If you are slow, or new to the language or something, geniuses have been at work in the English (American) comic book industry for a long time. They battle it out beside some mundane intellects that write the comics you disrespect, but every now and then there are writers who chose comics for their medium who have bizarre and fascinating amounts of talent. Talent that perplexes and astounds. These two I have named are both British, both magicians, and both tell stories like I dream of telling. This is a straight up fanboy tear, but I think I can explain why you should read comics, Grant Morrison Comics in particular, and his New X-Men run from 2001 in particular.
Comics are the new standard in pop fiction. Many blogs could be written about that statement, but what I mean in a nutshell is that everything interesting in popular culture is happening in comic books. Yes, there is still sophisticated prose like Coetzee and McCarthy happening now, and they must be read, this is not a question of either or. I posit only that comics must be included in a steady diet of reading in order to consider yourself socialized, post modern, or enlightened. Today I offer only excitement as proof, but visceral emotion is not without force. Right now this amounts to: read comics because I say so. I'll make it more complicated in another blog.
Grant Morrison is a magician. He began his run on New X-Men began way back in 2001, and I have had to wait ten years to find out about it and read it. He is considered important for many reasons, but now I personally understand his writing deserves attention. I loved his work on Arkham Asylum and his take on Batman in general, but I don't think I am cool or smart enough to really get what I read of his title called The Invisibles. I know he has written more comics than I want to shake a stick at, and has probably shaken a stick himself to banish spirits, or call up gods and demons, or whatever it is magicians do with such sticks. There is an essay of his on Pop Magic you can google if you want to put him down for his magic, the evidence is there in his own words that he believes in some funky stuff. But to be honest, his writing is so brilliant he makes me want to study and practice magic myself, if only the results would be stories like these. So yes, throw in the possibility of a religious conversion, and maybe you see why Morrison is compelling.
Back to anecdotal hyperbole. I keep a little journal of things I read. I deconstruct and analyze some of them to an extreme degree. Others I just comment on. This is a section about the beginning of Morrison's X-Men work. Thanks to the strange workings of digital back issues I started in the middle of his books, then jumped even further back to what I hope is the beginning of his run. Be warned, start at the beginning:
New X-Men #114: jump back three years to the beginning of the great Grant Morrison’s run on X-Men. Very New, very cool, very interesting. Professor X and others posit that the mutants are spreading, fast, and it’s time to teach students again. This is waaaay before the old Scarlet Witch pulled her great mutant massacre, and I think I know why they cleaned house now. Morrison wanted ugly mutants. This is less compelling in a visual medium than it sounds. Ugly is cool I suppose, but it seems like a strange premise for a series of books. Well, it is the X-Men, stranger things have been mined for generations.
New X-Men #115: Even I know not to spoil this one. A must read. The fate of Genosha, the craziest, best comic book I have yet read on screen. Someone gave Grant Morrison a looot of power when he signed on to do this book. I can’t believe I missed it the first time around. Epic. And heartbreaking. A must read. This one is worth the digital subscription all by itself.
New X-Men #116: Now my mind is blown. Officially. Away. Far away. He, Grant Morrison, (the art is an afterthought this is all about the writing), makes this the best series in comics again. Not since Byrne and Claremont’s early days was there as potent a mix. He drops one bomb after another, with wit and class. You gotta read these.
New X-Men #117: Now my eyes hurt, I have to stop because I have reached my physical limit not my mental one. I haven’t enjoyed a story this much for a long, long, time. Now I know what I blog about tomorrow: New X-Men and the johnny come lately known as yours truly. Cassandra Nova is the best character ever. Why don’t people write big signs about this kind of stuff all over the place: look here! Grant Morrison is a genius, and he likes to write comic books! I guess it would make for a strange sign, but I still want to write it.
Now, this all seems very childish and silly, and you understand I have too much time on my hands, but I site this to help convince you of the sincerity of my immediate response. It is evidence unnecessary but I love the progression. For four comic books in a row, and three other issues besides, for two hours entire, I couldn't get up to get a glass of water. I had to keep reading. Nothing I have read has kept me as spellbound since Watchmen. That opus was self contained, and by the aforementioned Alan Moore, whereas this is a book in the regular Marvel line of continuity, by this Morrison character, and it stands toe to toe with the best. Is such a comparison fair? Probably not. I have been reading the X-Men for thirty years. There is a lot of easy impact and stored emotion and meaning in using these iconic characters, so it is a case of mutant apples and oranges. If you've seen the X-Men movies, maybe even the Watchmen movie, you're hip, you get it maybe even, but let me reiterate: if you have not read these books you are missing out on a whole new lexicon of symbolic encoded brilliance that really deserves artistic and literary merit. These books convinced me everyone should read comics. I don't know where one should begin, but you should get here to Grant Morrison's New X-Men at some point, the view is outstanding.
I don't know if I succeeded in persuading you but I have tried to make a simple point. This is a simple blog. This is an honest Fanboy blog so it is based in anecdotal excitement not fancy theory talk. Check in in the near future for other blogs on my theory of comics.
I can tell you this: when fiction convinces you that it represents the most interesting of all possible worlds and overcomes the critical faculty to suspend disbelief completely, and then continues to even halt time with something close to real magic so that everything occurs only in a dream like state; that, right there, is worthy fiction.
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