Introduction.
So, I’m going to finally start serializing my thesis. Currently titled: “All-Star Grant Morrison: Twenty-first Century Comics and Renaissance Philosopher Giovanni Pico della Mirandola.” I’m going to keep the excerpts short, because it is most likely pretty boring for most of my readers. Thanks for reading and please let me know what you think.
The field of Comics Studies has grown and developed into an intellectual movement since the mid-to-late 1980s after the arrival of such critically acclaimed work like Art Spiegelman’s Maus and Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen. Currently, scholars like Hillary Chute, Douglas Wolk, Paul Lopes, and Charles Hatfield focus on the work of Alison Bechdel, Dan Clowes, Chris Ware, and other independent comic creators. These critics are doing work to enhance the study of comics in the academy. To begin discussing one of the medium’s foremost writers an overview of the current work of scholars in Comics Studies is necessary. Hillary Chute has written about the work of Art Spiegelman and brings a new interpretation of the form of the comic book, explaining what she means by the phrase “graphic narrative” in her article “Comics as Literature?” Reading Graphic Narrative.” Douglas Wolk, in his book Reading Comics, helps new readers grapple with how comics should be read and presents some values for conducting a close reading of graphic narrative. Paul Lopes talks about the stigma associated with comics. Charles Hatfield, in his Alternative Comics, writes about how alternative comics, specifically the work of the Hernandez brothers, Harvey Pekar, and others relates to how comics have grown into a new kind of literature. From this critical ground we will segue into the body of this essay itself, which will examine the work of Grant Morrison and how Renaissance philosopher Giovanni Pico della Mirandola influences his mainstream work.
Happy 52nd Birthday to Grant Morrison, just one day after my mother’s. No wonder I like you so much.
Basically, what I learned from Japan is that creativity isn’t solely the domain of individual artists or inventors. Groups can be creative too. It took me a while to realise this, but when I did it made me happy, because it resolved an apparent conflict between two of the things I hold most dear: collectivism and creativity. I think you can say that Japan is capable of producing both the cliches of the manga industry and the originality of someone like Yuichi Yokoyama, whose quirky abstract mangas depend for their impact on twisting the conventions of mainstream manga. It’s not like Yokoyama defies manga, or appears courtesy of divine lightning.
Momus, in this fascinating interview with Marie Calloway at The Rumpus.
I’ve only recently begun noticing the work of Momus, mostly because of the attention to the Marie Calloway thing, but I’ve started becoming more and more intrigued with their work. This particular section from the interview caused me to think about American comics that both encourages collaboration and creativity, particularly in the form of Grant Morrison’s work among others. The recent Batman issue reminds me of the kind thing Momus is talking about here, as well as Casanova. Both of those books challenge the conventions of American comics, while working within the system.
I was in a Barnes and Noble today and noticed this book by Marc Singer titled Grant Morrison: Combing the Worlds of Contemporary Comics. The description:
In Grant Morrison: Combining the Worlds of Contemporary Comics, author Marc Singer examines how Morrison uses this fusion of styles to intervene in the major political, aesthetic, and intellectual challenges of our time. His comics blur the boundaries between fantasy and realism, mixing autobiographical representation and cultural critique with heroic adventure. They offer self-reflexive appraisals of their own genres while they experiment with the formal elements of comics. Perhaps most ambitiously, they challenge contemporary theories of language and meaning, seeking to develop new modes of expression grounded in comics’ capacity for visual narrative and the fantasy genres’ ability to make figurative meanings literal.
It’s always difficult seeing books like that when you’re working on something similar. It’s rewarding to see that you’re working along the same creative unconscious, but at the same time it is difficult to not think that you’ve been passed by—the door slammed in your face, saying “Too slow!” When I start thinking this way I return to what Vaughan said, and I settle down knowing that while Singer has come first with a book length piece of cultural commentary that I’m aiming my darts at, I realize that he’s opening the door for more work like mine to come through. The door is only closing if you think it is.
I just turned in the first draft of my thesis. Fifty-three pages, two outlines, what feels like an eternity until I was able to get started. It has been a long road to get here and it is going to be just as difficult these next couple of weeks making sure that it’s in shape to be turned over to the department. I feel like the hard part is over, but whenever one feels that way one is usually dead wrong. I’m just happy to have made it this far, I’m happy with my work, and here’s to hoping that people will love it as much as I do.
Superhero stories are sweated out at the imagined lowest levels of our culture, but like that shard off a hologram, they contain at their hearts all the dreams and fears of generations in vivid miniature. Created by a workforce that has in its time been marginalized, mocked, scapegoated, and exploited, they never failed to offer a direct line to the cultural subconscious and its convulsions. They tell us where we’ve been, what we feared and what we desired, and today they are more popular, more all pervasive than ever because they still speak to us about what we really want to be.
from the final pages of Supergods by Grant Morrison. What I’m thankful for is, well, this book. It gives me a sense that all of us—creative or not—are important and what most of us do is really to help shape a better world. This book has been amazing to read, and I think this is why I took so long to read it because I wanted to savor it.
Finishing it, I realized what my thesis is about: it’s to show that Morrison is at the forefront of this movement to legitimize comics to a sphere beyond those of us who are already in the choir. With this work someone like me feels freshly empowered to bring it to people who would not normally take a look at these ideas and change the way they think about them. That’s super-selfish and pig-headed of me to type but I do it with no malicious intent, and I don’t think that ONLY I CAN DO THIS. The best I can do is share how important this stuff is to me and to put it forward and say I promise this will wow you. I’m thankful to comics, to this book, because without them I’m not sure where I would be, but I’m awfully glad to be where I am. So, thanks, rock on.
Green Lantern’s sudden awareness of people suffering below the poverty line may seem almost farcical, but we can also choose to view the Lantern as a representation of the typical white middle-class young reader and to see in the politically engaged Green Arrow a “fiction suit” or mouthpiece for [writer Dennis] O’Neil, using art to open a few young eyes to some important facts of life.
from Grant Morrison’s awesome analysis of Green Lantern/Green Arrow by Dennis O’Neil and Neil Adams in Supergods.
Two weeks ago, I was talking with Francis about what superhero comic books can teach us about our cultural structure. We were talking about something completely different—probably politics—over our Six Point “Crisp” Ales at Hell’s Gate, and really getting into it. I was making the case that Superman and Batman represent the Cold War divide, before the war was actually initiated. Capitalism takes the form of Batman—a billionaire playboy whose parents were taken from him by a desperate criminal and in response he decides to beat down those low-lives creating a classic have vs have-not battle, and a dissection of capitalism made four-color flesh in the form of Bruce Wayne.
Superman, our beacon of social justice for rich and poor alike, stands for equal rights under the law or as Morrison writes—socialism:
“Superman made his position plain: He was the hero of the people. The original Superman was a bold humanist response to Depression-era fears of runaway scientific advance and soulless industrialism. We would see this early incarnation wrestling giant trains to a standsill, overturning tanks, or bench-pressing construction cranes…Superman offered another possibility: an image of a firecly human tomorrow that delivered the spectacle of triumphant individualism exercising its sovereignty over the implacable forces of industrial oppression.”
This is displayed in the first issue of the rebooted Action Comics when Superman holds Mr. Glenmorgan and threatens to drop him, but just before he does our new Man of Steel promises to release Glenmorgan “Just as soon as he makes a full confession. To someone who still believes the law works the same for rich and poor alike.”
I explained to Francis that Superman and Batman teamed together are called the “World’s Finest.” So, in typical brilliant thought while drinking I proposed the idea that if Batman and Superman are the World’s Finest (Capitalism and Socialism) when they are working together perhaps the finest form of government is both of these things together. Clearly, I shouldn’t drink and talk about comic books anymore.
I always thought that I had a real Scottish working class thing against the fact that these were done by privileged American college kids, and they were telling me the world was flat. “You’re telling me the world is flat, pal?” And it’s not helpful, it doesn’t get us anywhere. OK, so it is, then what? What are you going to do about it, college kid? My book wasn’t academic. I can’t take on those Comics Journal guys, they flattened me, as they did, it’s just defensive, smartass kids.
Grant Morrison on academic snobbery in comics. I think this is why I struggle with this whole academic atmosphere. I’m not an academic, and yet I’m trying very hard at trying to get academia to consider comics seriously. There are quite a few people doing it but it is still very much a newborn academic movement. “Movement” as in slightly faster than grass growing and slower than the turtle vs the hare.
I like writing about what I’m interested in and I can grasp the concepts of literary theory and present them in a very clear narrative but a note I get from all of my professors throughout my masters is I’m not academic enough. It’s like academic is a code word or a password into an exclusive language that only people who are chosen are able to understand it, which is probably why most people consider academia to be snooty. Snooty? Snotty! It sort of is—”Giving a paper” is an example of this.
During the critical theory class I had this summer—which was extremely fascinating—a frequent complaint was the language of a lot of these critics. These are complex concepts we’re dealing with but yet people like Derrida, De Man, and a few more are incapable of writing about it clearly. Mostly, I think it boils down to who you are as a person, and I think “academic” in this sense stems from the audience the writer thinks he or she is writing to and speaks the language to them. My style probably comes from deciding fairly early on in my life that I wanted to be a reporter, which meant training in writing up to an eighth grade reading level (I’m sure I barely even affect a third grade level) and that has affected me to this day. I want everyday people to get what I’m writing about and I think I’m getting to a kind of middle ground but it has taken a long time to get there, and I still don’t do it to the level they want. I don’t know, I suppose I’m not one of them. I’m not a critic, all I want is to show why this stuff is important and is freaking fun and amazing, and you can’t really do that affecting a language that most people turn their nose up and dismiss.
Source: Rolling Stone
From Kid Eternity, the first Morrison comic I read when I was ten or eleven. I forget. Art by the unforgettable Duncan Fegredo. Still one of my favorites.
Source: monkeearmada
Remember when all the imaginary stories became true stories and suddenly there was nowhere else to go? We were talking about how Superman couldn’t solve these problems and we went down into that little park that’s across from the convention hall, and as we look up there was a guy walking across the tracks with his friend, but this guy’s Superman. And he’s not just any costumed convention-goer, but he’s perfect. He was like Billy Zane-meets-Christopher Reeve and he really suited the costume. So I ran over him and said, “This is quite amazing, this is the perfect time for this to happen. Could you come over and speak with us?” He came right over and he started talking in the persona of Superman. So if I said to him, “How do you feel about Lois?” he’d say “Well, Lois doesn’t quite get that I’m an alien as well as a human.” He was so in the character, but what really got me was the way he was sitting. It was this absolutely relaxed pose with one knee up and the arm bent over, and that’s what broke Superman for me. Suddenly I realized that Superman wouldn’t be a poser, he wouldn’t be a Muscle Beach steroid guy; he’d actually be completely relaxed because nothing could hurt him. He could be so open and friendly to everyone because no one can punch him or hurt him. He can’t get a cold, or be damaged by anything you’re carrying or wearing. For me that was the power of that, whether you want to frame it as magical or not, it actually informed the stories I wanted to write. I felt I understood him in a way I hadn’t until that moment.
Source: shelf-life.ew.com
By psychoanalyzing his enemies with his FISTS, Batman may have hoped to escape the probing gaze of the analyst himself…
