The Unseen Grant Morrison - UKCAC 1988 Programme - Heartbreak Hotel jam session

Post date: Jun 20, 2013 8:32:56 PM

A rare treat here for y'all - a 'jam session' spread from the 1988 UK Comic Art Convention programme featuring art by David Leach, Duncan Fegredo, Glenn Fabry, Linda Parker, Hunt Emerson, Mark Buckingham, Bryan Talbot, Grant Morrison, Rory Little, Phil Elliott, Melinda Gebbie, GROC, Clive Barker, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.  Pretty sure this is the closest Messrs Moore and Morrison have ever (and, let's face it, will ever) come to a collaboration.  Morrison also contributed the one-page 'Born Again Punk' strip to short-lived music and comics mag Heartbreak Hotel at around the same time.  If I can dig out my copy to scan it I'll probably put that up this week as well.

As usual, if anyone would like to take me to task for putting this up, please feel free to get in touch.  Everything still belongs to who it did in the first place.  Any bad feelings are strictly unintentional.

Here's the full piece.  Click the pic for a much bigger version -

And here's a close-up scan of Grant's panel, which prominently features the title of one of his then-band The Fauves' songs, Hello Cruel World

Some of the other graffiti -

• • "Jolly, jolly good Stephens" is from Lindsay Anderson and David Sherwin's 1968 film If...

  • "No More Firmament" is a reference to Antonin Artaud's There Is No More Firmament, 8 pages of "dense and complex directions" to accompany Edgar Varèse's 1928 sci-fi opera L'Astroneme, concerning an apocalyptic vision of Sirius crashing into Earth in the year 2000.

  • "RIMBAUD III" is - I think - a reference to Rimbaud's poem 'A Season In Hell', possibly also referenced in St Swithin's Day?  I'll have to check.

  • "Batman in the launderette" is a reference to obscure UK punk band The Shapes' 1979 EP 'I Saw Batman In The Launderette'

  • "Paradise is for the blessed, not for the sex obsessed" is from the Television Personalities track 'Paradise Is For The Blessed'

  • "A bullet in the right place can change the world" is also from If...  The actual quote is "One man can change the world with a bullet in the right place.

  • "Holiday on the Buses" was a 1973 big-screen spin-off from the execrable Reg Varney TV sitcom On The Buses

  • Just above the armchair is the Symbol of Chaos or Chaosphere, popularised by Peter Carroll in his various books about chaos magick, but, according to Wikipedia, apparently invented by Michael Moorcock in the mid-1970's for an Elric story.

  • "Take away the films, take away the Beethoven" is, I think, from Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange, but the only Google hit it brings back is to this tweet about 'Horrorshow', a 1979 single by Edinburgh post-punk band Scars.  I can't hear that line in the song, though that too is obviously about A Clockwork Orange.

  • "Do What Thy Wilt" is from Aleister Crowley's Thelema system.  The full quote is "Do what thy wilt shall be the whole of the law.  Love is the law, love under will."

  • "Give us a kiss" is a line from 'Kissability' by Sonic Youth, a track from their 1988 album Daydream Nation.

  • "Have riot will travel" might be a reference to Howard Bingham, famed for his photographs of Muhammed Ali, who, during the race riots of mid-60's America was appointed official 'riot photographer' for Life Magazine.  The quote in that particular link is from six years after this piece was published though and I can't find an earlier reference.  It may just be a bit of general sloganeering on Morrison's part, along with "I Want To Crash The Bus" and "Drop The Bomb"

  • There's a copy of Animal Man burning in the fire, along with a book that looks like it's called 'Help Move Forward'.  Can't find anything on that though.