Born: 31 January 1960
Grant Morrison is a comic book writer and playwright who is well known for his unique story telling and different takes on famous comic book characters, as well as the graphic nature of his themes and ideas.
Morrison is also known for developing new versions of character origin stories, making them more complicated and more interesting. In All-Star Superman, Morrison develops deeper relationships for Clark Kent in his hometown, as opposed to a more Metropolis based Kent, as in other comics.
Biography
Morrison was born in Glasgow, Scotland. He was educated at Mosspark Primary and Allan Glen's School for Boys, and still lives in Glasgow.He was first published in Near Myths, a British alternative comics magazine in 1978
Career
Morrison first started writing comics in the late 1970s, publishing several alternative comics in Near Myths. He spent much of the 80s on tour with The Mixers, but he occasionally published for DC. His first major work was "The Liberators" commissioned for the British anthology "Warrior." In this time he also worked on comics for "Doctor Who", and wrote "Zenith" for 2000AD.
Morrison's revamping of Animal Man garnered him interest and he began receiving offers from several comic book publishers. He first took over Doom Patrol and revolutionized the series with his non linear story telling. His biggest accomplishment of the 1980s though, was Batman: Arkham Asylum, published as a graphic novel. Asylum created different versions of several Batman villains and would influence the comics for the rest of the century., as well as the basis for two Batman video games. In the 80s he also continued writing more independent comics, including The New Adventures of Hitler, which was criticized widely for its material.
In the 90s, Morrison began with attempting to revive 2000AD, Kid Eternity, as well as writing a comic about the motivations behind the 1960s Bible John killings. Morrison created several more comics, including Sebastien O, The Mystery Play, Kill Your Boyfriend, Aztek, and Flex Mentallo. In 1996, Morrison was offered to write the new Justice League comics, which he named JLA. JLA was a huge bestseller and reinvigorated sales of DC comics. This gave Morrison the opportunity to work on his own project for DC, The Invisibles, an comic about a secret group of heroes in Britain. As per usual, the publisher, Vertigo, had to censor several parts of The Invisibles, due to its graphic images and themes.
Morrison finished his run with DC in early 2000, and moved to Marvel to write New X-Men. He also worked on Marvel Boy and Fantastic Four:1234. He worked on several original projects as well, including another full comic series. DC offered him a opportunity to write a Superman comic series. All Star Superman, released in 2005, won award after award and sold better than any other comic that year. Morrison also oversaw several revamps of DC characters in these years. Morrison was asked to write Final Crisis, and released it in late 2008. It was given the tagline "the day evil won" and is considered to be one of the best miniseries of the decade.
Morrison continues to write for comics, recently leaving the new Batman and Robin series that he started in 2009. He released another original project, Joe the Barbarian, in early 2010.
Thoreau at Walden
Other Works
Morrison has written for many other sources as well. He has worked on two video games, several fiction books, and several movies. His most important work is his own book, Supergods. In the book, he analyzes superheroes and how they affect people today, and what we can learn from them.
Bibliography
References
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grant_Morrison
- http://grantmorrison.com/
- http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1634601/bio
Further Reading
- Supergods (464 pages, hardcover, Spiegel & Grau with the subtitle What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human)
- Neighly, Patrick and Kereth Cowe-Spigai (2003) Anarchy For The Masses: The Disinformation Guide to The Invisibles (paperback, Disinfo, April 1, 2003, ISBN 0971394229)
- Grant Morrison: Talking with Gods (2010, documentary)
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