Embedded Files
Originally published in Wizard, the Comics Magazine, July 2004
SUMMER PREVIEW 2004: GRANT MORRISON
Before tackling DC's icons, the Scottish scribe sets heads spinning with the widescreen spectacle of a trio of Vertigo mini-series
WIZARD: Your summer Vertigo projects came on the heels of a lengthy run on New X-Men, one of the most mainstream superhero books around. Why the radical shift in direction?
MORRISON: After a long=running, high-profile series like New X-Men, I wanted to do some 96-page complete stories requiring no prior knowledge of comics or characters, so these aren't reference-heavy books; you don;t need a guidebook or a even a degree in philosophy to get through them. You can give 'em to your granny or your kid sister. These are art books designed ot be passed around and used to turn new readers on to the possibilities of the medium. The old trademarked characters from the comics and pulps and TV shows of the 20th century have been recreated to near-exhaustion in every format, so we - the artists and me - felt it was time to lay down some powerful 21st-century myths of our own.
Why did you decide to focus so heavily on Vertigo rather than regular DCU projects for the first year of your exclusive deal?
It just happened that way. I was so keen to bring these ideas to life that I'd already been working on scripts for about a year before the DC exclusive came up, so the first three Vertigo books were the first to be ready.
Let's run down each individual project: start with the three-issue Seaguy, which begins in May.
The books set in a seemingly perfect world where evil no longer exists because the good guys conquered it years before in the form of the monster Anti-Dad. Our lead character, Seaguy, is a wistful cross between Don Quixote and Sinbad the Sailor. He was too young to join in all the great secret wars and crises of the past and now pines for adventure and for the attentions of a chaste warrior chick called She-Beard.
Together with his best pal, a floating, talking tuna fish named Chubby Da Choona, Seaguy embarks on a bizarre journey to unlock the not-so idyllic secrets fof this idyllic world - from the boardwalks of New Venice, to the shattered, bleeding continent of Lostralia and the meadows of the Moon Beyond, we soon realize how easy it can be for adventures to turn nasty, dot dot dot.
Cameron Stewart draws the series. He's brilliant. Snap up his Catwoman issues now. My tip. Cameron Stewart - Next. Big. Thing. Official.
What's the deal with August's We3?
Comics as sheer gourmet cuisine. You can eat We3 through the eyeballs and it will provide nourishment for months. The production standards of the artwork on this book are strictly Frank Quitely-supervised and insanely high. This is a great artist unleashed on his latest masterwork.
We3 has been in my head a long time but in the end, I knew only Quitely [artist of New X-Men] could make it real enough to break hearts - 60 pages of concept drawings before he even got started! Three hi-tech killing machines face their final, fateful mission in what promises to be the most visceral, shocking and unusual action book this year. Who are We3? Buy the book and find out for yourselves, if you've got the guts for it.
And the last project, November's Vimanarama!?
Vimanarama! with art by Philip Bond, is a love story with space gods, A Jack Kirby-ish cosmic war fantasy grounded in the ordinary streets of Bradford, England. It begins in the here and now as two teenagers inadvertantly release an army of buried fossil devils from their prison of 6,000 years. When a team of celestial super-beings arrives to save the day, everything gets complicated, as it would surely do if it happened to you. Comedy, horror, romance, widescreen disaster and Middle Eastern sci-fi. It's all in here and heading your way.
Are any DCU projects also heading my way?
I have tons of new projects coming, including a balls-to-the-wall return visit with some old favourites (can I have a "J"! Can I have an "L"!...), a definitive 12-issue "take" on one of DC's icons and a massive serial which will change the face of the DCU forever. If you thought New X-Men was a wild ride, take a deep breath and get ready for comics that kick like vodka and Red Bull! Otherwise, I can't breath a word of it yet or it's Death by DiDio, as they say in the trade.
- RICHARD HO
Page updated
Report abuse