Grant Morrison
Grant Morrison MBE (born 31 January 1960)[1] is a Scottish comic book writer, screenwriter, and producer. Their work is known for its nonlinear narratives, humanist philosophy and countercultural leanings. Morrison has written extensively for the American comic book publisher DC Comics, penning lengthy runs on Animal Man, Doom Patrol, JLA, Action Comics, and Green Lantern as well as the graphic novels Arkham Asylum, JLA: Earth 2, and Wonder Woman: Earth One, the meta-series Seven Soldiers and The Multiversity, the mini-series DC One Million and Final Crisis, both of which served as centrepieces for the eponymous company-wide crossover storylines, and the maxi-series All-Star Superman. Morrison's best known DC work is the seven-year Batman storyline which started in the Batman ongoing series and continued through Final Crisis, Batman and Robin, Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne and two volumes of Batman Incorporated. They also co-created the DC character Damian Wayne.
Grant Morrison
MBE
31 January 1960
Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom
Scottish
Writer
- Eagle Awards (1990, 2000, 2006, 2011, 2012)
- Eisner Awards (1990, 2006, 2007, 2009)
- Harvey Awards (1990, 2009)
- Inkpot Award (1990)
- MBE (2012)
- National Comics Award (1998, 2002)
Morrison's creator-owned work, the bulk of which was published through DC Comics' Vertigo imprint, includes Flex Mentallo and We3 with Scottish artist Frank Quitely, Seaguy with artist Cameron Stewart, The Filth with Chris Weston, and the three-volume series The Invisibles. At Marvel, Morrison wrote a three-year run on New X-Men and created Marvel Boy for the publisher's Marvel Knights imprint.
Between 2016 and 2018, Morrison served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Heavy Metal magazine.
Morrison's work has drawn critical acclaim. They have won numerous awards, including Eisner, Harvey, and Inkpot awards. In 2012, Morrison was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to film and literature.
Early life
Grant Morrison was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1960. They were educated at Allan Glen's School[2] where their first portfolio of art was rejected by their careers guidance teacher, who encouraged them to work in a bank. Their first published works were Gideon Stargrave strips for Near Myths in 1978 (when they were about 17),[3] one of the first British alternative comics. Their work appeared in four of the five issues of Near Myths[4] and they were suitably encouraged to find more comic work. This included a weekly comic strip, Captain Clyde, an unemployed superhero based in Glasgow, for The Govan Press, a local newspaper, plus various issues of DC Thomson's Starblazer, the science fiction counterpart to that company's Commando title.
Career
1980s
Morrison spent much of the early 1980s touring and recording with their band The Mixers, occasionally writing Starblazer for D. C. Thomson and contributing to various UK indie titles. In 1982, Morrison submitted a proposal involving the Justice League of America and Jack Kirby's New Gods entitled Second Coming to DC Comics, but it was not commissioned. After writing The Liberators for Dez Skinn's Warrior in 1985, Morrison started work for Marvel UK the following year. There they wrote comic strips for Doctor Who Magazine, the final one a collaboration with a then-teenage Bryan Hitch, as well as a run on the Zoids strip in Spider-Man and Zoids. 1986 also saw publication of Morrison's first of several two- or three-page Future Shocks for 2000 AD.
Morrison's first continuing serial began in 2000 AD in 1987,[4] when they and Steve Yeowell created Zenith.
Morrison's work on Zenith brought them to the attention of DC Comics, who asked Morrison to work for them. They accepted Morrison's proposals for Animal Man,[5] a little-known character from DC's past whose most notable recent appearance was a cameo in the Crisis on Infinite Earths limited series, and for a 48-page Batman one-shot that would eventually become Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth.
Animal Man put Morrison in line with the "British Invasion" of American comics,[6][7] along with such writers as Neil Gaiman, Peter Milligan, Jamie Delano, and Alan Moore, who had launched the "invasion" with his work on Swamp Thing.[8]
After impressing with Animal Man, Morrison was asked to take over Doom Patrol, starting their surreal take on the superhero genre with issue No. 19 in 1989.[9] Morrison's Doom Patrol introduced concepts such as dadaism and the writings of Jorge Luis Borges into the first several issues.[10] DC published Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth in 1989 as a 128-page graphic novel painted by Dave McKean.[11] Comics historian Les Daniels observed in 1995 that "Arkham Asylum was an unprecedented success, selling 182,166 copies in hardcover and another 85,047 in paperback."[12]
While working for DC Comics in America, Morrison kept contributing to British indie titles, writing St. Swithin's Day for Trident Comics. St. Swithin's Day's anti-Margaret Thatcher themes proved controversial, provoking a small tabloid press reaction and a complaint from Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) Teddy Taylor.[13] The controversy continued with the publication of The New Adventures of Hitler in Scottish music and lifestyle magazine Cut in 1989, due to its use of Adolf Hitler as its lead character.[14] The strip, unfinished when Cut folded, was reprinted and completed in Fleetway's 2000 AD spin-off title Crisis.
Two plays staged by Oxygen House at the Edinburgh Fringe had scripts by Morrison.[15] Red King Rising (1989) concerned an imagined relationship between Lewis Carroll and Alice Liddell. The other, Depravity (1990) concerned the British occultist Aleister Crowley. The plays won between them a Fringe First Award, the Independent Theatre Award for 1989 and the Evening Standard Award for New Drama.[16]
1990s
Morrison returned to Batman with the "Gothic" story arc in issues 6–10 of the Batman title Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight.[17] The early 1990s saw Morrison revamping Kid Eternity for DC with artist Duncan Fegredo, and Dan Dare, with artist Rian Hughes. Morrison coloured Dare's bright future with Thatcherism in Fleetway's Revolver.[18]
In 1991 Morrison wrote Bible John-A Forensic Meditation for Fleetway's Crisis, based on an analysis of possible motivations for the crimes of the serial killer Bible John. Covering similar themes to Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's From Hell,[19] the work utilised cut-up techniques, a Ouija board and collage rather than conventional panels to tell the story.[20]
In 1993 Morrison, fellow Glaswegian comic writer Mark Millar and John Smith were asked to reinvigorate 2000 AD for an eight-week run called "The Summer Offensive". Morrison wrote Judge Dredd and Really and Truly, and co-wrote the controversial Big Dave with Millar.[21]
DC Comics launched its Vertigo imprint in 1993, publishing several of Morrison's creator-owned projects, such as the steampunk mini-series Sebastian O and the graphic novel The Mystery Play. 1995 saw the release of Kill Your Boyfriend, with artist Philip Bond, originally published as a Vertigo Voices one-shot. In 1996 Morrison wrote Flex Mentallo, a Doom Patrol spin-off with art by Frank Quitely,[22] and returned briefly to DC Universe superheroics with the short-lived Aztek, co-written with Mark Millar.[23]
In 1996, Morrison was given the Justice League of America to revamp as JLA,[24] a comic book that gathered the "Big Seven" superheroes of the DC universe into one team. This run was hugely popular and returned the title to best-selling status.[25] Morrison wrote several issues of The Flash with Mark Millar, as well as DC's crossover event of 1998, the four-issue mini-series DC One Million,[26] in addition to plotting many of the multiple crossovers.
With the three volumes of the creator-owned The Invisibles, Morrison started their largest and possibly most important work.[27] The Invisibles combined political, pop- and sub-cultural references. Tapping into pre-millennial tension, the work was influenced by the writings of Robert Anton Wilson, Aleister Crowley and William Burroughs, and Morrison's practice of chaos magic in Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth.[28][29] In 1998 Morrison published the prose piece "I'm A Policeman" in Sarah Champion's millennial short story collection Disco 2000; though no explicit connection to The Invisibles is made, there are strong thematic links between the two works.[30] At DisinfoCon in 1999, Morrison said that much of the content in The Invisibles was information given to them by aliens that abducted them in Kathmandu, who told them to spread this information to the world via a comic book. They later clarified that the experience they labelled as the "Alien Abduction Experience in Kathmandu" had nothing to do with aliens or abduction, but that there was an experience that they had in Kathmandu that The Invisibles is an attempt to explain.[31] The title was not a huge commercial hit to start with. (Morrison actually asked their readers to participate in a "wankathon" while concentrating on a magical symbol, or sigil, in an effort to boost sales).[32] When the title was relaunched with volume two, the characters relocated to America. Volume three appeared with issue numbers counting down, signalling an intention to conclude the series with the turn of the new millennium in 2000. Due to the title shipping late, its final issue did not ship until April 2000.[4]
The 1999 film The Matrix has numerous elements which have been attributed by critics to the influence of Morrison's The Invisibles.[33] Morrison was immediately struck by the similarities to their own work upon first seeing the film.[34][35]
2000s
In 2000, Morrison's graphic novel JLA: Earth 2 was released with art by Frank Quitely.[36] It was Morrison's last mainstream work for DC for a while, as they moved to Marvel Comics. While at Marvel, Morrison wrote the six-part Marvel Boy series,[37][38] and Fantastic Four: 1234, their take on another major superhero team. In July 2001, they began writing the main X-Men title, renamed New X-Men for their run, with Quitely providing much of the art.[39][40] Again, Morrison's revamping of a major superhero team proved to be a commercial success, with the title jumping to the No. 1 sales spot[41] and established Morrison as the kind of creator whose name on a title would guarantee sales.[42] Their penultimate arc "Planet X" depicted the villain Magneto infiltrating and defeating the X-Men in the guise of new character Xorn and developing an addiction to the power-enhancing drug "Kick".[43][44]
Personal life
In a 2011 interview, Morrison stated that they and their wife Kristan had no children. When asked if they regretted this, Morrison replied, "Slightly but I don't know. Every time I think of it I think of the reality of it. I really like kids and I get on with them and it's that aspect of it but I see people with actual kids. The trauma and the trouble. And if I'm worried that my cat is sick it's the thought of everyday worrying about a kid would be even more hellish."[117][118]
Morrison uses singular they pronouns.[119][120][121] In a 2020 interview with Mondo2000, Morrison mentioned that they "had been non-binary, cross-dressing, 'gender queer'", from the age of 10 years old but didn't have the vocabulary to describe how they felt at the time.[122] Speaking later of the article, Morrison said that they hated being perceived as only recently coming out: "I'm 62 years old—I had my sexuality shit figured out a long time ago!"[119] Morrison later said they rejected labels and that "I can't live in a box. I'm going to let down anyone who sticks a label on me. It will drop off quite naturally."[123] They later wrote that though they do not use the label non-binary, they acknowledge that, depending on the definition, "perhaps the shoe fits after all".[124]
They also wrote that while they never requested they/them pronouns, they have come to prefer them.[125] However, they do not mind being referred to with he/him pronouns.[120]
Appearances as a comics character
Grant Morrison first appeared as a comics character in cameos in Animal Man Nos. 11 and 14. They made a full appearance at the end of issue No. 25 in 1990, and spent most of issue No. 26 in a lengthy conversation with the comic's title character. The character appeared the next year in Suicide Squad No. 58, written by John Ostrander, as a character named Writer who was one of several minor characters killed in one of the series' trademark suicide missions.[127][128]
They were depicted in an issue of Simpsons Comics, fighting with fellow X-Men writer Mark Millar.[129]
In Morrison's 2005–2006 Seven Soldiers miniseries and its tie-ins, Morrison appears as the renegade member of eight "reality engineers" and transforms into Silver Age character Zor, then back into a character resembling Morrison in a magician's costume, though with dark hair and a beard. After the renegade's defeat, Morrison, wearing a DC Comics-logo tie clip, becomes the narrator for the final chapter.[130]
The miniseries Tales of the Unexpected features Morrison along with their 52 co-writers Geoff Johns, Greg Rucka and Mark Waid.[131][132]
In Darwyn Cooke's DC: The New Frontier, Morrison was the physical model for Captain Cold.[133]
Acting
Morrison also appeared as themself in the ninth episode of the fourth season of Titans, entitled “Dude, Where’s My Gar?”[134][135]
