Months ago , DC Comics killed the interpretation of Superman that strip legend Grant Morrison re - introduced as a jean - wear down , fatcat - stomping crusader . But Morrison is n’t bitter . He ’s got more cool shit to make . Like a toilet that travels through time picking up coolheaded band before they lost their mojo .
Grant Morrison ’s best experience as a psychedelically creative author , the cat behind modern - twenty-four hours classic streak on Superman , Batman , the decade - Men , and Justice League . His original universe like We3 , The Invisibles , and Nameless also just happen to be some of the most memorable funnies reading for jillion of comics fans . But recently he ’s been steering one of the most august anthology in the science - fiction / fantasy globe , attend to aseditor - in - head of Heavy Metal .
https://gizmodo.com/grant-morrison-talks-tofu-batman-and-making-heavy-met-1719620877
Next workweek sees the release of Heavy Metal # 282 , a science - fiction themed issue with contributions fromDonny Cates , Enki Bilal , Morrison himself , and others . ( sole previews from the issue can be view throughout this post . ) I spoke to the Scottish writer this dawn to sing about the next issue of Heavy Metal and he tell how he does the whole editor - in - chief thing , his feelings on the death of the New 52 Superman , and why we ’ll all look like Dr. Strange in the near - future .
io9 : What was your interaction with Heavy Metal as a untried man ?
Grant Morrison : As I ’ve had to admit before , to my shame , I was n’t a boastful buff of Heavy Metal at all when I was younger . I think of when it came out I was really impressed with the artwork , the Moebius hooey and [ Phillip ] Druillet and those bozo . Although I love the artwork , I just detest the stories . I was a real snob about stories ; I kind of rise up on American comics and expect sure thing to happen . So , for me , I was always rather let down by the stories .
At the same time , I was also knead on [ 2000 A.D. , ] a kind of British version of Heavy Metal which was a fortune more amateur but still had some good hooey in there . And that was my first job in comic . So we almost felt that Heavy Metal was some kind of competition to us .
I was a small punk nestling at the time and I kind of matte that Heavy metal was too hippy for me . My first interactions with it were slimly negative even though I loved the nontextual matter . I did get into it once Richard Corben start doing his stuff in the American variation . So , a slight erotic love / hatred family relationship . That ’s what I ’m trying to tap into . And also a lot of those influences from the ‘ 70s , whether it ’s Marvel black - and - white cartridge clip , Warren comedian , and a clump of European books . There ’s a peck of stuff and nonsense that I ’m adjudicate to reach back to in orderliness to get an aesthetic or a flavor .
You ’ve been editing Heavy Metal for a few month now . What are the differences between putting your own vision on the page and helping others execute it ? What ’s the process of Grant Morrison being an editor program of something ?
Chloe Anthony Wofford : essentially we get a lot of submission and my married woman Kristan and I go through them . She ’s been middling intrinsical to all this as well , because I desire to have a woman ’s vocalization in the magazine that was strong and bold and exciting . We split a nursing bottle of bubbly , look through the compliance , and decide which ones we like . At the same prison term , I ’m also bringing in artists like Benjamin Marra and the great unwashed I ’ve wanted to form with , along with discovering young people from the submissions pile . The whole affair ’s all actually quite fun and usually just an good afternoon ’s drinking .
Many sports fan have experienced your creativity in mainstream superhero creation , which allowed you to experiment with what you characterise as living , evolving histories , and continuities . Is the grease plentiful enough with Heavy Metal for you to do the same ?
Morrison : It ’s very different , in the good sense that Heavy Metal ’s not really a existence in the same way that Marvel and DC are world , y’know ? With sealed rules and certain characters that recur . Unlike the Marvel or DC Universe where the fellowship controls the graphic symbol , at Heavy Metal , the artist control the character reference . And it ’s not one overarch umbrella of a universe so , no , it does n’t have the same sensation of “ you ’re really interacting with a syncretic entity ” like Marvel or DC does .
But what I love about Heavy Metal is the showcase quality of it , that you may only get in anthology . It has its own aesthetic and its own distinct flavor but , at the same meter , you’re able to get a lot of different charm in there . I ’m bonk being able-bodied to compose dissimilar kinds of stories — scientific discipline fiction one , funny single , horror ones — which has been quite a prime of creativity for me after dealing with specific cultural icons like Superman and Batman .
The Industria write up you wrote for issue # 282 , drawn by Rian Hughes , feels in particular unfettered . You ’re love for throwing mind out there fast and arduous but this felt like triple the speed and triple the density . Where did that add up from ?
I ’ve been trying to do different types of stories in each topic and this was the scifi emergence and I wanted to do something a little different . The opinion I had was that it ’d be really fun to do a science fabrication comic book version of the Kardashians , like those reality shows on E ! . Because my own liveliness just involves cosmic string behind a desk and written material , there ’s not much going on . But my married woman Kristan has been involved in a bunch of euphony festival and having a meddling time . I thought would n’t it be fun if I take her lifetime and then used as the basis for a ace - reality show ?
I took everything about her life and dial it all up — the computerized tomography , the friends , and the festivals she was involve in — and project in these scifi touch and elements . It ’s quite an interesting story in that it ’s based on somebody ’s real life but really distorted through a bizarre , pop bubblegum skill fabrication lens . It ’s also about the Discordian goddess of chaos Eris ; that ’s why Industria ’s get ruby-red hair and the apple with the key on it . There ’s a lot of subtext in there about Batavian mythology and Discordianism and the stuff I ’m usually interested in . Rian and I tried to pack all this cloth into a fast , pop , cartoonish story which at the same time has depth because it ’s based on someone ’s real biography .
How do the creative person galleries come about in each issue ?
Jim Morrison : Well , for the first takings that I did , we had material from my friend Tom Tom Negovan ’s gallery , The Century Guild . There were a lot of painting there fromGail Potocki , who ’s this bright modern symbolist painter . She did the picture of me that was in [ Heavy Metal # 280 ] .
So , in the character , it was a friend who ’s sort of the king of the Los Angeles alternative artistic creation scene . Otherwise , it ’s touch from the different editors or [ company Centennial State - CEO ] Jeff Krelitz himself . He check out a lot of picture gallery all around the land , find things and we feature them . We ’re also reaching out to creative person to cater their own personal gallery of whatever they want us to showcase .
I have n’t say Heavy Metal in a long clip but I was hit by how intellectually chewy some of the stories in this issue were . “ Gavrilo C-914 ” by Pahek was really fun and great in how it looked at how socioeconomic class conflict gets turned into a perverted kind of entertainment …
Jim Morrison : And along with that it hit on easterly European politics and the violence in the Balkans . I love that art style because it ’s kind of every slap-up 2000 A.D. creative person mashed into one , like Kevin O’Neill meets Mick McMahon . I think it was a swell piece of workplace .
You ’ve done corking employment yourself , include the relaunch of Superman and Action Comics for the New 52 five geezerhood ago . DC Comicsjust killed your Superman , though , and I want to see if you had any reaction to that whatsoever .
Morrison : It ’s sad to see him go , y’know ? I liked that version of the quality but this take place all the time ; you just have to expect it . Someone who will come along — in 20 , 10 , five days time or however foresightful it takes — who grow up on that and will bring that [ Superman ] back and that will be part of the next big upshot . “ The New 52 homecoming to Fight the Old 52 ” or whatever . Once you ’ve created things and put them out there , they have a life of their own anyway . It ’s part of the inevitable way the comic strip run . peculiarly now with all the event - driven storylines and incessant renewals of universes every couple of years , it ’s only to be bear . I think he was pretty nerveless . I like that version of the quality . I enjoy writing him .
The affair that I ’ll always love about that version of the role is the singing starship . Something about that is so emotional and on-key … I love it .
Morrison : Well , give thanks you .
I bonk Gerard Way is sort of a disciple / acolyte / friend of yours . How does it palpate to see DC give him his own elbow room to playact in withhis Young Animal come out - up imprint , including some of the comics serial you used to work on ?
Morrison : I think it ’s slap-up . He ’s a fountain of ideas , Gerard is . He ’s got so , so much going on . We did verbalise about it . He actually come to me and take for my thanksgiving to do Doom Patrol . [ laugh ] I said you do n’t need my approving . Doom Patrol ’s out there ; it ’s receptive to anyone . I know he roll in the hay the characters and it ’s heavy to see someone who cares about it come in to do it . And also , because he brings a ready - made hearing , it means that he can take a few more probability and do things that are a bit more data-based . I think it ’s neat and I ’m looking onward to experience how it all function out .
https://gizmodo.com/checking-in-on-the-weirdo-superhero-comics-dc-is-doing-1784145198
Morrison : I have to invoke NDA [ laugh ] because at this item , if I evidence you how we were making it fresh , it would n’t be good for me . But , for Bryan Taylor and I , that was the job we had to solve . Now we really subsist in a world where people use narcotics freely to shift their states . We ’re caught up by all kind of amusement media almost like the Feelies in the playscript . We ’re ruled by a benevolent dictatorship that ’s gently guiding us by conditioning and adverts and programming to be the path they want us to be , which is middling docile .
So it ’s near . The fact that we ’re moving into the era of practical reality , augmented reality and assorted reality move us even nigher to [ the reality of Brave New World ] . Those are the things had to cerebrate about . We came up with a rowlock that everyone liked because we actually did find a newfangled way to present all that material and to re - think it and to keep it as contemporary . [ Aldous Huxley ] compose the book in 1932 but he was talking about the now where we live . We ’re using that as satirical fuel consumption rate , the fact that we much live in the Brave New World .
https://gizmodo.com/grant-morrison-and-bryan-taylor-are-adapting-brave-new-1785160298
You mentioned VR . Have you messed with any VR at all ? For a hombre with your proclivities , I imagine it must be pretty interesting . Have you meet anything coolheaded ?
Morrison : Yeah , I ’ve been a consultant with Magic Leap . They ’re right smart onwards of the breaking ball with the augmented reality stuff . They ’re knead with Disney and Industrial Light & Magic . I ’ve really been sort of favorable with them and the foreman Rony Abovitz for a good two years now . I knew what was add up and I have a go at it it was gon na be coolheaded . We ’re working on textile for them and they ’re still in development but the take they ’ve got on this is so far in advance of everyone . Their technology is entirely novel ; it does n’t rely on stereoscopic projection . It ’s quite mind - boggling . To me , it ’s not just the next big thing . It ’s an advancement for human / machine fusion . It ’s go to be very strange .
As someone who ’s pass over video games and engineering before , the material that they ’re showing , it ’s so surd to believe it ’s real . It looks mad .
Morrison : It is . It ’s quite astonishing . But it ’s the way of life that it move the idea that I receive very interesting . You see practical aim but , if you put your hand out , your hand goes behind the object . Your brain is fool around .
Beyond that , it ’s going to be how everyone will interact . Everyone with an interminable amount of selective information projected onto their existence . We ’ll be playing games , have sprites who can send tocopherol - mails and piffling dragon on our shoulders . Everyone will be walking down the street beg at haptic keyboards in five years prison term ; we ’ll all look like Dr. Strange ! It ’s going to be quite fascinating . I think it ’ll be a real revolution in the way the great unwashed think and behave . Socially , I ’m very frantic about it .
https://gizmodo.com/magic-leap-s-latest-demo-is-like-tripping-balls-1771765420
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