Grant Morrison S/D

(but make it the first one)

re: INVISIBLES, I thought the beginning was great, got a little flabby in the middle and shaped up nicely at the end. And Chuck, the whole point of King Mob was to be a wet dream of cool. But it's okay, he gets better at the end.

I'd say Doom Patrol or Animal Man are the best starting points, but I might be biased because that's where I started.

I'd agree that DOOM PATROL is the best place to start with Morrison. It stats out as a semi-traditional superhero work, but doesn't stay there for very long at all. Morrison's kinda tough to sell to non-superhero readers, as a lot of his best work has been firmly set in that genre/trope/whatever.

I read all of INVISIBLES when I was far older than that, mostly for the first time, too. Held up in spite of that.

Sooooo glad to read that! Someday I might gather the courage to go back to it...

But if I was forced to say at least one thing I could do without, that would most probaby be his Spawn mini.

And, yeah, Arkham Asylum hasn't aged well either.

I'm reading Doom Patrol now as the trades come out, and loving it.

And I have to re-read Invisibles complete someday.

ROB'S ON ANOTHER PLANET
Jessica Callan, Eva Simpson And Caroline Hedley

ROBBIE Williams is expecting a Close Encounter of the Third Kind.

The 31-year-old singer reckons an extra-terrestrial invasion is inevitable, saying: "I've been dreaming every night about UFOs, every night. I can't wait to go to sleep because my dreams have been so brilliant.

"I think they are definitely on their way, seriously. Mark my words. From now until 2012 - watch out, kids."

Haven't we already seen this somewhere?

We killed Chubby by not buying enough of issues of Seaguy to ensure the whole story gets told.

it quite often veers into prog rock album cover territory, and everyone talks in post-modern slogans

Was this your first time reading a Morrison series, Joe? (Sorry, I just found this amusing.)

Was this your first time reading a Morrison series, Joe? (Sorry, I just found this amusing.)

-- Chris F. (nieman...), September 21st, 2005.

Ha ha, that could actually be an unkind summary of his entire career, couldn't it? I've actually read quite a bit of Morrison, and I do prefer his less self-indulgent, more narratively traditional work (Zenith, Invisibles Vol 1, Seaguy), staid old square that I am.

Plus, I think it's time for me to do a reread on the last issues of Doom Patrol. The issues after that last Mr. Nobody story arc never sat well with me, but I was flipping through them today and found that I liked them better in the context of thinking about this stuff as of late. The Case/Woch art team maybe wasn't the best, but it still kinda works. Also, I think I'm over resenting GM for the less savory ways that his stance on mental illness in DP #63 can be interpreted ("a world where everything is alive and significant" is not always better than the alternative), especially in light of The Filth.

The actual worst part of the Grant DP run was the Happy Harbor sex men story just after the Pentagon stuff (& the TOTALLY CLASSIC Beard Hunter one-off), that was dreadful and really felt like wheels spinning. Then the second brotherhood stuff was OK, the silver age issue was meh, I LIKED the Rebis moon issue though have never convincingly understood it, and after that it was plot plot plot and fite fite fite but those issues do read better now than at the time.

I read a GM thing last night - his "World Shapers" story for Doctor Who Monthly! Not exactly vintage stuff and John Ridgway was having a serious off-day but there were a couple of moments that were immediately Morrison, that thing he does where the reader and character 1 see something big and weird, and then character 2 treats it really matter-of-factly (which of course just increases the sense of wonder for the reader)