July 21st, 2011
I’ve reviewed Grant Morrison’s new book, Supergods, over at the WSJ. It is, I think, the most embarrassing piece of writing I’ve ever seen released by a mainstream publisher. Just as a technical matter, it’s filled with typos, repeated sentences, and trivial errors–if this is the finished product, I can scarcely imagine what the submitted manuscript must have looked like. And that leaves aside the meandering self-indulgence and lack of any structure, conceptual spine, or through-line. And that leaves out the soul-destroying tedium of Morrison’s page after page of drug stories, including a long description of his being whisked into the fifth dimension and given a talking to by supernatural/alien beings while on a trip to Kathmandu–at the conclusion of which he gets all surly with readers who might suspect that this experience, too, was probably a drug trip. But it wasn’t. It was real, man. The realest real thing that’s ever been. Dude.
None of this is spoiler territory for the review, mind you, in which I basically argue that the failings of Supergods are really just exemplary of why Morrison is a failure as a comic book writer.
WershovenistPig July 21, 2011 at 3:02 pm
I really quite enjoyed Morrison’s We3.
But I guess We3 was basically an adaption of The Incredible Journey, with some sci-fi flourishes. So maybe the narrative was already there for Morrison to pilfer.