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Comic writer Grant
Morrison is the author responsible for The Invisibles, a monthly
ongoing series published by DC Comics that has proven itself
particularly difficult to describe. Combining elements of magic,
mythology, UFOlogy, conspiracy theory and popular culture, it
tells the story of a group of “secret
agents” whose assignments involve the confrontation of radical
world-views and theories about the very nature of reality itself.
It’s a dense comic, a complicated comic, but above all it’s
a hell of a ride and perhaps even slightly addictive. Of late,
Morrison has also been writing Justice League of America, one of
DC Comics’ superhero titles that features the adventures
of a group of superheroes including Superman, Wonder Woman, The
Flash, Batman, Aquaman and Plastic Man. It is his success in reinvigorating
the tired genre of superhero comics that has brought a new level
of notoriety to Morrison’s name. Well, I was writing books when I was a teenager, bedsit books, that stuff you write, fantasy novels with tortured young men trying to get off with the fairy princess. And I was doin' that stuff, and I just wanted to write. I always wanted to write. And I was a comic reader, I knew the form, I knew how it was done, and when I was eighteen I got involved with these guys at Near Myths, which was an undergroundy kind of thing and they said "We'll let you do something for ten pounds a page." And I thought, "There's money in this? I get paid for writing?" So I did this stuff and I did some stuff for DC Thompson, a real mainstream publisher who did the Beano and the Dandy. They were doing little space fiction comics because Star Wars was successful. So I figured I could do that, I'd seen Star Wars, I could imitate space fiction. And they were payin' me five hundred pounds to do one of these little digest-sized books. And that was it, I thought "There's money in this. I can't make money doin' the books." I had an agent, but there was nothing going on. Suddenly there was money in comics. Then Warrior came out and I saw what Alan Moore was doing, V for Vendetta specifically, and it was just as serious as anything I might do in a film or a book, and I just figured I'd do comics, because people were getting paid to do it and they get to do the kind of work they're interested in. I wouldn't have done it if comics had just been superhero comics. I couldn't express myself like that. So I got into that and it was nine years of poverty anyway! I'm bangin' on doors and tryin' to get work... One or two things would get published, but you'd go by for a year and nothing would get done and then I'd do a little thing, but I wasn't working, I was on the dole. It was desperation, sheer fuckin' desperation. I got to the point where I had no money. I was in bands, but guys always fall out in bands, so I thought "I've got to do something that only I can do, that I can do with my own resources and I don't need to rely on anyone." And that's when I decided it was comics. I just started bugging 2000AD, but like I said it took nine years, I was 26 until I was able to earn money and get off the dole. And you got picked up by the American publishers in that "British Explosion" thing... Well, they'd seen the Zenith stuff I'd done with 2000AD, and it was because it was superheroes. Neil Gaiman was comin' out at the same time, and Jamie Delano was gettin' some work, it was just the right time...
It's funny what you said about superheroes - you only got into comics because you saw an alternative to that, and now your main bread and butter is superheroes. Has your attitude changed towards them? No, I always liked them. I didn't want to exclusively write them. And back then superheroes weren't as interesting as it is now. Superhero comics were pretty dull back then. There'd been some really great ones in the seventies, when people like Englehart and Don MacGregor were doing things for Marvel comics unedited, they were gettin' away with some amazing stuff, but that kinda died. Comics were shite, you know? Seventies comics were some of the worst comics in the world. So there was nothin' there you'd want to do, there was no way you'd do that Superman who was around in those days, or that Captain Marvel, or that Fantastic Four. But I think now because you've had people like Alan Moore and Frank Miller changin' superheroes, and people like me takin' a different way about it, it became interesting again. And it's just... I like doin' it. The money's there, and that's great as well. But one thing I want to do is go back and start doing things for kids. We've done all these Vertigo comics and all this adult stuff and we've completely lost a generation, and no-one is buying the stuff. It's because we're not doing comics for kids, we're doing comics for adults, but there's only a limited adult audience, and these guys are gonna die. We should be looking at the kids and getting them into this. The real motivation for doing Justice League of America was to do a kid's comic that had some imagination and some madness about it, that might get them excited and get them into the adult stuff...
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