Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Batman, Comics, dc, gay, grant morrison, multiversity, wonder woman

Grant Morrison Doesn't Care Whether You Are A Worm Or A Zebra

Published Sun, 16 Sep 2012 08:00:55 -0500

Grant Morrison's favourite correspondent Laura Sneddon, has just written a piece for the New Statesman, interviewing the man. Here are Bleeding Cool's six favourite bits.

On Gay Batman And Playboy

And basically I said what I said in the book, that you can easily dial up the black-leather-fetishistic-night-dwelling aspects of Batman, and the masculinity of Batman, and get a pretty good gay Batman. But as I said, ultimately he's not gay because he has no sex life, really. All he is is an adventurer.. sometimes they show him with girls, sometimes he never seems to be going out with girls.

"But they just took off the cool sound-bite which is 'Batman is utterly, utterly gay, says Morrison'! That was it, I had to deal with that – people were really fucking mad at me for that one."

On The Fan Who Ate Supergods

"[The] guy that ate Supergods!" Morrison laughs. "Cooked it and ate it on the basis that it was my fault that people couldn't find alternative comics in their local comics stores. And I was standing in the way, pretending to be the face of alternative comics, and how I actually stood for corporate this or corporate … you know, I'm the man – again as I say, I'm a freelance writer, I'm not on staff at any company. But this guy ate the book!"

That's quite impressive.

"It certainly is! His shit must have looked like a William Burroughs cut-up!"

On Leaving DC Superheroes. For Now.

"We have disagreements," he acknowledges, "but to me disagreements are things that you deal with, problems are things you solve, and everyone stays friends, and negotiations are done. So I kinda felt that.. it just began to feel too unpleasant to work within a comic book fan culture where everyone was mad at you all the time and giving you responsibility for legal cases and things that Ihaveve got honestly nothing to do with in my life and will shortly have zero connection with.

"But I felt that. There was a sense of, a definite sense of the temple was being burned down and it was time to run away."

On The Watchmen Situation. Without Actually Mentioning Watchmen.

"I own my stuff from Near Myths and all through the 80s, and St Swithin's Day," he says, the latter title featuring the attempted assassination of Margaret Thatcher which caused it to be raised in parliament at the time. "That's what you did. If you want to own something you go and own it. So I don't understand how you could get yourself into the position where you don't own it and you're angry about it. And again, it's not a position I would endorse, other than saying, 'I really feel sorry for you, for genuinely getting this wrong and being regretful,' but honestly am I gonna leave my job and protest on your behalf? Of course not."

On The Expected Reaction To His Wonder Woman

"No, no, I'm hoping, I've really done my research." He pauses before continuing. "And again I find that a lot of that stuff, and I know it gets me into more trouble, it's just all artificial to me. I don't give a fuck what gender you are, or whether you're a worm or a zebra. Honestly as long as you're friendly and can communicate, that's all I care about. And I can understand why you might take certain separatist positions but I just don't feel that way.

… So I wanted to deal with that, what happens to eroticism and sex when it's [three] thousand years after men, you know when even the women who've been doing it to one another are bored shitless after twenty five [hundred] years. So I think there's something a lot weirder than what people anticipate coming up with this!"

And On Multiversity, And Actually Mentioning Watchmen

"It's my Citizen Kane, this comic, I'm so proud of it." Morrison smiles. "We've really worked hard to make it worthy of not only its source but to do all that in 38 pages and in a new way. So yeah it's a big deal, but there's other great ones. The Captain Marvel one's great, the Ultra comic, which is the Earth Prime comic is the one that's gonna really freak people out because I've come up with a way… it's a haunted comic. The comic will do things to people that they will never forget. And it's like technology, I've discovered a kind of technology that I don't wanna tell because someone else will nick it and they'll ruin it! But that one'll freak people, it's things comics have never ever done before."

Comparisons to Watchmen will be hard to escape, particularly in light of the current Before Watchmen comics that DC are publishing, much to the distaste of Alan Moore.

"It's so not like Watchmen," Morrison states. "In the places where it is like Watchmen people will laugh because it's really quite… it's really faithful and respectful but at the same time satiric. I don't think people will be upset by it, in the way that they've been upset by Before Watchmen which even though it's good does ultimately seem redundant. You know, it's actually good – I mean, Amanda Conner's stuff is brilliant, I'm really enjoying it, and Darwyn Cooke's Minutemen is great, the rest of them [I'm] not so hot on but they're really nicely written comics, really quite adult but kind of redundant.

More on Frank Quitely's bumheids, Happy, MorrisonCon, getting an MBE and the rest at the New Statesman.

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