The Unseen Grant Morrison - The Mightiest Boy In The Universe Meets A Dead Man Walking

Post date: May 17, 2012 8:45:31 PM

Two more pieces of little seen Grant Morrison artwork courtesy of the mysterious 'Spartacus Hughes', a collector of Morrison ephemera who knocks my own meagre efforts into a cocked hat. The first piece is the cover to the near-legendary Fusion #4, a fanzine put together by Hugh Campbell back in 1984 for which Morrison provided the occasional cover. We've already seen Morrison try his hand at a couple of Alan Moore creations (or re-creations) with his Marvelman cover and D.R. and Quinch pin-ups, and this one completes the set.

Though long-rumoured to contain the script to the unpublished Kid Marvelman story 'The Devil and Johnny Bates', Morrison's sole contribution to Fusion #4 is this hand-coloured Johnny Bates cover. Good luck finding yourself a copy of this one - it's an obscure object of desire for many a Marvelman collector, and some of those guys have serious money to throw around. Issue six, with Morrison's Marvelman cover, recently went for a shade over £300 on ebay and I'd guess this one, should another copy ever surface, would go for significantly more.

The second piece is Morrison's ambitious take on Will Eisner's iconic Spirit, featured on the cover of one of the last issues of Alan Austin's Comics Unlimited fanzine - issue #52 to be precise. Though I'm not entirely sure of the date the fanzine was released ('81? '82?), the signature says 1978, so Morrison was about 18 when he drew it. Eisner's genre-bending newspaper strip ran for 12 years between 1940 and 1952 and was regularly read by millions of Americans. The Spirit newspaper strips have gone on to bona fide classic status and, thanks to a 26 volume (!) archive programme from DC, are still in print today, Though not many other folks liked Frank Miller's 2008 movie version, I thought it was great. Please don't judge me too harshly.

Click the pictures for the bigger versions. Get in touch if you have any questions, comments, or take umbrage with any of this being here.

Thanks again Spartacus!