Grant Morrison Writes ... (Part 8)

There’s a lot of weird stories I could tell you,
but we’d be here all night.

I see. Well, I think I’ve pretty much gone through my list of twenty questions and then some. It’s been a pleasure talking to you this evening.

You, too.

Lots of answers to many questions. Let me ask you before I go: It’s been a while since we’ve heard you mention that you were practicing chaos magic in The Invisibles letters column, which is our (sort of) window into the home world of Grant Morrison.

[Laugh.] Yeah.

Are you still practicing chaos magic?

Oh, yeah.

And how much influence does that have on the success of Justice League?

Ah, probably much. [Laugh.]

Yeah, I mean, I do it all the time. It’s become easier now; I don’t know why. There’s a lot of weird stories I could tell you, but we’d be here all night.

But the magic is that it’s become something else. After I almost died last year, a lot of strange stuff happened, and I felt—this is mad, but basically I felt a healing power knocking. And I’ve used him, and it works, and it blows my mind, but I don’t know what it’s about. But it works.

God.

Religious practices all have to be done [while] waiting on a hand to take away character. [Laugh.] It freaks me out when nothing’s there to do it. So the magic, you know, is still there. It’s getting deeper. I want to try to get it in a comic book.

Well, everything seems to be working well for you. You’ve got the best-selling title DC has right now; you are working on an epic project with The Invisibles; you produced one of the finest mini-series that DC’s had in a while, Flex Mentallo, last summer—

Oh, I’m glad you liked that, ‘cause no one really read it.

I loved it. That is my favorite piece of work I’ve ever done. In spite of it.

I think it is the single best piece of work I’ve read by you. I was tremendously impressed.

Thank you for that.

I’m not a comic-art collector, but the one page of art I would love to own is Frank Quitely’s page for the "all those shitty, amazing comics" scene.

Yeah! Well, I’m glad you liked it, ‘cause that’s the one that I needed someone to.

Was [Pink Floyd's album] The Wall a big influence on that, or were the similarities incidental?

Hm. I think—and you’re the first person to mention that, but now that I think about it—yeah, it’s true.

No, I think it’s just—it’s one of those things, you know. I just haven’t had an experience frankly like it [laugh], so that’s what I’ve come to expect.

It did seem to come at a very interesting time for you.

Yeah. [I]t’s good. I’m always glad when people say they’ve enjoyed it, ‘cause that’s the one that is just the biggest disappointment for me in my whole career, is that that one didn’t really go across well.

Well, it may not have been a commercial success, but I think it’s going to be a tremendous critical success, given time.

Yeah, I’d like to think so.

Of course, I could be wrong—

[Laugh.]

—but I’m keeping my fingers crossed. Like I say, it’s the most impressive thing I’ve read that you’ve written, and that’s saying quite a bit.

Well, that’s great then. I must be doing something right.