The Savage Sword of Grant Morrison - Pat Kane vs. The New Adventures of Hitler

Post date: Sep 11, 2013 8:30:31 PM

Some light bedtime reading for you today - from Scottish lifestyle magazine Cut, two rarely seen but oft-discussed opinion columns concerning Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell's The New Adventures of Hitler.

From Cut's June 1989 issue, Pat Kane's infamous condemnation of the strip, 'Disquiet on the comics front', penned after Kane had read, at the publisher's insistence, only the first six page chapter of the story. He had already made it clear he would leave the magazine should the strip see print, sight unseen. Though pop-singer Kane was something of a star columnist for the mag, to his credit publisher Bill Sinclair ran the strip anyway and the first installment appeared in this issue alongside Kane's farewell.

The following month, the space usually reserved for Kane's column was turned over to Grant Morrison for his response, 'Live at the Witch Trials'. Morrison's response is pithy in places (as befits his public persona at the time) and he's quick to point out that even if his use of Hitler was solely for shock value then there's nothing wrong with that, but Kane clearly cut deep and Morrison hits back pretty hard.

Though it seems pretty clear that editorial was firmly in Morrison's corner on this issue, it became something of a moot point when Cut abruptly folded after one more issue in September 1989, leaving The New Adventures of Hitler unfinished until it's reprinting and subsequent completion in Fleetway's Crisis the following year.

Earning copious column inches in national newspapers The Sun and The Guardian as well as the comics press of the time, The New Adventures of Hitler was undoubtedly one of Morrison's most controversial strips. It's never been collected, but there was a good write-up of it earlier this year over at the Suggested For Mature Readers blog (which also sheds some light in the comments on the mysterious holders of the strip's rights, 'Snobbery With Violence Ltd').

(Sorry, quality of the scans is not the best. Should be readable though - Cut is a pretty big magazine and the text on each page only just fits on my scanner)