The Unseen Grant Morrison - Dominion: Better Living Through Science

Post date: Aug 31, 2012 6:14:1 PM

First published in Eclipse Books' 1991 benefit anthology for PETA, Born To Be Wild - which also featured industry luminaries Moebius, Neil Gaiman, Todd McFarlane and Fred Hembeck amongst many others - Morrison's 'Dominion' appears twice in the book; each strip featuring the same script illustrated by different artists. As can be seen from Morrison's Animal Man run, vivisection and animal cruelty were prominent themes running through his work in the early 90's, and the overarching theme of 'dominion' was recently revisited in the Dinosaurs vs Aliens graphic novel. As far as I know neither strip has ever been reprinted. A rather more dubious quality Born To Be Wild shares with Dinosaurs Vs Aliens is its poor showing in the value for money stakes. 84 page softcover with a cover price of $10.95? Yikes... all for a good cause though I suppose.

The first version is illustrated by Morrison's Bible John collaborator and long-time bandmate Daniel Vallely, who famously quit comics to become a war photographer in spectacular fashion by ritually burning all of his original art (Though long thought lost, Vallely saved the Bible John pages by giving them to a friend before burning the rest). The scan is from Vallely's DeviantArt page.

The second version is illustrated by Tony Akins and Paul Mounts, busy these days illustrating titles like Fables, Wonder Woman and Before Watchmen. Apologies for the quality of the scan. I did it so naturally, it's rubbish. As usual, if there's any objections to either of these strips being here, please let me know.

Its an interesting look at how different art teams handle the same script. Wonder why they ended up with two different versions of the story in the same book?

Click on the pictures for the super-massive versions.