Come to Daddy

Post date: Aug 02, 2011 9:20:8 PM

Been trawling Google's awesome Usenet archive for the past few days looking for forgotten interview/Universe B titbits and boy, are my arms tired. Hey, internet old-timers, I realize that nobody owned a scanner back in the black and white days, but you all had keyboards; what's with all this 'send me a PM with your address and I'll send you a xerox of the interview' stuff? Seems nobody managed to type in anything of value during the first 10 years of the internet and, consequently, the interview search has been a dead loss.

However...

I did come across two new entries for Universe B (aka The Unpublished Grant Morrison, for anyone who's just joined us). Two entries so spectacular I'm also listing them here on the front page...

ALIENS: MATRIX (1994)

A 'graphic novella' (I'm taking that to mean a text story with some spot illustrations) intended for inclusion in issue 23 of the UK Aliens magazine, co-published by Dark Horse's now-defunct international wing and Trident Comics, publisher of Morrison's St. Swithin's Day. The title, which had been running original material alongside reprints of Dark Horse's U.S. Aliens and Predator stories for some months, folded with issue 21 (or possibly 22, sources differ), most probably due to Trident's closure after the bankruptcy of its parent company, Neptune Distribution. Aliens: Matrix, solicited for issue 23, never saw publication.

Given that the title was a 50-page anthology, and that Matrix wasn't solicited for issue 24, its unlikely that the story was longer than around 10 pages, given the wealth of other features running in the mag at that time. Whether it was completed, or abandoned when news broke of Trident's collapse, remains unknown.

Intriguingly, the solicited artist for the tale was one Chris Halls, who had painted a handful of Judge Dredd strips and was part of the production design team on both the Judge Dredd and Alien 3 movies. Halls, it transpires, is a pseudonym of Chris Cunningham, acclaimed director of classic music videos like 'Windowlicker' and 'Come to Daddy' (above) by Aphex Twin, and 'All is Full of Love' by Bjork.

There's more Aliens tomfoolery at Xenopedia, an Aliens (and Predator) wiki, which developed out of the original Usenet Aliens FAQ, from whence this info was ripped.

JLA vs GODZILLA vs GAMERA (1997)

From 1997, the Golden Age of inter-company crossovers, comes rumour of this unlikely clash, written by Morrison and Mark Millar and illustrated by monster master Art Adams. Though I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, I'm almost certain that the rival Japanese movie studios who own Godzilla and Gamera (Toho and Daiei respectively) still haven't managed to hammer out a mutual agreement that will allow their two Tokyo-toppling titans to appear together in any media at all; like for instance, a movie, which I'm sure would make them a lot of money in Japan. Subsequently, their non-appearance in this kooky, curates egg American comic book comes as no surprise.

News of this one broke on Michael Doran's Newsarama, back when it was an email newsletter rather than the pop culture behemoth of today. The same bulletin also carried news of the impending launch of Morrison and Millar's Vampirella, so the timing certainly seems right; Morrison in the first flush of JLA's success and, alongside his then-protege Millar, willing to take a punt on decidedly left-field properties. I would imagine the reason this one never appeared is due to the afformentioned decades-long licensing wrangle, though Morrison's workload during this period, writing both JLA and The Invisibles monthly, precluded him from writing any of the many, many JLA tie-ins DC put out in the wake of its chart-topping run.

Grant Morrison, Art Adams, the JLA and Godzilla is probably a sure-fire recipe for 'comic of my dreams'. I can take or leave Gamera mind... And Mark Millar for that matter...

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Much, much more Universe B action can be found here. Enjoy!