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SDCC 08: Grant Morrison & Gerard Way: Born Under a Black Sun
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NeverWanderer   |  

Geeks of Doom Invade SDCC 2008

Attending my first ever San Diego Comic-Con, one of the activities on my long (and, sadly, mostly checkless) list of Things To Do check list was attending a few panels (which, like going to Pismo Beach for the clams, are the reason one goes to Comic-Con). Since my only full day at the Con was Saturday, I decided this would have to be my panel day, and, not even considering weathering the soul-killing lines of the popular movie panels, I decided that the two most interesting programs on the schedule for me were Grant Morrison & Gerard Way: Born Under a Black Sun, and the Spotlight on J. Michael Straczynski.

As luck would have it, both panels would be held in Hall 6B, which meant I only had to brave one line (and an hour-long Xbox panel in between, which turned out to not be so bad).

First up was Morrison & Way at 2:15 PM.

As someone who has probably heard more about Grant Morrison than I’ve actually read, attending this panel was sort of a curiosity exercise for me. Among the message boards and comic shops I’ve frequented, Morrison’s tendency for the bizarre and otherworldly, both in his writing as well as his lifestyle, have reached a sort of mythological status, so I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to bear witness to the mad genius at work. Between the two, though, it was my appreciation of Way’s work, not only as the front man for the band My Chemical Romance, but as creator and writer of the (newly) Eisner-Award-winning Dark Horse mini-series, The Umbrella Academy, that really sold me on attending this panel. Between the two of them, I was expecting something entertaining, and hoping for something profound… and I wasn’t disappointed on either count.

The panel kicked off with brief introductions by the panel officiator, Dark Horse Editor Scott Allie, followed by some general conversation about how the two writers had found each other, being mutual fans of each other’s work. Then Morrison and Way turned to the audience to guide the rest of the hour-long discussion.

Fielding questions ranging from the sarcastic to the devout, these were a few of the gems that stuck with me as the panel wound on:

– When asked what his biggest inspiration was, Way cited an interview with Morrison that he’d read right after getting clean (he kicked drug and alcohol addiction in 2004), that had struck him as a call to arms and inspired him to create his own comics work. In the interview, Morrison touched on a concept he’d dubbed “Lo-Fi Weirdness,” which he elaborated on for the panel. He spoke about the way comics had started to enter the mainstream eye-line, and how, with Hollywood focusing its attention on the comics industry, so many comics being developed now seemed more like cheesy pitches for movies that would never get made. Morrison said he felt that, as a way of getting away from that, it was important to make comics even more weird, and more bizarre, because that is something one could do in this medium better than they could in movies. He also mentioned it as a way of getting away from the depressing tone of so many post-9/11 comics being made today. (You can read that 2002 interview for yourself, located at the Sequential Tart Archives; be sure set aside a good 30 minutes to [if you’re me] an hour, and bring a Snickers. It’s a lengthy but fascinating read.)

– Asked to describe what his comic, The Umbrella Academy, was about, Way attempted to answer the question in a roundabout manner, touching on the tone and feel of the book. He called it an “anti-superhero” book, in that none of the characters actually look like what a person would typically expect a superhero to look like. Morrison eventually cut to the heart of it when he leaned into the mic and gave the audience one of those sly, indulgent smiles: “It’s the X-Men for cool people.”

– Way spoke more about his views of his own work and about creativity in general when one audience member asked if The Umbrella Academy was ever likely to cross over into the My Chemical Romance stage shows. Both Way (singer for the MCR) and editor Allie stated that they had tried to keep the band’s name out of most articles or write-ups having to do with the book, and that it was their policy in general to try to let the book stand on its own. Way added, though, that he was as proud of being in the band as he was of creating the comic, and that he was happy to answer questions about one when being interviewed about the other. “It all comes from the same source,” he said. He also mentioned that many of the concepts for The Umbrella Academy that had been left on the cutting room floor eventually made it into their 2006 album, The Black Parade (he specifically mentioned that the original concept of the villainous organization from The Umbrella Academy had been called “The Black Symphony” in the original pitch).

– One comment of Way’s that stood out for me and really cemented my respect for him as a comics creator was when he recalled a question he’d been asked in an interview the night before, right after winning the Eisner Award for Best Limited-Series with The Umbrella Academy. The interviewer asked him if he thought that winning an Eisner felt better than winning a Grammy. When Way’s response was an emphatic “Yes!” the interviewer asked why. “Well,” Way replied, “I don’t really know what a Grammy means anymore, but I know what an Eisner means.” “˜Nuff said.

(Of course, never missing an opportunity for a one-liner, Morrison then chimed in, “I’m thinking about going for a Grammy next.” Over the laughter of the crowd, he added with a self-deprecating grin, “I can sing!”)

– Questioned further about his creation of the rich backstory that is suggested in The Umbrella Academy mini-series, Way revealed that, in fact, none of it existed before he sat down to write the scenes. “That’s the arrogance of it,” he remarked. “The book just assumes that you’ve read the previous 200+ issues of continuity that never actually happened.”

– As the questions turned toward Mr. Morrison, one gentleman asked about his series, The Invisibles, and about the Buddhist sensibility of detachment expressed therein. Morrison spoke a bit about how the story was a reflection of his own personal journey at the time (he later expanded on this to say that the Invisibles was about his life, and that everything there on the page was something he had gone through). He himself had tried to adopt a lifestyle of detachment as a way of finding himself. “How’s that working for you,” the gentleman asked.

“I’m still on the same road you are, you know?” Morrison said, then added with that characteristic grin, “I still want to see Batman again.” The crowd laughed. “We’re all willing to let go until the actual moment we have to let go.”

– Morrison went on to talk about his own ambitions for this panel and what he hoped they would accomplish. He spoke about wanting to inspire people and said something so profound that I was too involved in it to actually write it down. So I’m going to take the quote from the good folks over at Newsarama, because I believe it’s something worth repeating:

“You gotta remember in the entire history of the universe … you’re the only “˜you’ that has ever existed and ever will exist,” Morrison said. “… there’s nobody in existence who is you, and no one can ever see the world the way you see it and can tell the rest of us how it looks. And it might be so different and so beautiful that it changes everything.”

– When asked as a follow-up how he felt about this method of speaking to people, and whether he thought it was working; that his message was getting out there, Morrison said, “Everything you do is like putting out signals, and the people who receive them, and who send signals back… those are the people you want to talk to.”

And again, there was the unspoken “”˜Nuff said.”

All-in-all, my very first San Diego panel was an extremely satisfying experience. Between the truly cerebral discussions of philosophy and the power of creative expression, and the humorous anecdotes, like Way recounting the first time he tried Haggis in Glasgow (to a chorus of jeers from Morrison. “WE don’t even eat haggis in Scotland, are you nuts!? We’re just playing a joke on you! “˜Sure, that’s our national delicacy, absolutely!'”), it made for a wonderful, informative and, yes, inspiring way to spend an hour on a Saturday afternoon. An hour that, in hindsight, went by all too quickly.

Check back soon for my review of the Straczynski panel, as well as my special San Diego Comic-Con diary, “Memoirs of a Comic-Con Virgin.”

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