Britain
Grant Morrison
Grant Morrison · born 1960
- Classification
- Writer. Scottish. The chaos magician of mainstream comics.
- Habitat
- Near Myths (1978), 2000 AD (1980s), DC and Vertigo (1988 onwards), Marvel (2000–2004), then television
- Distinguishing marks
- Metafiction, magic, superheroes as modern myths, and at least one idea per page that would support a whole series for anyone else
- Often seen with
- Frank Quitely, Steve Yeowell, Richard Case, Chas Truog, Dave McKean
- Conservation status
- Thriving. Almost everything is in print.
Field-guide card
Morrison started in the Edinburgh comics magazine Near Myths as a teenager, wrote for 2000 AD in the 1980s, including the pop-star superhero Zenith, and was one of the British writers DC recruited after Alan Moore's success. Animal Man and Doom Patrol established Morrison as the most inventive writer in mainstream comics, and Arkham Asylum, painted by Dave McKean, became one of the best-selling graphic novels of its day. The Invisibles, JLA, New X-Men, All-Star Superman and a long run on Batman followed.
You've seen Morrison's work in the Doom Patrol television series, the Batman stories that shaped several films, and television shows such as Happy!, which Morrison co-created. The idea that superheroes are modern myths, now a commonplace, owes a great deal to Morrison's work.
The gateway drug is All-Star Superman, the best introduction to Superman ever written. The deep end is The Invisibles, a conspiracy thriller about anarchist magicians that is as much a manifesto as a story. The curio is Zenith, the early 2000 AD strip about a pop star with superpowers, which spent years out of print because of a rights dispute.
The Crowsnest verdict: the writer who took the Silver Age's craziest ideas at face value, and turned them into literature.