not your thing. Just dance to the beat of the story, and if you don't 'understand' everything, well, good. It'll stand you in good stead for the real world - a place filled with people and events you will NEVER entirely understand. You don't have to understand an experience in order to have it. You will, in fact, DIE not understanding most of what goes on in the world and why. Don't sweat it. Dance with it.

AN: By showing how the medium can be so multifaceted won't otherwise comic virgins be forced to admit that the medium is valid? And why, after your Doom Patrol run and books like Maus and Wilderness, is that still a valid question?

GM: Well, the way I see it, Alex, images, ideas and characters derived from comic books now cover just about every available surface in the civilized world. X-Men cereal! The Incredibles pajamas! Sky High! What more proof do comics fans need that the rest of the world has - at least for a moment - stopped laughing at all the crazy shit we're into?

Will we remain unsatisfied until every newborn babe has a Spider-Man logo tattooed on his head? Aren't Marvel and DC characters on the sides of buses enough evidence that the whole world has fallen under the spell of comics? Does every man, woman, and child have to swear allegiance to Captain America's shield before we finally accept that comics are already valid ? How much more validation do summathese goddamn fanboys need, for crying out loud!!

Everybody I've ever met thinks it must be great to do what I do for a living and I've met lots of people, including lots of famous ones. They all think comics are great. What more can I say ? They're not too sure about the more obsessive, stereotypical 'fan' type, but then obsessive fans of anything can seem be a little disconcerting whether they are fans of old skool hip-hop, football or Gwen Stefani. Otherwise, as far as I can see, just about every-bloody-body loves the idea of comics and superheroes. They would buy shitloads more of the actual books if the format, pricing and availability changed, but messages like that take a long time to get through to the brains of the big companies. Sell comics at cinema concession stands, for instance, and the sales would skyrocket shockingly overnight. Or rack them next to the week's new CD and DVD releases in Virgin megastores and pop shops. Manga size. They'd shift millions like they used to. All of this will probably still happen in one way or another before 2010.

Comics as an artform has done all right by me and my mates over the years, and, as far as I can see, everybody else<

AN: You recently married a wonderful woman. Congratulations! Are there any li'l Grants on the way? Alan Moore's daughter is now writing. I think your child would be welcomed into the world as a future talent!

GM: Any children we have will be forced into backbreaking, offworld mining jobs with Space Federation ... I don't need the competition.

AN: What is the goal that you have for the work that you do?

GM: To make contact and Find the Others. Something like that, maybe.

I don't know if it's a goal-oriented process. My work's already out there achieving its own weird goals in its own way, doing things and making people think things that I never intended.

AN: What was the difference between working at DC and Marvel, i.e., their state of mind, their manner of doing business, or how they each treat talent?

GM: They're like Catholics and Protestants or Christians and Muslims; so alike they have to exist in opposition in order to more clearly define their slender differences. The talent pool is totally interchangeable in most cases and energy is shifted between the two companies on a regular cycle. Marvel was undeniably emitting more heat than DC for a few years there - 2000-2004 - but now it's all different. I seem to remember accurately predicting this shift in several interviews a couple of years ago, along with the next big youth cult swing towards a kind of 'dark' fetishistic psychedelia, or Ultraviolet Gothic Dandyism. That's started to become obvious now and has even been given the tentative name 'glam noir'.

So trust me when I say quite objectively that mainstream fashion trends - the 'New Weird', as they call it - favor the more expansive DC universe in 2005/2006. It'll be interesting to see what happens next. It's a rewarding time to be a comics enthusiast, that's for sure. There's a lot of intense, positive competition and you can see that everyone's trying very hard to do the best work they can, which can only be good news for readers.

AN: Why do you seem to gravitate towards talent from the UK to illustrate your work? (I am a fan, mind you, just curious.)

GM: Well, I live here and I know a lot of the local artists, so the collaborations often come about as a result of personal friendships or whatever. I'm sure I've worked with as many Americans as Brits, but usually on company owned projects.

AN: What comics do you pick up and read currently?

GM: This year I have been mostly reading...Planetary, Astonishing X, Astro City, JSA, Promethea, New Frontier and anything else by Darwyn Cooke, Plastic Man, the Question, Teen Titans, Ultimate FF, Ultimates, Intimates, Legion of Super Heroes, New Avengers, Godland and a bunch of other things I can't remember. Dan Clowes 'Death Ray' issue of Eightball was a particularly inspirational book. Brendan McCarthy's amazing 'Swimini Purpose' deserves a special mention. I've also just discovered the work of Marc-Antoine Matthieu, whose comics I love above all others at the moment. He seems to be the only other person in the field who's experimenting with page depth and four-dimensional layouts. I try to read everything in the comp boxes, but those are the books I've made a point of picking up in Forbidden Planet when they've come out.

AN: I have a few college degrees including Master's fields in Political Science and History, and have an IQ that I am proud of, for whatever that is worth, but I have no idea what SEAGUY is about or what happened. I read it, liked it, and was entertained by it. But I by no means understood it, nor came close to understanding it. Care to give any hints?

GM: Firstly, I don't HAVE any college degrees and I wrote Seaguy so it can't be that. I also don't believe you when you say you have no idea what Seaguy is about or what happened in it. Of course, you know what happened - what happened was very helpfully and clearly drawn for you by the lovely Cameron Stewart. If I asked you to pick up a Seaguy issue and describe to me what you saw drawn there, I'm sure your descriptions of what you were looking at would match the intended progress of events in the story. The only other explanation is that you may have gone comics-blind without realising it!

Seaguy is about a naive, would-be hero in a super-commercialized world where a state of permanent, ignorant happiness is ruthlessly enforced by a mysterious, well-meaning, but misguided, elite who have reduced the population to an infantile level and somehow neutralized all the superheroes by making them feel stupid and out of date. Perhaps that's too close to reality for some readers, but otherwise, what's not to get? It's all right there on the page and the story will hopefully be continued and brought to its dark and dramatic conclusion in future volumes.

I've heard these kind of complaints before, when it appeared in monthly installments, and I've learned to ignore the small internet 'fan' base with its weird, insular ideas about how the world works and what's successful or not. The Filth was denounced on message boards as incoherent gibberish (often by people who could barely spell, let alone string sentences together), but the trade collection's selling incredibly well and it's turned out to be one of my most successful books. The Filth has had rave reviews from the mainstream press and been voted one of Publisher's Weekly graphic novels of the year. I'm quite sure that Seaguy will find his intended market now the trade's been released.

Anyway, if you read SEAGUY, liked it and were entertained by it, isn't that enough? What else should a comic book do? Make love to you?

AN: Oh, hell no.

GM: Drive you to the store and buy you a pizza? Cure cancer? Good God! What do people want from me?

AN: Yes to those.

When you wrote X-Men, many people thought that ther

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