Meet Grant

Grant Morrison is one of the most widely known and well-respected names in comic writing today. He has prolifically published work that has transformed and revolutionized not only the specific superhero genre, but the medium of comics itself for over 20 years.

Grant Morrison was born January 31, 1960 in Glasgow, Scotland. Morrison prefers not to reveal a lot of details about his childhood in Glasgow. The details he does divulge will change sporadically depending on the mood, the circumstances and the interviewer. After his parents divorced he lived with his mother and sister until he left home at 19. Even during the early years comics were always an important part of his life.

"My childhood was great, then adolescence was awful. I was isolated from people. I went to an all boy's school which was a big mistake because I wasn't gay. I hated it because I didn't know any girls and I lived in a tiny house above a supermarket with my mother and sister for more years than is healthy for a young man. I just sat and read comics and listened to records, all Morrissey-like, until I was 19 when I got a band together and got out. Though I think if I hadn't had that intense horrible time on my own, I just wouldn't be writing for a living today. Making comics got me through my teenage years and disciplined my wayward energies very effectively."

Morrison did get an early start in comics - he had several strips published in Near Myths (one of the Uk's first alternative comics) in the late 1970's and a a weekly comic strip called Captain Clyde about an unemployed Glaswegian superhero - but he spent much of the early and mid-1980s playing with his punk band The Mixers.

In 1985 Morrison began his comics career in earnest when he started working for Marvel UK. Two years later DC Comics took him up on a proposal to revamp an minor character from their catalog, Animal Man. This put Morrison prominently at the head of a new British Invasion of comic writers including Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman and Peter Milligan.

Morrison is known for his postmodern approach to the classic superhero genre, creating characters that are neither wholly good or completely evil. The counter-cultural leanings in his work could be considered somewhat of a trademark. This makes sense when you consider what an impact illicit substances have had on Morrison's writing.





II. Body of work
I'm having some problems with my hyperlinks, but one it's sorted out this will be a comprehensive, visual, interactive timeline of Morrisons entire body of work.
Miscellaneous British publishers
Near Myths – 1978 – 1980
Starblazer – 1979 – 1987
The Liberators – 1985
Zoids – 1986 – 1987
Captain Granbretan – 1986
Action Force 1987 – 1989
St. Swithin's Day – 1989
The New Adventures of Hitler – 1990
Steed and Mrs. Peel – 1990
Dan Dare – 1990 – 1991
Tharg's Future Shocks – 1986 – 1987
2000 AD
Tharg's Future Shock – 1986 – 1987
One Off – 1986
Zeinith - 1987 – 1992
Venus Bluegenes – 1988
Janus: Psi Division – 1993 – 1997
Really & Truly – 1993
Judge Dredd – 1993 – 1994
Big Dave – 1993 – 1994
DC Comics
Batman:
"The Stalking" (in the UK Batman Annual) - 1986
Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth - 1989
Gothic - 1990
Batman & Son – 2006 – 2007
The Black Glove – 2007 – 2008
"The Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul" - 2007
Batman R.I.P. - 2008
Superman:
"Osgood Peabody's Big Green Dream Machine" (in the UK Superman Annual) – 1986
All Star Superman - 2005 – 2008
JLA:
"JLA: Ghosts of Stone" (Secret Origins #46,) - 1989
JLA – 1997 – 2000
JLA: Ultramarine Corps - 2004
Earth 2 – 2000
The Flash: Emergency Stop – 2009
Aztek, the Ultimate Man – 2008
New Year's Evil: "Prometheus" – 1998
Seven Soldiers of Victory – 2005 – 2008
52 – 2006 – 2007
Final Crisis – 2008 – 2009
Final Crisis: Superman Beyond – 2008
Vertigo
Animal Man – 1988 – 1990
Doom Patrol – 1989 – 1993
Hellblazer: "Early Warning" – 1990
Kid Eternity – 1991
Sebastian O – 1993
The Mystery Play – 1994
Swamp Thing: "Bad Gumbo" – 1994
The Invisibles – 1994 – 2000
Kill Your Boyfriend – 1995
Flex Mentallo – 1996
Weird War Tales #3: "New Toys" – 1997
The Filth – 2002
WE3 – 2004
Seaguy – 2004
Vimanarama – 2005
Marvel Comics
Skrull Kill Krew – 1995
Marvel Boy – 2000
Fantastic Four: 1234 – 2001
New X-Men – 2001 – 2004
Other US publishers
Vampirella – 1996 – 1997
Spawn: "Reflections" - 1997
The Authority – 2002 & 2006
Wildcats 2006 - present

III. Blurring the Lines of Reality
Morrison has a very unique view of religion and spirituality. A self-described Chaos magician, Morrison's personal belief system is an amalgam of magical rituals and esoteric beliefs.

"My dad was an atheist and my mother was a lapsed Catholic so I didn't understand any of it. I lived in Glasgow which is a city torn apart by sectarian violence but somehow, in my naiveté, I grew up without grasping any of the alleged difference between Protestants and Catholics. I went to school with Baptists, atheists, Jews, Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims while some of my friends went to a segregated school that only accepted 'Catholics'. I didn't really question it for some reason and I had no idea I was watching bigotry and separatism in action. I used to go to Sunday School but that was for the free orange juice."

This muddled religious upbringing left Morrison with a dim view of organized religion, so he adapted traditional religious views to fit within his postmodern, esoteric belief system.

"As I’ve said before, the solid world is just the part of heaven we’re privileged to touch and play with. You don’t need a priest or a holy man to talk to “god” on your behalf just close your eyes and say hello: "god” is no more, no less, than the sum total of all matter, all energy, all consciousness, as experienced or conceptualized from a timeless perspective where everything ever seems to present all at once. “God” is in everything, all the time and can be found there by looking carefully. The entire universe, including the scary, evil bits, is a thought “God” is thinking, right now."

In this Interview at ComicCon 2008, Morrison attempts to explain his theory of the "hyper-entity" that encompasses all of reality since the beginning of time.
This video is a little long, I'm going to edit it down to the meaty bits.




The dialectic of the sublime, Morrison's theory of fiction becoming reality.
The story arc runs from issues #19 - #22 of The Doom Patrol and is entitled "Crawling From the Wreckage". There is a book which was written by philosophers to outline utopia. This utopia is called Orqwith and eventually it escapes and steadily replaces our reality, rendering it fictional. Followers of the book are known as "Scissormen", and they have power to cut people out of reality with their large scissorhands even though these scissormen are themselves from the book and therefore fictional. The Doom Patrol eventually stop the growth of Orqwith by presenting it's priests with a paradox which convinces them that Orqwith cannot exist in reality, and everything disappears.