Nashua Telegraph fawns over Grant Morrison's new book
7 Comments Published by Avi Green on Thursday, December 29, 2011 at 6:18 AM.
The Nashua Telegraph has written a fawning take on overrated Grant Morrison's new personal vanity book called "Supergods":
Why, in fact, did it ever occur to the Nashua Telegraph that it's really strange how a man who's made big money in the comics business could belittle the very concepts that enabled him to make big money by supporting socialism?
Superheroes and other such comics might be able to teach us something about being human, but Morrison, with his kind of background, most certainly can't. Nor can mainstream newspapers who bias themselves in favor of overrated writers and poor ideologies.
If you’re still looking for the perfect gift for the geek in your life, here’s our third and last round of suggestions:Gee, that's some "healthy love" for superheroes alright. Transvestism, blades like scissors, Mary Sues (the fanfiction slang for people who write themselves into their works), and possibly worst of all, Morrison's allusions to drug abuse. Some imagination, intelligence and comprehension for literature too.
“Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human” by Grant Morrison (Spiegel & Grau, $28) is a book that’s as hard to categorize as its author.
Morrison has succeeded critically and financially in the comics world with his eclectic writing, which combines a healthy love for superheroes, an unbridled imagination, fierce intelligence and a comprehensive literary background.
In “Animal Man,” he wrote himself into the story and made the lead character aware that he was in a comic book.
He wrote “Doom Patrol” as a surreal, Dadaist fantasy with a transvestite street, nightmarish men made of scissors and a painting that swallowed Paris.
He put Batman through a chemical-induced mental breakdown that incorporated many of the weirdest, mostly ignored stories from the character’s 72-year history.
Now comes the book “Supergods,” which is a sort-of history of comics, a sort-of Morrison biography and a sort-of meditation on the underlying meaning of superheroes, spirituality, magic and the human journey.Oh yeah, including socialism. This is the same writer who basically hijacked/exploited the Man of Steel for the cause of socialism in an interview he gave to the New Statesman where he said that Superman is a "socialist superhero", and they in turn made that the headline of their very article. He even told them that "The "soft body" superheroes of the 1960s were almost a prediction of the way LSD would affect the consciousness of a lot of young people", and I can't even begin to describe just how mind-numbingly insulting that is. If that's the kind of take he's going to espouse, then he hasn't thought more about US pop culture than anybody else.
And it’s clear that this Scotsman has pondered more about American pop culture than most Americans.
But he also brings the wealth of a UK education [...]
Why, in fact, did it ever occur to the Nashua Telegraph that it's really strange how a man who's made big money in the comics business could belittle the very concepts that enabled him to make big money by supporting socialism?
Superheroes and other such comics might be able to teach us something about being human, but Morrison, with his kind of background, most certainly can't. Nor can mainstream newspapers who bias themselves in favor of overrated writers and poor ideologies.
Labels: dreadful writers, msm propaganda
Please, somebody get this this drug-addled moron out of comics and into rehab.
Actuallly, the male term is "Gary Sue," but it's all the same.
I love how writers like Morrison hate captialism and money, but, gee, just won't part with the money they've made with the system they've decried. Good times.
I don't mind Morrison, but the idolizing from other comic creators? Not so much. (Wolverine and the X-Men animated series was almost a mash note to his New X-Men run.) Oh, well, compared with Fraction and the new brood, I think Morrison is becoming passe, anyway, but that's just my opinion.
Completely overrated writer. It's just like a mainstream newspaper to fawn over nonsense like scissor people, transvesitite streets, and a second-rate superhero like Animal Man, whom I've never liked anyway.
CP
His reference to Superman as a socialist is also completely disrespectful to the character, regardless of what political leanings Jerry Siegel and Joel Schuster had when they created the Man of Steel in 1938. And if Andrew Smith aka Captain Comics (the writer of the Telegraph article) thinks that Morrison's allusions to drugs and all the aforementioned nonsense is brilliant storytelling, then he seriously needs to have his head examined.
CP
I thought the book was pretty good, if not great. It opened my eyes to a lot of Morrison's influences (Roy Thomas being a huge one) but tread similar ground as his copious interviews.
For those interested in exploring his work, I would recommend starting with We3, All-Star Superman, Final Crisis and Flex Mentallo. Morrison and Quitely together are a real treat for comics fans.
He shouldn't have been drinking as a fetus.
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