July 28, 2011

“I hate stories that are just stories, I can’t relate to stories that are just somebody making something up.  I like a story that’s actually meaningful, that’s coming out of life, that’s coming out of an emotion, or has some weight behind it.”
- grant morrison, TALKING WITH GODS (2010)

i could listen to grant morrison talk about his experiences and how they might’ve informed his stories…or how his stories might’ve informed his life for days.  he has a particularly interesting perspective on the world, and is one of the few people i would categorize as a genius.  sure, most folk would just look at his work and think he ‘only’ a comics writer, but his ideas - even his most mainstream, like in X-MEN or even JLA - are miles beyond any fiction being written now as well as at the time of their inception.

i started with morrison with JLA and worked my way backward with his work.  kind of the way i do when i discover any creator of anything.  because there are smidges of my world when someone(s)’s work affects me to the point of pseudo-research. 

what’s funny to me about morrison is that as difficult as his work tends to be for me (try reading THE INVISIBLES or THE FILTH (which commentary in the film makes me think “i’m not the only one seeing what i’m reading!”), i ALWAYS get something out his stories. always.  even my favorite literary fiction writers, or film makers, or musicians fail at this type of consistency for me.

i recently-re-read the volumes of DOOM PATROL i own, and ANIMAL MAN, and his BATMAN, and all of these are the stories you maybe only imagine are possible.

TALKING WITH GODS is available on hulu.

“…you have to look at grant’s work as, like, it’s a bullet with a candy coating, you know what i mean: it’s the kind of thing a kid can read it, you know, and their parents would never be the wiser that their kids are getting their mind good and fucked.”

- richard metzger

(btw, how hot is frank quitely?!?!)

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