China Mieville on Grant Morrison (and Warren Ellis)

[Froggy]

I think with All Star Miller was playing up to and making fun of his trademark style. I thought it was hilarious.

it felt like that but I wasn't sure if I was just thinking this to rationalize the way it was written or if it WAS intentional

[Eric Chang]

This interview is really old, all those writers he talked about have written better or worse stuff since then, I think.

[Deviates]

An interesting read. I thnk he nails Miller pretty well.

[Karl O'Neill]

Interesting comments about Morrison, although I think if he had more time we might have gotten a more rounded opinion of Morrison's work from Mieville.

[thewarning]

He loves Planetary, too :)

I hope this guy works on more books soon. I had no idea he's been so invested in comics this whole time.

[Desaad]

Yeah I get the feeling (and this may not necessarily be true) that Mieville is assuming that Morrison is commenting on social institutions because his own work tends to be about that.

Certainly that is where Mieville comes from, with his emphasis on class conflict born no doubt from his heavily politicized education and life direction.

Perhaps he feels Morrison, as a 'subversive artist', should have more to say in that regard? Because Morrison is always more interested in talking about the core of things than he is about specifities, at least in any depth (there is some comment on class dynamics in a number of his works, most recently in Batman, focusing on british class structure, but just as his comments on the nature of technology aren't at the core of what he's saying, neither is class a particularly large part of his work)

[squashmaster]

Dead-on analysis of Morrison in general. Although, I think the Animal Man ending works well, despite being maybe too cliche. Sometimes when Morrison is cliche, it's in a good way.

Invisibles is thoroughly unimpressive, though.

And, yes, Miller is definitely a fascist. That should be clear to everyone at this point. But, he's also bad ass, so it works.

[nightwing1982]

and Moore and Miller

He's actually pretty critical, I found this interesting....

http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/nonfiction/intchina.htm

I'm pretty much agree with Mieville regarding Morrison. I just don't care for a Grant's writing now, but LOVED this stuff for 2000 A.D and Vertigo. As for Miller, right on the head. I think Morrison is just feeding into his own image.

[Retro315]

Crikey, an actual discussion topic. Quite a nice interview, and I've been on the other side of enough insider conversations not to worry about having been ignorant of many of the works they discuss. But as for the important part; the titular critiques of supposedly "new canon" comics writers, by and large his opinions actually mirror mine very closely. Miller as a sharp writer who leaves a bad taste, Moore's better works being the ones that aren't over-exposed, Morrison running the same themes he has for a couple decades. The argument against Morrison is perfectly valid, and notably says nothing of the actual skill at storytelling and conceptualizing Morrison presents. This implies that Mieville believes the ideas and telling of the story are fine, he's just sick of reading the same story of Mystic Good Magick Hero vs. Fascist Occultist Immortality-Seeker.

It's an understandable gripe. My love of Morrison stories actually stems from finally seeing him get down to applying his sort of "stock conflict" onto characters I love who deserve a chance to occupy that kind of conflict. I was dying to see Batman tackle this sort of endless scenario. Other than that, like most writers and PhD program candidates, I'm sure he's entirely busy and honestly doesn't have time to read more contemporary works. For all anyone knows, he might find something like Joe the Barbarian quite a nice change of pace. Either way, it's clear enough the most celebrated comics writers all have in common a sense of self-awareness that whether played straight or not, is 100% appropriate to the genre.

[Karl O'Neill]

Any of you read Mieville's novels?

All I hear is great things.

He's supposed to be a mix of Chandler/PKD/Eco.

Just a crazy ideas man, very smart.

[Batman and Charles]

Any of you read Mieville's novels?

All I hear is great things.

He's supposed to be a mix of Chandler/PKD/Eco.

Just a crazy ideas man, very smart.

I've read nearly all of them, and he's become my favorite living writer (my favorite dead writers are Roger Zelazny and Kurt Vonnegut Jr.)

My favorite thing of his is the novella The Tain, and my second fave is The Scar.

[Karl O'Neill]

Is The City And The City a good starting point?

[Batman and Charles]

Is The City And The City a good starting point?

Certainly. It's really good. It's both representative and unrepresentative of his bibliography, as it's a story set in a remarkable city, but has practically no magical or sci-fi elements.

[Mr. Holmes]

Any of you read Mieville's novels?

All I hear is great things.

He's supposed to be a mix of Chandler/PKD/Eco.

Just a crazy ideas man, very smart.

Yeah his writing style is kind of...nuLovecraft. I'm reading Perdido Street, and it's weird as hell (there's a really messed up scene in the very beginning that I won't spoil). But I heard City and the City is easier to get into.