Comic Book Resources

I haven’t read all of the Filth, which I was mostly underwhelmed by (although I really cared about Greg Feeley’s cat)

I actually think The Filth is one of the best things he’s ever done, along with Seaguy and New X-Men. For worst Morrison book, I’d have to go with Kill Your Boyfriend, which managed to be feel both cheap and tired at the same time.

Seconding the hate for Kill Your Boyfriend. I actually bought it around the same time as Jamie Delano’s Hell Eternal and they just kind of blended together into one angsty-young-female-misfit blur of crap, except KyB focused on anarchic behavior while HE was all about neo-nazi fetishism.

Never liked the writing on Arkham Asylum, although I personally loved McKean’s artwork. Somehow I ended up with 2 hardcover copies of it, though. They look real pretty sitting together. In a similar vein, the artwork on The Mystery Play was gorgeous, but the climax felt kind of rushed for me.

Also, I read the entire series of The Invisibles in one sitting and thought it had a promising beginning but got so incoherent by the end that I only read the last half-dozen or so issues out of a sense of obligation to finish the series, because I sure as shit wasn’t getting anything resembling a plot I remotely cared about from them. Still, the first 25 issues are some of my favorite things Vertigo’s ever put out.

Also, as for Flex Mentallo, I cannot recommend the series enough. It’s probably the best thing Morrison has ever written, and sadly, probably also the hardest to find. Good luck finding the rest of it.

Mystery Play may be the most pretentious comic I’ve ever read. The climax was just terrible.

I loved Kill Your Boyfriend, although I read it when I was 15. It was funny as hell, and felt “edgy” to a kid who had barely read any comics beyond Marvel, DC, Image, & Sandman.

I think I understood Arkham Asylum just fine.

It was just kind of terrible. Mostly when people use the word “Pretentious” to describe a comicm I mentally translate that as “I am VERY stupid.”

But I can’t come up with a better term here. Plus y’can tell that Morrison and McKean had really different ideas about what they wanted to do. Wish Morrison had just got outta Dave’s way and let him draw what he wanted.

Other I don’t like:

Guardian 1 and 2.

The last X-men Arc. Which I *totally* didn’t get.

I don’t think I liked Kill Yr. Boyfriend, but it’s been years since I read it.

And Doom Patrol… Well, some neat ideas but I think Morrison did better with the same ideas later.

I liked the Filth, and found it much less difficult than the Invisibles. I think it woulda been twice as good with another, more abstract artist though. Weston drew good, he just didn’t fit the story at all.

Mystery Play‘s conclusion was hilarious, if unintentionally so.

For my money, the worst would be Marvel Boy. Followed by Skrull Kill Krew, which had offensively shitty Yeowell/Ivy art.

I expected to see at least one thing on here that I disagreed with, but… nope. I do like St. Swithen’s Day, and I have no problem with the N. Steven Harris work on Aztek, but that’s about it. I can’t stand Skrull Kill Krew, which is definately the worst thing he’s ever done. And I also don’t like Arkham Asylum. And I agree with MakAndrew that “Here Comes Tomorrow” is a piss poor coda for what was, in my mind, the best work on the X-Men anyone has ever done.

One more that I’ve tried to read several times, and it just stinks: Kid Eternity. The thing about Grant is, when he’s off, his work is just an incoherent nightmare.

i have read most everything (no marvel boy or skull kill crew) he has written since i became enamored with him on doom patrol way back when. and while some stuff was so-so i only really disliked seaguy. reading that comic was like pushing a bullet through my head. it hurt so much.

i even tried to read it again, thinking i must have been off my rocker, but i could not get through the 1st issue again.

i really need to read zenith though.

when will someone reprint that.

Personally, I’ve always enjoyed Morrison, as long he stayed somewhere between the mainstream JLA/New X-Men Morrison and the what-the-f***-is-he-smoking Morrison of Invisibles. The former were good at times but overall kind of bland, while the latter just seemed to turn into one big lesson of how much Morrison could screw with the reader and get away with it.

His Animal Man and Doom Patrol comics remain two of my all-time favorites because he does a good job of taking previous concepts and giving them that “Anatomy Lesson” type reboot they needed. He writes in bizarre little moments of originality where you can tell he is brimming with ideas, but at the same time neither book becomes so overbloated or incoherent that you can’t understand it.

Arkham Asylum I first read many years ago and have always cherished my copy, though I’ll admit I haven’t read it in awhile. Maybe it’s time I go back and re-examined it. Same with Mystery Play.

And yes, Millar’s Swamp Thing was excellent, getting much better after the initial four issue arc co-written with Morrison. I wish DC would go back and put that run out in trades. Morrison. Millar. And Phillip Hester on art, along with the last comic drawn by Curt Swan before he died. Marketing pretty much writes itself…

Overall, Morrison IS a bit hit-or-miss, like all writers, but his name on a book still intrigues me like few other comic writers, save maybe Alan Moore or Gaiman…

It’s easier for me to say what I did like from him and that would only be Animal Man. Everything else that he’s done has disappointed me, considering how much I enjoyed Animal Man. What he’s doing to many of DC properties these days, suck. He shouldn’t be writing mainstream comics and I’m really afraid of the changes he’s going to bring to the Metal Men, some of my favorite characters. You have no idea how annoyed and pissed I’m at him for his changes of the Freedom Fighters. Of course, I’m doubly angry at Dan Didio for letting him. Whatever. I now have more money for other things.

Yeah, I second getting the Millar Swamp Thing run. It’s the kind of thing that ought to be collected, and it pretty much wraps up Swamp Thing in a way that there should never, ever be another Swamp Thing comic (with apologies to Mike Sterling, who has some serious love for Swampy). And it has a far creepier story about Slaughter Swamp than Morrison’s recent use of it in Seven Soldiers.

“One more that I’ve tried to read several times, and it just stinks: Kid Eternity. The thing about Grant is, when he’s off, his work is just an incoherent nightmare.”

Yeah; I’d rather take Vimanarama, Shining Knight, Kill Your Boyfriend, Arkham Asylum, and the Millar co-written stuff over that any day.

Oh man, I completely forgot Here Comes Tomorrow. Yeah, I really didn’t enjoy that one very much at all, but the rest of New X-Men was so fucking phenomenal I tend to forgive it.

I’m torn between which artist choice I disliked more on that run: Igor Kordey clearly phoning-in painfully sloppy work when he has demonstrated that he is capable of far better, ot Silvestri (probably) trying his hardest and still turning in embarassing early-90′s style artwork that gave me bad flashbacks to reading Cyberforce in 4th grade.

I don’t agree with all your choices (Swithin’s rules, man!) and I don’t get the Kill Your Boyfriend hate. Oh well.

I didn’t like Zenith. I don’t think I’m British enough for it.

Vimanarama grew on me over time, but I didn’t like it at first and it’s nowhere close to his best stuff.

I haven’t read everything he’s written, but I’m closing in, and nothing’s been outright terrible, just underwhelming or disappointing.

I really can’t get into the Invisibles.

I tried the first two trades three times and just couldn’t get into it.

Not crazy about Arkham Asylum either. Of his recent work I say Batman is my least favorite so far.

You people were able to READ Arkham Asylum? Wow. I found the lettering literally impenetrable; I’ve been thru the book several times to no avail. And I actually really liked the art on Aztek, though I cannot explain why.

Yeah, I tried Arkham and couldn’t even start it.

Didn’t like We3 and thought Vimanarama was a bit meh.

Loved Seaguy and hope the rumours of another series eventuate. Also thought Kill Your Boyfriend was a very good oneshot.

I found JLA and New X-men were fine reads if unspectacular.

And am looking forward to reading Doom Patrol, Animal Man, and Flex Mentallo.

In defense of Dave; When he’s NOT doing Arkham Asylum, Mckean’s a spectacular artist, and Cages is one of, if not THE, major accomplishments in comics art ever.

And, hoooh boy, I forgot Kid Eternity. I thought it sucked on toast… But I only read it once, fast. I hoped I was missing stuff.

Grant: The Invisibles… it’s not about “getting into it.” You just bumble along till it all starts to sort of make sense. (Actually it’s not my favorite Morrison work either, and I’ve never tried to read it all in one sitting and figure out the GRAND SCHEME OF THINGS, but there were some really nice bits.)

What did you guys think of The New Adventures of Hitler?

The problem with Arkham Asylum is that it is genius…but it takes like 15 readthroughs and someone pointing everything out for you to understand it. This obviously is a problem. Now that I’ve read the annotated version, I finally get and think it might be one of the most ambitious things hes done.

“What did you guys think of The New Adventures of Hitler?”

I didn’t know it existed, but now if I don’t read it in the next day or so I’m pretty sure I will die.

“The problem with Arkham Asylum is that it is genius…but it takes like 15 readthroughs and someone pointing everything out for you to understand it. This obviously is a problem. Now that I’ve read the annotated version, I finally get and think it might be one of the most ambitious things hes done.”

Yeeeeaaaaaahhhhh. I’ll agree with “ambitious.” I don’t think either Morrison or Mckean came close to actually expressing what they were sayin’ in a coherent manner, though. Which doesn’t bother me so much in stuff like Vinamarama where it’s this kind of cheerfully Whiz! Bang! House of wonders and you can tell that Morrison’s enjoying himself, but Arkham was both hard to make sense of and ponderous. Which is what really turned me off.

Reading Arkham does not equal Being Arkham.
You have to be a bit of a nutter to fully appreciate it.
Put on some candlelight, have some absinth, and it pobably scares the everloving $hit out of you. Heh.

what exactly happened at the end of The Mystery play?

Morrison didn’t get in McKean’s way on Arkham asylum, he got in Morrison’s. The anniversary edition has the complete script to the issue and McKean is expressly not the sort of artist that should have been working on it. That said, I love the art in it, but it doesn’t fit the work at all.

To the person who read the Invisibles in one sitting: Gee, I wonder why when reading a nearly 60 issue series in one siting the last few seem incoherent? Maybe it’s because you’re trying to read 60 intense comics in one sitting? Try taking a break. Even reading all of volume three in one sitting is a lot to take in, especially the first time through.

Any list of Morrison’s worst without his Spawn at the top of it is wrong. I love everything the man’s written that I’ve managed to get ahold of (I’m still missing some of Big Dave, the non-Zenith 2000AD material, and the some of the fanzine work) aside from Spawn and Kid Eternity. KE was just sort of boring though. The Spawn issues were god awful though and I actually liked the other issues in the TPB collecting them more (the only other Spawn I’ve read are the Gaiman and Sim issues).

Kid Eternity, Skull Kill Krew, Arkham Asylum, and half of his recent Batwork . . .don’t care for any of them.

I either love or hate Morrison’s work, he is WAY too
hit and miss for me.

I hated Skrull Kill Krew (but there I blame Millar, I
never liked ANY Mark Millar comic I ever read!), Kid
Eternity, Arkham Asylum and Sebastian O.

On the other hand, his We3, All-Star Superman, Animal
Man, X-Men and Zenith (was that the same Steve Yeowell
who did Skrull Kill Krew?) are great. So there is a
balance.

I read too little from his other works to be able to
judge them. Since he is so hit and miss with me, I always
wait for my friends’ opinion of his work before I buy it
- and stop buying if I don’t like it immediately. I
already spend too much money with comics…

Best,
Hunter (Pedro Bouça)

Forgot he did any Spawn. Shouldn’t it kind of go without saying that any work a writer does on Spawn will undoubtably be the worst of his career?

Morrison is quite hit and miss for me (though he’s hit often enough that I’ll read everything he writes)

Lets see, I didn’t like:
The Mystery Play (huh?)
Kill Your Boyfriend (obvious and tired)
Seaguy
Vimanarama
Kid Eternity
The final volume of The Invisibles (which made no sense to me at all)
Sebastian O
Fantastic 4: 1234
Marvel Boy

Of other ones mentioned, I actually did like:
Arkham Asylum (though I think it’s massively overrated by the people who rave about it and Joker’s lettering is hard to read)
Skrull Kill Krew (silly but fun)
The last X-Men arc (not a lot, but I did like it)
His Spawn arc.

For the record, Zenith is great and the first 3 phases have been collected in 5 volumes, but are long out of print. The first volume was reprinted, but the reprints are sitting in a warehouse somewhere languishing in copyright hell. Morrison used a bunch of characters that the publishers of 2000ad thought they owned, but it turns out they didn’t

I haven’t read a lot of his superhero comics and what I have read is usually the only issues I’ve read of that title (e.g. X Men, JLA, Superman) so I can’t really judge it against anything except his other work which I tend to enjoy more.

Anyway, the worst by a long chalk is the execrable Judge Dredd stuff he did in the mid-nineties with Mark Millar. It’s not as bad as some of the stuff Millar did on his own, but that’s not a recommendation.

The Filth is too over-the-top to be any good. You can practically hear the DC editors refusing to tell him he’s not wearing anything for fear of having him jump ship.

St Swithin’s Day is a bit juvenile, but then it is about twenty-five years old.

We3 I don’t much care for, but I wouldn’t say I really dislike it: I just don’t see what all the fuss is about. I feel much the same about Flex Mentallo and if anyone wants to make an offer for it I’m listening. Seriously.

On the other hand I love Kill Your Boyfriend – it’s the White Flame sequence from The Invisibles transplanted to a Carry On style English seaside trip with lovely Philip Bond art – and Arkham Asylum (more for the fantastic art than the non-existent story.)

Aside from KYB, my favourites are the first volume of The Invisibles – I still idly dream about what might have been if it hadn’t had the stupid relaunch – and Zenith.

I’m not sure what the guy who said it was too British means, but I’m British so that could explain. With regards to reprinting Zenith, it’s more than just the pastiches of the old characters in Phase 3. Morrison contends that, because 2000AD has been bought and sold a few times since then, they no longer own the rights. To put it more succinctly: now that he’s famous he thinks he should be paid his current rate for work he was paid standard rates for when he wrote it and is blocking any attempt to get it reprinted.

For what it’s worth, you can pick up bundles of the original 2000AD Progs featuring Zenith fairly cheaply (the weak dollar notwithstanding) on E-Bay UK. That way, you’ll also get some quality Pete Milligan/John Smith/ Alan Grant/ John Wagner into the bargain.

Hated Arkham Asylum…. it seemed like an art school exercise.

Love Skrull Kill Krew. I thought the dialogue and premise were reckless and fun. Considering what it was going for, I thought it was very well executed.

The best way to understand Arkham Asylum is to read the new version with the annotated script. Yes, this requires more time and effort, but it really pays off.

I’ve read the first two volumes of Invisibles. Nothing set my bum on fire. One day I’ll finish it.

New Adventures of Hitler is, yes, a classic.

I checked Arkham Asylum out of a library once but never got through it. I’ll get around to it.

And looking at the opposite side, my favorite Morrison works are Flex Mentallo (best comic ever; if anyone doesn’t want it I’ll gladly take it off your hands), Seaguy, We3, All-Star Superman, JLA: Earth 2, New X-Men, and Kill Your Boyfriend.

I hated, hated, hated Seaguy. The Filth I did not like very much at all either

Joe,
I’ve done both marathon reading and viewing sessions on numerous occasions. I tend to read complete comic series in one sitting while I’m on vacation, and it’s never posed a problem for me in comprehending the material aside from The Invisibles. Hell, I read all 6 volumes of Akira in one day and found that it made the series even more engrossing.

It’s not that The Invisibles is so much deeper or more intense than anything else I’ve every read (it’s not,) it’s just that the characters are largely uninteresting after a certain point and I stopped caring about them or the story itself around the same time they introduced Quimper.

His Spawn run was awesome because it introduced Anti-Spawn! Believe it or not first Grant Morrison comic I’ve read.

He was like if Spawn become a born again Christian, with his crosses and tacky purple cape. It was a merry romp. I think McFarlane renamed him the Redeemer (which sucks).

Mark: I just read the first two trades (though I purchased the first five) and I just wasn’t enjoying it.

How anyone can dislike WE3 is beyond me. That’s one of my favorite books to give out to non comic fans. It’s almost always a hit.

My comments often don’t save–but here goes.

My list of Morrison comics I didn’t like?
Every one I’ve ever read.

I liked Arkham Asylum, though I’m not totally sure how much of it I “got.” Kid Eternity read like a half-assed version of that, with Duncan Fegredo playing a low-rent Dave McKean. See, with McKean’s art, for all the weirdness and stylization, I could generally tell what was happening; it usually fit the script. Kid Eternity might have had a good story; I didn’t know, I still don’t have a flipping clue what was going on.

I was very, very disappointed in Skrull Kill Krew, and I’m glad I didn’t buy it. I thought it was a neat idea, but it never went anywhere.

I read Seaguy. I do not know what happened in Seaguy. I could not explain word one of the concept of Seaguy to you. I’m told that I should re-read it, and that it’s about comics. Sometime, I may do just that, and I’ll keep that in mind. Right now, it stands as my least favorite Morrison work ever.

Eventually, after several reads, I finally got the last New X-Men arc. It’s not so good. There are a few arcs in that run that just don’t cut it, but most of it is pretty solid.

I have to go back and re-read Seven Soldiers at some point; there were a lot of things that I didn’t get. But the one thing I really didn’t like about it (in probably my favorite series of the bunch, too) was the use of pseudoscientist quack Masaru Emoto in Frankenstein. That and the “if you teach a million monkeys” fallacy in JLA: World War III…I can handle people flying and aliens and living universes. What bothers me is when good authors bring real-world New Age quackery or pseudoscientific urban legends into otherwise good comics. Just rubs me the wrong way, I guess.

I haven’t read a lot of his Vertigo and similar stuff, so I can’t comment on that. I loved JLA (with the possible exception of Crisis Times Five, which I’m pretty sure is the number of times I had to read it before I understood what was going on), Animal Man, We3, his JLA Classified arc, most of New X-Men, and Aztek. I think that’s a pretty complete list of the Morrison stuff I’ve read.

Oh, and All-Star Superman. It super-rocks.

The Cosh said
“Anyway, the worst by a long chalk is the execrable Judge Dredd stuff he did in the mid-nineties with Mark Millar. It’s not as bad as some of the stuff Millar did on his own, but that’s not a recommendation.”

If you’re talking about Crusade (I think it was called) you’re right. That’s rubbish. Inferno on the other hand, which Morrison wrote, but followed on from a Mark Millar story is one of my all time favourite Judge Dredd stories.

Dan

Dan: I don’t dislike Inferno as much as some Dredd fans do. It’s probably the best of a bad bunch. Crusade is complete cobblers, but the one I particularly hate is Book of the Dead where they go to Egypt and fight mummies and stuff.

Am I the only one that thinks ‘The Filth’ is great?

I liked Arkahm Asylum the first time I read it. When the 15th Anniversary edition came out and I read the original script with Morrison’s notes, I started to love the book. The depth and symbolism just amaze me.

Cosh – Yeah, Book of the Dead was pretty lame too.

J to the A.A.P. – No you aren’t. The Filth is fantastic. I just lent it to my brother in law. You’ve got to love any book where the tape around a crime scene says “Danger – Fuck Off – Danger – Fuck Of….”

I like the Filth a lot. I need to reread it sometime. I’ve only read the first volume of The Invisibles, but I recently bought a bunch of the series(es) on Ebay, so I’ll be reading more of it.

Has anybody read the Steed and Mrs. Peel series he did? It’s based on the TV series The Avengers. I’ve heard it’s pretty good.

Of his recent stuff, I LOVE WE3 and Vimanarama. And pretty much all of Seven Soldiers. And All-Star Superman. I need to reread Seaguy; but I think it’s pretty good. JLA and New X-Men are quite good, as is Fantastic Four: 1234.

Older stuff: Animal Man is GREAT. I’m reading through Doom Patrol (just finished The Painting That Ate Paris), and really liking it. Oh, and I just read Sebastian O, which was lots of fun.

I’m not a fan of Arkham Asylum or Mystery Play. Kill Your Boyfriend is okay. New Adventures of Hitler and St. Swithin’s Day are very weird, but interesting.

And I need to reread Flex Mentallo sometime, because when I read it I was completely lost. It had good dialogue and beautiful art, but I could not follow what was going on at all. I’ll have to see if I can figure it out on another read.

I love that Morrison has such a varied bibliography that we can discuss. Anything that’s mediocre is notable, because it is definitely the exception, not the rule. He’s been a pretty prolific creator, especially in the last few years, and at the very worst, he’s always at least interesting.

Can anybody explain The Mystery Play to me?

The se-up and the plot were intresting, but once you got to the second half, and moved beyond the plot, I got lost.
All I can see is a half-assed christ analogy that doesn’t really work, nor fit the book.
It felt like an attempt at David Lynch that just got lost.
(and Lynch’s works, and some of Morrisons – just not this one – are usally great, because even if you haven’t figured it out on first watch, were still bloody great entertainment).

“This is incomplete, as I haven’t read all of the Filth, which I was mostly underwhelmed by (although I really cared about Greg Feeley’s cat), ”
Well, it was loaded with the active ingrediant metaphor, and as the introduction to the trade (which is a beautifully designed book) states, you need let the stry into your brain, as some of it takes place there.
I thought it was good, though a bit to Burroughs most of the time (like the scenes in The Invisibles when they’d break into the enemies base, or learn there plans).

My interpretation of Mystery Play, although i in no way think this is right, i am just going along with what i know about Morrison.

So, the beginning story arc is pretty self explanatory, god dies, man comes, w00t. Now, the clues all seem uselss as well,so i turned to the dialogue. Specifically, to the discussion the reporter has with her coworker about lying or telling the truth in order to convey a greater story. Fast forward to the end.

A coat is shown hanging alone on the cross where the detective was shown a moment earlier. Interesing no? Now apply this information to the retelling the woman is making to the man who is interested in turning her story into a play.

As morrison often deals with twisted perceptions of reality, i found this as meaning it was her who had commited the crime. The coat she is handed by the man at the end does not seem to be hers, yet it is. It is the same coat that was hung on the cross by itself, but was empty. It was empty because it was not the detective who had commited any crimes, but the woman herself.

This is where i stand now, and with further rereads this perception may change. What do other think?