Grumble In The Jungle

Post date: Dec 07, 2012 10:30:30 PM

It's been an eventful few weeks in the Mighty World of Grant Morrison - the feel-good Christmas japes continued apace in Happy; Leviathan rumbled on like a rusty Mack truck toward an increasingly Dennis Weaver-like Batman Incorporated (Annotations for the new issue this weekend! Rejoice!); and Action Comics finally started to make a long awaited Doppler shift into the Gerber-Starlin cosmic spectrum. But hark, evidently there's been some other stuff going on too...

Image from Bill & Ted's Excellent Comic Book #4 by Evan Dorkin, from Another One's Treasure blog

ITEM! That there's no love lost between modern comics' two greatest exponents - Alan Moore and Grant Morrison - has long been taken for granted. Even so, I don't think anyone expected Internet-o-phobe Morrison to perform a CBR Forums-style line by line takedown of Moore (and Moorcock) quotes about him included in a recent article on The Beat. That's what he did though.

Oh and by the way The Beat, a hearty "You're welcome!" for the uncredited Fusion scans and the info about 'The Devil and Johnny Bates'. Anytime. ;)

ITEM! Hot on the heels of the New X-Men and Invisibles Omnibi, DC Comics has (almost) three Absolute Morrison's just in time to render Santa's sack immovable. Absolute Final Crisis should be top of your list, with seven extra pages of dazzling Doug Mahnke artwork added to the last chapter. There's also Absolute Batman & Robin, collecting all sixteen Grant-penned issues, and the 52 Omnibus (luxuriously over-sized but not quite Absolute). The 52 Omnibus evidently features some but not all of the 'extras' included in the TPBs, but, on the bright side, does omit the truly dreadful, dictionary-definition-of-unecessary World War III mini-series and Dan Jurgens' lacklustre take on the History Of The DC Universe. Pray you've been good enough this year.

ITEM! If you're in the mood for something a bit... cheaper, why not try Lux's "Grant Morrison's Influences" list on Amazon? Plenty of good stuff on there to keep you busy on cold winter nights. A bit of festive Borges never goes amiss.

ITEM! Old news now, announced back in October at the New York Comic Con. Upcoming from Legendary Comics sometime next year is Annihilator, a science fiction story set in modern-day LA. No collaborator(s) announced as yet, but I'm going to take a guess at an artist whose name starts with an "F" and ends in a "razer Irving". If you live in a country where gambling is legal, call your friendly neighborhood bookmaker for odds. Either way, I'm sure there'll be an announcement soon.

ITEM! Speaking of old news - and October - Dundee's Morrison-centric Comics Day was a great day out for all the family (as long as your family are all very interested in digital vs paper comics processes). All of the speakers were great but I especially enjoyed Cameron Stewart and Frazer Irving talking about the potential that new technology is bringing to the whole comics field. Very inspiring stuff. And after reading Irving's (and John Rozum's) 2011 Xombi series over this last week... wow, 50p box find of the year. If you see it, buy it. It's really really good.

ITEM! Thanks to everyone who's emailed over the past few months to send me things, correct mistakes I've made or tell me to get a move on with the annotations. It's all good, please keep it coming. In answer to the most common question/complaint - Yes, I will get around to finishing the Action annotations eventually. Happy now?