Why

       

I chose Grant Morrison for my project because I felt his work presented an interesting counterpoint to the concept of the outsider that we’ve focused on in our class. Rather than portraying his outsider characters as being tortured by their otherness, he uses their otherness to liberate them. Morrison is an unconventional choice, since he’s mainly written comic books, but I feel like even in his comics he has captured the essence of what good literature hopes to achieve. He writes about the struggles of finding one’s identity in a dysfunctional society and does so with a modern perspective that is enhanced by the medium of comic books rather than held back by it.

Biography

     

Grant Morrison was born in Glasgow, Scotland in the year 1960. His father was a community activist who struggled to hold down a job, leaving Morrison's mother to support their family through a part time job. His parents divorced before Morrison reached adolescence. Morrison grew up in Glasgow in the aftermath of the hippie subculture. In Supergods, his autobiographical history of the superhero, he states "this lost vision of the sixties would become part of my own private world of obsession and symbol" ("Supergods" ch.8). As a child he was captivated by the idea of outer space and the limitless possibilities it offered. This fascination was encouraged by his mother, who took him to see movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey and enrolled with him in astronomy classes. However, it was not his destiny to become an astronaut.

      Morrison was a comic book reader from an early age. He consumed the modest black and white comics of Great Britain and treasured the rich full-color comics from America. The superheroes and the fantastic worlds they inhabited fueled his imagination and opened his mind to ideas like time travel and alternate realities, themes that would become prominent in his later work. He held onto the comics of his youth and as a teenager wrote original comics of his own, even as he was losing in interest in the flagging superhero comics of the 1970s. He shifted his interest towards the realms of science fiction and spy thrillers, particularly works with the psychedelic and surreal influences of the post-hippie era. After initially facing rejection in his pursuit of creating comics professionally he sought out other avenues for his creativity, joining bands and embracing the flourishing punk culture of the late 1970s.

      Morrison was exposed to the world of the occult upon receiving the gift of a tarot deck and a copy of Aleister Crowley’s The Book of Thoth on his nineteenth birthday. He became involved with the “chaos magic” scene which sought to explore the idea of “magic” through experiments with unorthodox and modern concepts of belief and altered states of mind. His association with chaos magic has continued throughout his career and the world of the occult has played a significant role in many of his works. In his late teens Morrison made progress in his aspiration to become a professional comic book writer with freelance jobs writing and drawing comics for a local newspaper and fringe science fiction serials. These works met with little success but they paved the way for his eventual emergence as one of the preeminent figures in modern comics.

Career

       Grant Morrison’s earliest published works were for a science fiction themed comic magazine called Near Myths. He also found work writing a weekly comic strip about a Glaswegian superhero named Captain Clyde for a local newspaper and submitted stories to a Scottish comic book magazine called Starblazer. His early work received little recognition and earned Morrison meager pay, but allowed him to begin forging connections within the British comic book scene.

     In the 1980s a wave of British writers invaded the world of mainstream American comics. The figurehead of this movement was to be Alan Moore, whose work on the books Marvelman and Swamp Thing and especially his original series Watchmen in 1986 brought the world of comic books into a new era. The comic book audience had grown up and the comics they read needed to mature along with them. Moore helped to establish the popularity of adult themed comics that were in closer contact with modern life. The success of Moore, along with other British comic writers, would open up opportunities for aspiring and innovative young British writers like Morrison, Peter Milligan, and Neil Gaiman.

       In the mid-1980s Morrison’s career began to kick into gear. He found work with companies like Marvel UK, where he worked on a comic strip for a line of toys called Zoids, and wrote short comics for the future themed comic magazine 2000AD. It was with 2000AD that he would begin writing his first full-fledged serial comic, titled Zenith. Zenith was a deconstructive take on the superhero genre. Its protagonist was a brash, young superhero who had inherited powers from his superhero parents but was less interested in fighting crime than in achieving a wild celebrity lifestyle that embodied the frivolous indulgences of 1980s pop culture.
       

His success with Zenith led to him finding work with DC Comics, where his first works were re-imagining an obscure character called Animal Man and a one off Batman story titled Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth. Arkham Asylum would become one of the successful graphic novels of its time. In Animal Man, Morrison blurred the lines between his fiction and reality by placing himself into the story and having the protagonist become aware that his life was being chronicled as a story. His next work was on Doom Patrol, a struggling comic series about a group of misfit superheroes. Morrison transformed Doom Patrol with surrealist and psychedelic imagery. Characters fought against the nefarious Brotherhood of Dada who trapped the city of Paris in the recursive structure of a painting, and encountered a sentient transvestite street named Danny. Doom Patrol became a cult hit and propelled his career onwards to new heights.

       He would continue to write original works into the 1990s but, unlike most of his British contemporaries, was unashamed of tackling major, mainstream superhero comics. In 1996 he went to work on Justice League of America. Rebranding it as JLA, he restored the series which featured Superman, Batman and the most popular characters of the DC universe to the forefront of the comic world. Around the same time Morrison had begun work on his magnum opus, The Invisibles. As a series, it combined all the disparate elements of Morrison’s life and career. It featured a group of renegade counter-culture terrorists fighting against a horrifying authoritarian enemy that was intent on stripping humanity of its individuality. The series relies heavily on psychedelic and surreal imagery as well as references to the occult, pop culture, and conspiracy theories.

        After The Invisibles, Morrison continued his work in mainstream comics with a well-received string writing X-Men. He continued to write original comics such as The Filth, which revisited themes from The Invisibles, We3 and Seaguy. In 2005 DC Comics published his expansive series Seven Soldiers which took obscure and offbeat characters from the DC universe and used them to create an intricate story that experimented with narrative structure. Also in 2005, Morrison began writing for All-Star Superman. His run was extremely popular and earned him numerous awards. He moved from Superman to Batman and continued his success there through the end of the decade.

        In 2010, Morrison published an original series titled Joe the Barbarian, about a boy imagining an alternate life in a fantasy world. He continued to work on Batman and appeared in a documentary about his life called Grant Morrison: Talking with Gods. In July 2011 he released a retrospective look at the significance of the superhero in our culture in his book Supergods. In 2012 he has return to write for Superman in the rebooted series Action Comics. He has also written screenplays for several proposed movies including Dominion: Dinosaurs vs. Aliens.

Major Themes

       

Grant Morrison has covered a broad range of themes in his work. His work has often involved characters that can be described as offbeat misfits living on the fringes of society. In his work with DC Comics especially, he has had great success in revisiting largely forgotten comic book characters and giving them an updated image. When working with mainstream titles such as Batman and Superman, Morrison has made efforts to fight against the gritty realism that invaded the genre in the 1990s and instead has revisited the mythological origins of the characters and examined their role in society as paragons of human virtue. He sees superheroes as representing the best that humanity has to offer and has sought to re-establish them as true heroes while keeping them rooted in a modern perspective.
       

In much of his original work, Morrison has explored themes of counter-culture, the occult, conspiracy theories, the psychedelic, alternate realities, chaos magic, altered states of consciousness, and experimented with the narrative structures of comic books. These themes mirror the adventures he’s had in his own life in subcultures on the outskirts of mainstream society. He has openly resisted the tendency for modern comics to take on unnecessarily dark tones, instead preferring to portray ideas of humanity taking control of and influencing its shared consciousness to create a better world. In the midst of all the surreal and otherworldly imagery present in his work there is a consistent enthusiasm for the ability of the individual to achieve enlightenment and invoke positive change in their lives.

Major Works

       

Grant Morrison’s work has established him as one of the most successful and esteemed writers in the comic book world. His first major success came with the graphic novel Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth. Arkham Asylum was a collaboration with illustrator Dave McKean, who would become well known for creating the covers for Neil Gaiman’s popular Sandman series. Together, Morrison and McKean created a rich, stylistic word heavy with symbolism and psychological exploration. In Arkham Asylum, Morrison tells the history of the facility where the villains of the Batman universe are detained. The facility’s administrator frees the inmates of the asylum in an attempt to lure Batman in and defeat him. At the time, Batman’s portrayal in comics had taken on an extremely dark and borderline psychotic tone. Arkham Asylum flouted these dark themes and with its innovative approach to the character achieved success as the bestselling original graphic novel of all time.

       His next major work was The Invisibles, a personal exploration of the themes and ideas that he was discovering in his personal life. He pushed the limits of comic book storytelling and managed to create a work of art that advanced the concept of comics as a true literary format. His major work in mainstream superhero comics has been on the titles JLA(Justice League of America), New X-Men, All-Star Superman, Batman, Batman and Robin, Batman Incorporated, and Action Comics. His work on all of these titles has been well received, achieving outstanding commercial and critical success.

       In 2005, Morrison’s series Seven Soldiers saw publication. It features seven obscure characters from the DC Comics universe coming together to fight off a mysterious invasion by creatures called the Sheeda. A knight from King Arthur’s court, Frankenstein’s monster, a young magician, a descendant of the lost colony of Roanoke with Sheeda ancestry, an in-house superhero for a tabloid newspaper, a reluctant superhero with power gained from her husband’s failed science experiment, and a modern day Houdini with the ability to escape black holes and even death are manipulated by mysterious forces to combat the Sheeda invasion. Each of their stories are presented separately and then woven together to create and overarching narrative that defies traditional narrative styles.

Analysis of The Invisibles

       

Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles is a three volume work encompassing 59 separate issues published by the Vertigo imprint of DC Comics over seven years, from 1994 to 2000. The story starts with a delinquent teenager, Dane McGowan, and a couple of his friends setting fire to their school in Liverpool, England. Dane is the image of a rebellious teenager, angry, uncouth, disrespectful of authority and resolute in his own self-competence. As punishment for his crimes, he is sent to a state run boarding school. We learn that he is being targeted by two sides of an unseen war being fought over control of humanity’s future. The first volume covers Dane’s transformation into Jack Frost, a member of the Invisible army that is fighting against the efforts of the oppressive forces of the Outer Church that are attempting to strip human individuality.

       Dane, now known as Jack, joins up with a cell of the Invisibles led by King Mob, a bald headed revolutionary with a talent for extreme violence. The other members of their group are Ragged Robin, a mysterious redhead with Raggedy Ann style makeup; Lord Fanny, a Brazilian transvestite and an Aztec shaman; and Boy, a former New York police officer who is recruited to the Invisibles after losing her brother to the Outer Church. Together they spearhead the fight against the forces of the Outer Church and work to save humanity.

       The first volume is largely an exploration of the characters themselves. Morrison imbues each character with an aspect of his own personality creates a hierarchy for the group based on the elements of Fire, Air, Water, Earth, and Spirit. This hierarchy shifts throughout the series with each member of the group assuming different elements. Lord Fanny and King Mob are captured by the Outer Church and the rest of the group must act to save them. In the process Jack is exposed to an otherworldly enlightenment and is exposed to the truth at the center of the conflict between the Invisibles and the Outer Church, although he is unable to recall it afterwards he accepts his role as the potential savior of humanity.

       The second volume takes place in America. The group travels there to escape the attention they’d garnered in England. They team with a cell of American Invisibles to assault a secret desert base of the Outer Church that houses the cure for AIDs, a virus engineered by the Outer Church. The end game of the series also starts to come into focus. The group meets with a wealthy Invisible named Mason Lang and they start down the path of using his wealth to spread the ideas of the counterculture into the mainstream, utilizing corporations and consumerism. The members of the group create strong connections with each other before being driven apart as the volume ends. Ragged Robin returns to the future in a time machine powered by the Hand of God. Boy retires from the Invisibles. King Mob throws away his gun and turns his back on violence. Jack and Fanny embark on a wild adventure into the unknown, freed from their pasts.

       The final volume presents its issues in reverse order, counting down to #1. Time is accelerating and the forces that the Invisibles and the Outer Church have set into motion are coming to fruition. The final date for the ascension of the human race is December 22, 2012. The final battle between the Invisibles and the Outer Church is set to take place. As Jack triumphs over the King of the Outer Church, the true nature of the conflict is revealed. The Invisibles and the Outer Church are two forces working towards the same goal. Reality has been infected with a virus that has led to the dysfunction of individual beings. The Invisibles are the force of resistance, embracing individuality and empowerment of the self. The Outer Church seeks to contain the dysfunction of the virus, personifying it and allowing it to be attacked.

       The virus that has infected humanity is of our own creation. The constructs of society have created a flawed vision of the self that traps it in self-damaging behavior that it can’t escape. Depression, addiction, oppression and various human failings result from the struggle to cope with our self-inflicted anguish. The Invisibles ends with Jack freeing humanity from the virus. He looks outward to the reader, making one final statement: “Our sentence is up.” (“The Invisible Kingdom” 286) The individual is freed from its self-imposed restraints at last. Looking back at the entire series, the reader sees that this theme has been repeated continuously throughout. It’s never been about the fight of good versus evil, but about obtaining enlightenment in the madness of society.

Works Cited

     "Biography - Comics." Grant Morrison. Web. 02 May 2012. http://grantmorrison.com/biography/comics.html.

     "Biography - Work Outside Comics." Grant Morrison. Web. 02 May 2012. http://grantmorrison.com/biography/work-outside-comics.html.

     Morrison, Grant, Steve Yeowell, Jill Thompson, and Dennis Cramer. The Invisibles, Say You Want A Revolution. DC Comics, 1996. Print.

     Morrison, Grant, Jill Thompson, Chris Weston, John Ridgway, Steve Parkhouse, and Paul Johnson. The Invisibles, Apocalipstick. DC Comics, 2001. Print.

     Morrison, Grant, Phil Jimenez, John Stokes, Tommy Lee Edwards, Paul Johnson, Steve Yeowell, Dick Giordano, Mark Buckingham, and Mark Pennington. The Invisibles, Entopy in the U.K.. DC Comics, 2001. Print.

     Morrison, Grant, Phil Jimenez, and John Stokes. The Invisibles, Bloody Hell in America. DC Comics, 2001. Print.

     Morrison, Grant, Phil Jimenez, and John Stokes. The Invisibles, Counting to None. DC Comics, 1999. Print.

     Morrison, Grant, Chris Weston, John Stokes, Ray Kryssing, Ivan Reis, and Mark Pennington. The Invisibles, Kissing Mister Quimper. DC Comics, 2000. Print.

     Morrison, Grant, Philip Bond, Warren Pleece, Sean Phillips, Jay Stephens, Frank Quitely, and John Stokes. The Invisibles, The Invisible Kingdom. DC Comics, 2002. Print.

     Morrison, Grant. Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human. New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2011. Kindle file.