Grant Morrison Writes ... (Part 5)Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 Nowadays it�s become more radical to say, In an editorial for OVERSTREET'S FAN�the next to last�issue�you talked about writing comics for kids again� Yeah. �instead of for what you called "an adult readership that never�really existed." Now, you�ve been extensively involved with books that�are "Suggested for Mature Readers"; you used to be the man who was known�for Arkham Asylum. Is there a Vertigo Grant Morrison and a DC Universe�Grant Morrison as well? Well, no, it�s just that� I think what I do is respond to the time,�and that�s why I�ve kept going more years that I should�ve. And it seems�that, at the time, I thought Arkham was exactly the way Batman should be�done as a psychological entity. As a seeker in the dark. And it got into�the newspapers, it got into the stale magazines; it did its job. But�those were the �80s; the atmosphere was very different then. [B]ecause of what happened in the �80s and moreso [because] ... the kids�readership couldn�t be high ... we went to an adult market I ... don�t�think really existed. You know, Watchmen sold well, and then it sort of came to�Dark Knight sold well, Arkham did well, and on to an end. So�even back�then, even while I was doing [grim books, I'd] already begun to say I never wanted to�do Arkham. I was thinking, "God, I do this dark stuff." And that�light-hearted, simple plot with an Animal Man�I felt Animal Man came�just to draw us back to [that] edge. And now it just seems to me that ... the wheel has come right at us�again.� You�ve got these kids thinking, "Where the hell are ... our�heroes?" There�s too many guys who are mental cases; too many guys shoot�people. It�s just gone on too long, and we�ve who lost the heroes; we�ve�lost the child audience. And it seems to me that the time to bring that�back, and it�s the kind of now is stuff that fires me anyway. So that�s why I�ve hung around in comics, because this is the time I�want to be around in, when things start to get brighter, more�imaginative, more optimistic. But at the same time I haven�t said I�wouldn�t want it�the other stuff�not to exist, because we have created�a small readership�again, an adult readership or an older teen-age�audience�and they deserve some books as well. So my big fight here at the moment is to be able to do stuff that you�can hook kids [with] when they�re young on something like the Justice League Junior book, which is not available, and bring them in, via�Justice League, as a teen-ager, and then either they can drop out and�discover girls or they can come back. [A]nd when they come back with girls, [they can] just go [read] adult�comics then, which seems to be a healthy and sane way of making the�industry work. So that, my point is, you are ... right now in this very good stuff. I�m doing The Invisibles to reach that adult or "pop" audience,�basically. I don�t know if it�s an adult audience, but it�s certainly a�pop-music audience in that it�s� The strange sort of adults who listen to rock. Yeah. Yeah, it�s the people who, you know, like music are the people�who pick that kind of stuff up as part of
the[ir] lifestyle. But at the�same time I want to do Justice
League for the teen-age comics fans, to�give them something that is good, that they can enjoy, and that will� Well, you seem to have an obvious love for super-heroes. It�s�nowhere more evident than it was in Flex Mentallo last summer. Yeah. Why is it only now that you�re writing a mainstream super-hero book?�Would the market not let you do that until recently, or�? Yeah, pretty much, because the ideas are harder to market properly�if it�s the wrong time. If I�d tried to do Justice League like this in�1990, it wouldn�t have worked because 1990 was again very different.�Super-heroes were more violent, more interesting, and more grown up�and�that was the look of the time. But I think what I�m going to see is that�disappear and the type of stuff that I�m interested in [is going to return]. One of the first things I remember reading of yours was Zenith. Yeah? Why is it that Zenith, for all the trappings of a super-hero book, seemed to deviate from that pattern so much? Was it at that point when�you were interested in exploring the range of deviations on the pattern,�or�? Yeah, well, still, all I can say [is] it was the time for it. The�time seemed right, and there was my super-hero. They asked me to do a British super-hero, and I thought, "Well, I don�t�want it to look like�" You know, Dark Knight had come out, and I said,�"I don�t want to do that, but obviously people�s expectations are such�that you can�t get away with any other kind of super-hero." But, on�being noticed, I decided I could get something that was kind of poppy�and exciting without being grim�or over[ly] grim. And if I made the�super-hero a pop star� [Laugh.] And because I was into music, and because I was around that age and I�was thinking, "If I had super powers, that�s what I would do," you know:�I would go out with models; I would get drunk and fly in through the�window; and I would never, ever stay clean. So that, that became a�that was a jumping-off point for that strip.�Nowadays it�s become more radical to say, "Super-heroes�remember? We�used to fight evil?" And until that is actually radical enough, I�ll get back into it.�Super-heroes who fight evil, who save the world, who actually do their�stuff and use their powers expecting to fight the good fight and�expecting to use their powers to cause what can be done. Even the Invisibles, who are sort of pop figures� Yeah. �are finding themselves in the role of super-heroes battling evil�and saving the world from the ... bad guy next door. Yeah! [T]he stuff I�m doing [in] The Invisibles can wholly be�Invisibles, and again that will change as the book progresses, but right�now I think I�ve got a good thing going. |
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