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.
