Arkham

I picked this up, but I'm not writing down every facet tonight. Ask me a question about AA and I will attempt to delve into the mysteries of the script to pull up relevant answers, though.

Surely that is just evidence that his comic writing is designed for comics. He did write a play some years ago that I have never read or seen; it won some awards, so I imagine he transferred reasonably well.

From what I recall, there were no great secrets in his scripting when I was his editor - he has a strong visual sense (he might well have been able to make a career as a comic artist) and very clear ideas of what he wants (though he was less prescriptive than Alan Moore, say).

The script does carry the Secret Of Robin's Trenchcoat however.

the one short story of his i read was .. okay. it was a straight lift of jerry cornelius, though. it was very 90s.

There's a short piece of his in THE STARRY WISDOM, a collection of Lovecraft-inspired fiction by a variety of folks, including guys like Michael Gira and WS Burroughs, as well as Alan Moore's "The Courtyard", which was a million times better than the Avatar adaptation let on.

I'm not recalling too much of the story at the moment, though I do remember that some glimmers of it turned up in THE FILTH.

Hmm. Should probably pull that off the shelf again and give it a look.

He's written two plays, both were collected with some short stories in Lovely Biscuits. I think both the Sarah Champion stories post-dated the collection, but I'm not sure - "I'm A Policeman" from Disco 2000 might have been in there, but the one about the drug trip/diarrohea fever/alien abduction in the travel stories anthology definitely wasn't.

Anyway, his short story prose and his true-life prose and his playscripts all show evidence of him being able to, as Martin suggests, tailor his writing to the medium he's writing in. I know, who would have thought? On the evidence of the one song-form piece of music I've heard by him, he's able to write love-song lyrics without putting either Wolverine or overgrowm cross-dimensional sperm invasions in, too. (I'm not going to volunteer to check out Lawnmower Man 3 or whatever videogames he's written, though.)

Martin Skidmore said that Grant Morrison "...has a strong visual sense (he might well have been able to make a career as a comic artist)": if memory serves me right, he was a writer/artist when he started out, both on his stories in Near Myths and on his Captain Clyde newspaper srip.

I also have a big soft spot for the one-and-only single by his pop group The Fauves, which sugggests he had potential in that direction.

I guess the classic dud example of this is the Neverwhere tv show, which Gainman scripted with his exact, over-florid-kids'-book-Sandman style, but sounded horifically stilted coming out of actual actors' mouths. (The acting was pretty poor, too.)

Yes, Neverwhere was appalling.

I liked the Fauves too, based on that one single. It also included comic artist (don't know how much he's done since his work for me, but he had real talent) Daniel Vallely - the artist for Mark Millar's first comic work ever!

Vallely also did Bible John with Morrison, but I've never seen anything else bar Saviour. He's done lots more music with Morrison, though, mostly unreleased.

hi guys, check out www.spirophone.com if you want some info on grant`s music history!!!

Daniel! Fancy seeing you again!

Hi there Martin Matey!

how the hell are you? i've thought about you often, you must let me know what you`ve been up to...

In brief: once Trident stopped (no prospect of moving from Leicester then => no comic jobs) I went back to university to do computing, and since then have worked for UCL as a (now senior) systems analyst. Oh, and you met my wife, I think? We split up, after 23 years, in 2001. I still read comics a bit, as you can tell from being here. How about you?

It was a real shame about trident, there's not many editors now that would grant the creative freedom you did. a great thing it was. bring it back, i say!

i found the stress of working with mark and grant too much and decided to concentrate more on my musical career, i never really thought i had natural talent when it came to comics anyway. i ritually burned most of my art one day, though some old stuff still survives and i do dabble now and again.
a graphic novel is in me somewhere!

i spent some time in kuwait as a photojournalist, been producing some bands from europe, painting some prostitutes, recording the Void album and the DHK album - Rock it to Russia, is ready to go.

if i can get hold of your address i`ll post a copy...

hey, what about those cbr files!!!

I thought you had fucking loads of talent, so it's a shame you didn't find it enough fun to continue.

I know nothing about your music post-Fauves. What kind of stuff is that?

cbr files?

Dan's done loads of unreleased technoey wotsit with GM innit? apart from I'm A Pliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiicemun.

does ritually burning art = no decent reprint of Bible John ever? :(³

hi kit,
i`m afraid i`ve actually done no technoey wotsit with grant. the "I`m a Policeman" track on disco 2000 was a matoumbi remix of a track i did with grant. but not techno, the remix contains nothing from the original, which i might put up on the spirophone site! i`m sure grant`s fans would love to hear it.

as for the BJ pages, thanks to my good friend Rob, they remain hidden on a remote scottish island. safe from harm.....

martin!
cbr files are downloadable comic files. i just got gulacy`s master of kung fu! hahaha
thanks for the compliment too, very kind. you can check out DHK at www.myspace.com/dhkhq you can also find a link to my latest music project there. the void, that is.
or visit www.spirophone.com where you can find many tunes and photos - lots of grant! there`s some video footage of the fauves but not uploaded yet. next update, maybe.

you can drop me a line marty old boy and we`ll have a good chat.
sorry to hear of your break-up, must have been tough.

ah, I remember him saying something on g-m.com about having made loads of music with you and having all these unreleased projects and myself actually owning Disco 2000 and I apparently conflated it all together.

do please post the original! odd that (one of?) the only tracks that actually related to a story in the book didn't even sound like itself.

(and yay Bible John.)

from what i recall, kit, grant did no work in the studio, but took all the credit. i remember he played me some stuff from his upcoming comedy/spokenword/??? album when suddenly one of my tracks i sent him came through the speakers. he laughed when i asked why it was on his cd and said, "how did that get there?"

????

no idea is safe. no intellectual property. don`t get me started.
dhk continued with ronnie and the sounds got happy!

but kit, i`ll post the real I`m a Policeman on the dhk myspace asap. check it over the next few days to see if it`s up - not even grant has this mix!

ok, kit.
the original DHK I'm a Policeman demo tape, with Grant Morrison singing, is now available to hear at;

http://www.myspace.com/dhkhq

hope you enjoy it.

Haha, I've never heard "Hello Cruel World" before -- it sounds like a song from a future Christopher Guest movie about C86. It's very cute.