Comics / Spotlight

Grant Morrison has been stealing my ideas, too!

By Dan Horn
December 18, 2012 - 13:28

Taken from www.grant-morrison.com as reparation.

What? Who's there?!?!?

Oh,

It's just you.

Well, I'm glad you're here. I've been wanting to tell you something. A few weeks ago, renowned comic book writer Grant Morrison was forced to defend himself amidst a barrage of accusations and ad hominem defamations, hurled by the equally renowned Alan Moore and the lauded fantasy author Michael Moorcock. You see, Alan and Michael believe Grant has been getting away with plagiarism for decades. It doesn't matter that Morrison was established in the comics business well before Moore, or that almost every writer is influenced to some extent by his/her contemporaries, even Moore and Moorcock. No, Alan and Michael contend that Morrison has been taking special liberties with the amount of their influence he's let seep into his work. Never mind that even Morrison's surname is eerily similar to both those of the plaintiffs (has he been attempting to subsume their identities as well?). I read about this and immediately started

getting

                a

                     sneaking

                                  FEELING,

like maybe some of my mindscape had been raped and pillaged by the marauding Morrison as well.

Well, today I'm happy to report that I've come up with a plot as plausible as any Alan or Michael have concocted, which is to say "incredibly plausible, almost palpable and almost already true by virtue of its plausibility," in regards to Grant's wanton thievery. If we consider the morphogenetic field, the metaphysical Saran Wrap membrane, or some other tortured simile--

Goddammit! See how bereft of novel ideas Morrison has left my scourged mind?!

--linking the sum total of a culture's subconscious, we must conclude that it, like anything else that is indisputably real, is subject to tampering. I believe that, through sorcery, which is a practice that was also coincidentally preemptively stolen from Moore, which is to say "stolen before Moore actually even practiced it, or at least before he practiced it openly"--frightening stuff--Grant Morrison has been able to tap into the field, and he is siphoning every single one of our thoughts into his own cognizance, further inflating his own falsely magnanimous ego as it were. I mean, come on. How else could he have written The Invisibles?

You want proof?!?!?

Well, alright then. Uh...

Yes, proof. Here you are. We all know that the release of Batman, Incorporated (Volume 2) #3 was delayed for several weeks beyond its advertised publication date. I must insist that there was no earthly manner in which to obtain a copy of this Grant Morrison comic book because of its sensitive subject matter, and all retailers, noble folk with granite resolve and strong moral compasses, had been explicitly advised by the ever personable publisher DC Comics, "please don't sell this comic yet... pretty please."

Now that we have established the utter impossibility that I would have owned a copy more than three weeks before its newly imposed August 22 release, let's take a look at my plausible reaction to the news.

I wrote a fake review.

A review dated July 31.

A review in which I conjectured the contents and quality of a make-believe Batman, Inc #3. And when the book was finally released by the impenetrable retailer embargo in the following weeks, I was horrified by what I found.

Everything I said about the comic before its release... was true.

I know, I know, there's only one valid explanation here, but I didn't want to believe it at first.

I couldn't believe it.

How could I?

How could I believe that Morrison and his artistic crony Chris Burnham had infiltrated the ironclad retailer embargo after acquiring my superior ideas in regards to their book and there, in the dark of the after-hours comic book shops across the globe, casting their arcane circles in the DC aisles--or was it the Image aisles? Those sick bastards...--they altered their comics to emulate my fictive Batman, Inc. #3 review?

Appalling, yes. But also very probable.

As further evidence, I'd like to present an excerpt or two from my review and follow them up with examples of flagrant plagiarism.

First:

"Batman Inc #3 is Grant Morrison reveling in crime noir and spy fiction. He places Matches Malone in smokey lounges graced with femme fatale crooners and diminutive crime bosses, while also utilizing zany tech and constructing a backstory of sleeper cells and double-agents. Morrison's script is like Raymond Chandler on speed having a knife fight with Ian Flemming. The story cuts deliberate and precise swaths of scarlet through the dense fabric of Batman Inc's pervading mystery."

Now, how could I have known that Morrison would "revel"? But revel he did! And he even went so far as to "place" and to have characters "croon" and "utilize." It's unconscionable, and it makes me sick.

seCONd:

"Chris Burnham's panels are gorgeous, really playing off of the issue's noir sensibilities with deep shadows and cinematic panel progressions perfectly punctuated with revelatory splashes. Nathan Fairbairn proves the versatility of his incredible palette in this issue as well, oscillating between vibrant and sullen."

This one truly disgusted me. I can see Morrison standing over Burnham with a printed copy of my review, the paper translucent in the moon light spilling in through dark comic shop windows, the black lettering of that review transposed in reverse across disheveled stacks of violated Batman comics, and Grant is whispering, "Make it gorgeous, Chris."

And it was gorgeous. But how could they have known to make it so if not for my review? I shudder to think, and therefore I have ceased to.

Well, there you have it. I've been robbed. And if my evidence isn't quite enough to sway your unwaveringly positive perception of the almighty Grant Morrison, cue-ball king of the comic poseurs, check in with Alan Moore and Michael Moorcock, because their arguments are equally persuasive.

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12