Grant Morrison has an interesting quote regarding what people will miss should they eschew reading comic books in favor of only watching funny book movies. It’s intriguing, because I have lately been wrestling with my own contempt for the printed formula while simultaneously jacking it to the cinematic flavor. What would I be missing if I got off the comic book Ferris Wheel?
Grant Morrison may have shat out a what I felt to be a rather unexciting Superman story within the pages of Action Comics, but that hasn’t stopped me from suckling at his theoretical teat. He has hung a pretty inspiring quote on the Internet at Large, wherein he discusses the beautiful possibilities inherent within the medium of comics.
Alan Moore doesn’t like Grant Morrison. That shouldn’t be surprising. Alan Moore doesn’t like anything that isn’t wizardry, orgies involving mythical creatures, or giving birds a home in his beard. After taking a continual beating from everyone’s favorite comics scribe turned necromancer, Grant Morrison has responded to Moore’s criticism.
It isn’t every day that an intergalactic aliens-courting cross-dressing shaman gets a medal or some shit. So, today must be a rare day indeed. Grant Morrison has taken to Twitter to sport the rocking badge he was given by Prince Charles, an achievement that can only serve to prove how awesome the writer happens to be.
Ooph! It’s been a minute. How have you all been? I haven’t written this column in what, a month? Or so? Haven’t been to the comic store either in about that much time. It doesn’t have anything to do with a lack of love for the medium. Just been busy. Did my first convention, and been spitting annoyed at the idea of DC jacking off to the New 52 and Marvel yet again unleashing a torrent of new #1 issues. I recognize that doesn’t mean I have to punish the indie creators and all the other interstellar wonderful comics out there. For that, I apologize. Lords of the Funny Book, with ragged knees and cut-up hands, I drag myself to you in supplication.
Let us return to Buy These F**king Comics!, the column where we share the rags we’re picking up on a given week. Don’t see your title in my list? Good! Hit me up with recommendations. Audience participation is crucial.
Don’t know what’s dropping? Hit up Comic List.
Grant Morrison seems to be setting himself up for stepping out of the superhero game for a while. The good Scottish Alien Lad has announced that come 2013, he’s finishing up his work on Action, The Bat-Man Incorporation, and leaving the capes for the time being.
Sweet merciful lord, bare pity on me. I am not worthy of all the hotness that Image comics continues to unfurl. I am not. However, with your blessing I will sweat all over them like the excited fanboy I am. New works from Fraction? Graham? And more?
It should be pretty obvious that I enjoy any and all of these nightmare stories vomiting up out of the anus of DC. Here’s George Perez detailing what a slug to the hog it was to pen Superman in the New 52.
Look to the stars and tell me what you see.
Hope? Possibility? Wonder? All there, of course. But sometimes when we crank our necks and gaze starward we can’t help but see the lifeless shells of our gods drifting about. The carcasses of once-beloved titans, now mere space debris. Inanimate. No longer fighting for us.
What’s worse is that upon being vacated, the cadavers of our deities fall prey to the very demons they’d hoped to battle into eternity. What these obsidian antagonists lack in strength they make up for with immortality. And tenacity. As such, they wait until their enemies have been felled by by the uncaring sword of Providence and then ravage the remains.
Apathy. Complacency. Pessimism. But three members of the nefarious tribe known as Cosmic Demons.
So what’re we to do? How can we help preserve the splendor of the night sky as dusk descends and the stars come out? Well, I’ll let you in on a secret. The truth is that those giant forms vulnerably swimming across our telescopic paths only look like god-corpses. But in actuality, they are vehicles just waiting to be piloted again. Hell, we can even set up shop and inhabit them for the rest of our days! We don’t have to mistake the idol for the idea!
Become the gods you praise. Take a stand against galactic gluttony. Slay demons with creativity.
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Welcome to the MONDAY MORNING COMMUTE!
I’m going to take you through all the ways I’ll be slaying ennui-demons on my quest for the weekend! After checking out my conquests, hit up the comments sections and detail your own!
Grab your battle-axe and get in the rocketship!
Let me tell you a story that my superiors at the Time Guild wouldn’t want you to know.
A couple of days ago, I decided that I wanted to travel to the year 195,000 BCE. Since it was the weekend, I had to use my personal time-machine, which I actually prefer to the stodgy contraption they allot me at the office. However, without the Guild’s temporal disinhibitor-ray, it was up to me to craft a suitable concoction. So after filling my gut with three liters of Pepsi Max, taking a shot of bourbon, and huffing paint thinner for the better part of an hour, I stumbled into my broom closet and passed out.
There you have it – my secret recipe for spacetime fabric softener.
Anyways, when I came to I was in the dense jungles of prehistory. Looking skyward, I saw a pterodactyl soaring majestically. Shielding my eyes from the sun, I looked to the ocean just in time to catch a glance of a megalodon snapping a leviathan in half before submerging once again. And on the path before me, two cavemen bros riding their steeds, a saber-toothed tiger and a mastodon, respectively.
The caveman on the saber-toothed tiger was the first to see me, and he quickly pointed me out to his buddy. “Daniel, check it out! It’s another one of those dudes from Beyond the Wheel.” He waved to me invitingly, “C’mon over, man!”
I was nervous, but I obliged.
The other caveman hopped off his mastodon and shook my hand. “Hey there! My name’s Daniel and this is my friend Hollis. Who might you be, Beyonder?”
“Pleasure to meet you, Daniel and Hollis. My name is Rendar Frankenstein and I’m from the year 2012. Well, actually, I’m originally from 1986 but I’ve caught up to 2012, and I guess that’s when I’m not shifting all over. I’ve been to a lot of points in the 20th century, and hell, I’ve even gone back Plato’s cave and the Garden of Eden and beyond that. You guys ever see 2001?”
Blank stares.
I laughed. “My bad! Anyways, what’re ya’ll up to?”
With a pat on my back, Hollis clued me in. “We’re actually about to meet back up with the tribe and raid a T-Rex nest. With those things on your feet,” he pointed to my hi-tops, “you could really help us out. You want in?”
Long story short – dinosaurs were murdered, the caveman tribe was victorious, and I got to start off today by having a prehistoric omelet.
Just don’t tell my superiors at the Time Guild. I need this job, and they’re lookin’ for a reason to can me.
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Welcome to the Monday Morning Commute! I’m going to list off the various ways I’ll be salvaging my (dwindling) sanity during the workweek. It’s then your duty to hit up the comments section and share your own recipe for mental-refuge. C’mon, ain’t this the whole point of an Internet community?
Let’s stab this dino in the heart with a fuckin’ bone-shard dagger!
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