A Load of Old Drivel - Speakeasy #104

Post date: May 06, 2013 9:34:53 AM

From November 1989's Speakeasy #104

“Drivel” was a monthly, scurrilous, humour, gossip, and opinion column in “Speakeasy”, the leading British comics magazine in 1990... I had a brief from my editor Stuart Greene and I mostly stuck to it, except when I used “Drivel” to indulge in William Burroughs-style “cut-up” experiments. My fee for the column went to Blue Cross, so all that manufactured bile wasn’t wasted and helped make the lives of some rescue animals a little more comfortable on a monthly basis. Otherwise, the persona I adopted for “Drivel” was an exaggerated caricature partly inspired by the Morrissey interviews I enjoyed reading. The whole point of the column – which was one of the magazine’s most popular features, incidentally – was to take the piss out of the comics scene at the time.

...The main target of the satire in “Drivel” was myself and if anyone’s reputation has suffered as a result of people in other lands and different times presenting as indictable some daft words written in jest, I’d suggest it’s been mine."

- Grant Morrison, November 2012