Welcome to "Grant Morrison" Week!!!

[Xurk]

The "5th Annual Toon Zone CBC Awards" is now over, and the winners have been chosen...and now this week, we'll be having our 2nd Annual Theme Week!

For Week #2, we're dedicating this week to your pick for the "Best Writer" of 2007:


http://www.xurk.net/zooi/tz/grantmorrisonweek.gif

http://www.xurk.net/zooi/tz/ass-morrison.jpg

http://www.xurk.net/zooi/tz/batman-morrison.jpg


We're started by changing the Logo at the top of the Comic Book Culture forum. You might've noticed it: it's the one that says "Grant Morrison Best Writer '07"! ;) It also includes images from comics written by Grant Morrison this year in the letters of CBC!


Next, with each Theme Week, we're pinning a discussion thread to the top of the CBC forum. In this case, we'll just alternate between pinning the current talkback threads for All Star Superman (http://forums.toonzone.net/showthread.php?t=154590) and Batman (http://forums.toonzone.net/showthread.php?t=200125).

We're also celebration by having the mods try out different "Grant Morrison" avatars! Join in and show off your own avatars from Grant Morrison comics, (from the last year or from years past)!!

As for this thread, you've voted him to be the "Best Writer" of 2007, now drop by the thread and tell us WHY he's your favorite! But don't feel that you have to limit yourself to works that he's written in the last year, you can discuss his previous work from over the years as well!

Topics for discussion:

1. Morrison's upcoming work on the crisis to end all crisises later this year, that is: Final Crisis!! (Teaser image (http://www.newsarama.com/Comic-Con_07/DC/FNLCR_copy.jpg)) Will he be able to "make it work" or will this event fail, even with him writing it?

2. What's the most confusing thing you ever read that was written by Grant Morrison? (c'mon, if you've read any Morrison at all, you've surely come across one story element that didn't make sense whatsoever). ;)

A "Fun And Games" activity will be posted soon, (and don't forget, someone will win the chance to give their own "Pick of the Week" in the "This Week In Comics" thread)! In the meantime, let's talk Grant Morrison!!!

[Anthonynotes]

1. [/SIZE][/B]Morrison's upcoming work on the crisis to end all crisises later this year, that is: Final Crisis!! (Teaser image (http://www.newsarama.com/Comic-Con_07/DC/FNLCR_copy.jpg)) Will he be able to "make it work" or will this event fail, even with him writing it?


Given his event presumably relies (like Infinite Crisis/Countdown/etc.) on the "input" of Dan DiDio, I'm going with "fail"... as if anyone should actually believe it's a "final" crisis, anyway. (Apparently readers also aren't sick yet of seeing one endless mega-crossover followed by another mega-crossover after Identity Crisis/Infinite Crisis/52/Countdown running *continuously* for at least 3-4 years(!) straight by now...).



2. What's the most confusing thing you ever read that was written by Grant Morrison? (c'mon, if you've read any Morrison at all, you've surely come across one story element that didn't make sense whatsoever). ;)


Admit that Bizarro story in All-Star Superman didn't make much sense... but then, they're Bizarros, so guess they weren't supposed to make sense... though *that* makes sense to the Bizarros, I suppose. ;-)

[Spider-Man]

Morrison's favorite work for me was definately WE3. That was probably my favorite book that he ever did. I also thought his work on New X-Men was some of the best stuff the X-Men books ever published. I'm a big fan of All Star Superman right now and it's probably my favorite "super hero" comic out there. His Batman stuff is good but not great even though I really enjoyed the first Batman and Son arc.

As for Final Crisis I think he can pull it off. I'm a bit skeptical on it but I enjoyed both Identity Crisis and Infinite Crisis even if they had their problems. I do look forward to this so hopefully he'll be able to fix up the DC Universe. DC Comics really need to focus and get everything back together and I think this book could do it. I'm also curious about the upcoming Batman R.I.P. arc he's doing on Batman.

[Ed Liu]

I think my favorite work by Grant Morrison is probably still going to be his run on JLA, simply because it was the one that made me reconsider whether I liked him or not. Before then, I pretty much wrote him off as a writer who favored packing as many insane ideas into a comic as possible and too often forgot to tell a decent story with them. He still does this (Seven Soldiers suffers from it, to an extent, and it even happens occasionally in JLA), but JLA got me to at least look at his work again rather than dismiss it out of hand.

Other than that, We3 is a mightily impressive work, although I think it kind of cops out at the end. I did enjoy the highly underappreciated (http://forums.toonzone.net/showpost.php?p=2046226&postcount=7)Vimanarama (http://forums.toonzone.net/showpost.php?p=2046226&postcount=7) also (see below), despite being almost everything I normally hate about Grant Morrison comics.


1. Morrison's upcoming work on the crisis to end all crisises later this year, that is: Final Crisis!! (Teaser image (http://www.newsarama.com/Comic-Con_07/DC/FNLCR_copy.jpg)) Will he be able to "make it work" or will this event fail, even with him writing it?

I'm going with "fail" personally, although I freely admit that this is as much out of personal desire as objective examination of the facts. I do detect a good amount of burnout from the many, many crossover events that have driven the DCU for years, now.



2. What's the most confusing thing you ever read that was written by Grant Morrison? (c'mon, if you've read any Morrison at all, you've surely come across one story element that didn't make sense whatsoever). ;)http://www.edwick.com/comics/Vimanarama.jpg

(^^ Not actually the most confusing thing I've ever read by GM, but more often than not the reaction I have to his work. From the aforementioned Vimanarama, and you really should check it out (http://www.amazon.com/Vimanarama-Grant-Morrison/dp/1401204961/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201189091&sr=1-1)).


Oh, where to start? I may be one of very few comic book fans who really, really hated Arkham Asylum, finding it insufferably pretentious and impenetrable, with the few interesting elements in it far outweighed by symbolism that tries to find meaning in the insane and mostly stays squarely in "insane." He also did an impenetrable Kid Eternity mini-series for Vertigo that I didn't understand a word of, and which was probably the one that drove me off Morrison until JLA.

Surprisingly, I also really don't get the massive love the comics blogosphere has for All-Star Superman. I like it and I think it's fun, but it doesn't make a lick of sense (this might be why people like it) and he introduces a Big Plot Thread in issue #1 and then proceeds to completely ignore it after around issue #3 or so.

-- Ed

[rggkjg1]

Morrison's upcoming work on the crisis to end all crisises later this year, that is: Final Crisis!! (Teaser image (http://www.newsarama.com/Comic-Con_07/DC/FNLCR_copy.jpg)) Will he be able to "make it work" or will this event fail, even with him writing it?
morrison will "make it work". honestly, i think all the events have "worked". it only becomes complicated when a publisher decides to do ANOTHER one right AFTER the previous event. especially with a big lead up to the actual event.



What's the most confusing thing you ever read that was written by Grant Morrison? (c'mon, if you've read any Morrison at all, you've surely come across one story element that didn't make sense whatsoever). ;)
i thought the whole point of all star superman was that superman is dying. im confused whether that has been thrown out the window now.

[J'onn J'onzz]

I think that the reason Morrison doesn't focus too much on Superman dying in All Star Superman is because Superman isn't focusing on it either. I think the series is showing the last days of Superman, and Superman doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would sit around moping, waiting for his end. He'd try to save as many people as possible before he finally does die, and reliving his most fun days from the 60s is a great way to go out.

[Shawn Hopkins]

I love Grant Morrison, especially WE3 (is gud), and his work on Doom Patrol, Animal Man and Invisibles. When Cliffe Steele started smashing his head into a wall in Doom Patrol and yelling "I can't feel anything," I knew I was in for something special. And then there was the Jesus figure in the Coyote Gospel in Animal Man. I also like how he can take a straight superhero story and inject the kind of sense of wonder and weird that is so inexplicably lacking from most superhero comics. There was one issue of Justice League, for example, where the Justice League visits a world of giant superheroes. Their conflicts and backstories are appropriately scaled up giving them an epic sense of grandeur. And he invented The Beardhunter for Doom Patrol, a guy who hates men with beards so he kills them and wears their beards on his belts.

I will admit that it often doesn't make sense, though. He wrote an issue about Rebus in Doom Patrol giving birth on the moon while on drugs, and I think you'd probably have to track down those exact same drugs to fully understand it. I didn't get what was going on in Batman 666. I mean, I got what was going on in the surface of the story, but it seemed like there was supposed to be a metaphor there that I couldn't figure out. And I could give you my own interpretation of Seaguy, but I'm not sure it would be right or just what I brought too it, because Grant doesn't go out of his way to make it clear. That's the thing about him, sometimes you're sure you've probably figured out the story, but there's always the nagging possibility there's a deeper meaning you might have overlooked. It's probably not even there half the time, but the way he writes it usually seems like it -might- be.

[wonderfly]

My apologies, this thread should've concluded yesterday...

Yes, that's right, Grant Morrison Week has now drawn to a close! It's also time once again to pick a winner from our participants in the Theme Weeks, who will get the chance to make their own "Pick of the Week" in the "This Week in Comics" thread. We had some great discussion on Morrison's writing this last week, and everyone made insightful comments, but we can only choose one winner...and so this week, our winner is:


Shawn Hopkins!!!
Shawn brought up some of the "old school" works of Morrison, helping us to remember where Morrison got his start with such works as "Doom Patrol" and "Animal Man". He also fairly points out that there was stuff even back then that makes no sense in Morrison's writing, :p and that trend continues with recent works such as Batman #666.

Thanks again to all who participated!!! Now it's on to Theme Week #3...