Another day, another Grant Morrison interview... in which Ligotti is mentioned

[ramonoski]

I second (or third, even) Seaguy. It's very good. And I hear the third and final volume is finally in the works. Really looking forward to that.

Joe the Barbarian has a couple really good moments (including one very good line of dialog I shan't spoil here) but overall I didn't think it was too memorable. Worth a read, but don't expect anything on par with, say, We3.

[Frater_Tsalal]

Weird that I still haven't read Joe the Barbarian yet.

I agree that Vimanarama is one of Morrison's lesser works, though one thing that kind of hurt that one was that it came out around the same time period as the far superior We3 and the 1st volume of Seaguy.

Stu, you're right about Vol. 3 being hampered by inconsistent artwork (specifically, the 3 issues that come before the final issue). That, as I recall, was Morrison's primary gripe with volume 3. The penultimate issue, of course, finally explained the cosmology behind the entire series, and the original artist totally blew it: so much so that when it came out in graphic novel format, Morrison had someone else redraw it!

The Filth was, I believe, a dark side version of The Invisibles, in which the authority figures are the "good guys" (though that's up for debate) and the rebel forces are the "bad guys." It's telling that the series was drawn by Chris Weston, who also did art for Vol. 2 of The Invisibles. You may recall there's one issue where King Mob is captured by the enemy in Vol. 2, and his mind is invaded by some kind of liquid that shows him a vision of himself in a world where he never became an Invisible, where he's fat and middle-aged and spends most of his time watching pornography. Greg Feely of The Filth greatly resembles this nightmare version of King Mob (even more so when he eventually shaves his head and gets a scorpion-shaped gun as a weapon: you may recall that King Mob was associated with Vodou scorpion gods in The Invisibles). Really, there are so many links between The Filth and The Invisibles it's not even funny, I even had a list of all of them once but sadly I lost it.

[dr. locrian]

I'm oddly heartened by all this praise and interest for Morrison here on TLO. In spite of my previously stated gripes, I do consider him an important and damn good (sometimes brilliant) author. And I'm fascinated that his NAMELESS is apparently so influenced by Ligotti's work.

[Frater_Tsalal]

Ha, at least Morrison is being upfront about Ligotti's influence... unlike certain individuals. ;)

[miguel1984]

Quote Originally Posted by Frater_Tsalal

Ha, at least Morrison is being upfront about Ligotti's influence... unlike certain individuals. ;)

Well, I'll grant Morrison (hah!) that. Perhaps he learnt the Pizzolatto Lesson.

[Frater_Tsalal]

To be fair, Morrison has pretty much always been up-front about his influences: usually if they aren't namedropped in the issues themselves, he'll mention them in interviews.

Now that I think about it, the first time I ever heard Grant Morrison's name was in the April 2000 issue of "Uncut" magazine. There was an article in there about the Wachowski Brothers ripping off The Invisibles with their film The Matrix. In the article, Morrison stated, "I let people know what my sources are, they can see where imagination dovetails with influence."

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

Wasn't Moorcock annoyed at Morrison because of plagiarism issues?

[Frater_Tsalal]

Morrison responded to the Moorcock allegations (among other things) in a long article nearly two years ago:
http://comicsbeat.com/the-strange-case-of-grant-morrison-and-alan-moore-as-told-by-grant-morrison/

I've cut and pasted the relevant bit below:

"As an important aside in this discussion, Moorcock’s spurious allegations of creative theft are based on exactly TEN pages of material in issues 17-19 of “The Invisibles”. These pages were explicitly presented as a Moorcock pastiche – or more strictly a pastiche of my own Gideon Stargrave stories from “Near Myths”, which were heavily but not entirely influenced by Moorcock and J.G Ballard – occurring in the head of the fictional character King Mob. King Mob actually talks about his obsession with Jerry Cornelius within the story and I reference Moorcock’s work as an inspiration for these pages in the letters column of issue 17.

Not content with deliberately misinterpreting a mere ten pages of my fifteen hundred page comic series, Moorcock – this “sweet, sweet man” – continues to this day to jeer and spit abuse. Here’s Alan Moore’s mate Michael Moorcock –
http://www.multiverse.org/fora/showthread.php?t=6506
- describing me as “a sticky-fingered tea leaf” (!) and talking about having me “duffed over”.

“I’ve read the work of Grant Morrison twice. Once when I wrote it. Once when he wrote it. As far as I’m concerned my image of Grant Morrison is of someone wearing a mask, a flat hat and a striped jersey and carrying a bag marked SWAG.”

Sexy!
Leaving aside his own appropriation of entire swathes of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Harry Blyth, Moorcock fails to convince that he’s read any aspect of my “work” even once, let alone twice. He has so far failed to back up the casual slander with any actual evidence or examples of when he found the time to write “The Invisibles”, “St. Swithin’s Day”, “The New Adventures of Hitler”, “We3″, “The Filth”, “Kill Your Boyfriend”, “Mystery Play”, “Seaguy” or “Joe the Barbarian” to name just a few. In a 34-year career, I’ve also written long-running DC and Marvel series, plays, screenplays, video games, short stories and a book; all of which, if Michael Moorcock is to be believed, were written by him. Except for the bits I stole from Alan Moore!"

I think it's worth noting that Morrison's article is at the very least far more coherent and backed up with dates than Moore's anti-Morrison which came after, which, however wittingly written, was basically just full of bile (and made the same lazy arguments and cases against Morrison's work that Morrison had already successfully (IMO) deflated the previous year).

[Stu]

Without checking I think Moorcock was a bit miffed about the resemblance between Gideon Stargrave and Jerry Cornelius.

[Stu]

Ah, you beat me to it.