'Gideon Stargrave' (Near Myths #4).
Scottish scriptwriter Grant Morrison is one of the UK's most prolific comic writers, initially for 2000 AD, but later also for US companies like DC, Vertigo and Marvel. Together with Neil Gaiman, Peter Milligan, Jamie Delano and Alan Moore, he formed the 1980s "Brit Wave" invasion of American comics. Morrison's work is characterized for his often surrealist and symbolic writing with counter-cultural and dadaist influences.
Born in Glasgow, Morrison began his career writing and drawing 'Gideon Stargrave' comics for Rob King's alternative comic magazine Near Myths in 1978. Shortly afterwards, he wrote and drew the weekly comic strip 'Captain Clyde' for the local newspaper The Govan Press, and 'Starblazer' stories for DC Thomson's Commando title.
After focusing on music in the early 1980s, he turned to comic book scriptwriting in 1985. He wrote 'The Liberators' for Warrior, and began a collaboration with Marvel UK (Doctor Who Magazine, Zoids) and 2000 AD ('Future Shocks', 'Dan Dare'). His first epic serial was 'Zenith', which he created with Steve Yeowell in 1987. He then joined DC, where over the years he revamped 'Animal Man' and 'Kid Eternity', and wrote scripts for 'Doom Patrol', 'Aztec', 'Justice League of America', 'Seven Soldiers of Victory', 'All Star Superman' and the Batman graphic novel 'Arkham Asylum' (art by Dave McKean), as well as the regular 'Batman' title.
'The Checkmate Man' (Near Myths #5).
In the UK, he wrote the controversial political comic 'St. Switchin's Day' for Trident Comics (art by Paul Grist). 1991 saw 'Bible John - A Forensic Meditation', Morrison's highly experimental cooperation with Daniel Vallely for the Crisis anthology, written under the guide of an Ouija board and told in a collage narrative. In the new millennium, Morrison moved to Marvel Comics where he took on 'New X-Men' with Quitely, as well as 'Marvel Boy' (with J.G. Jones) and 'Fantastic Four: 1234' (with Jae Lee).
Since its start in 1993, Morrison was present at DC's Vertigo imprint with titles like 'Sebastian O' (with Yeowell, 1993), 'The Mystery Play' (with Jon J. Muth, 1994), 'Flex Mentallo' (with Frank Quitely, 1996), 'Kill Your Boyfriend' (with Philip Bond, 1995), 'The Filth' (with Chris Weston and Gary Erskine, 2002), 'Seaguy' (with Cameron Stewart, 2004), 'We3' (with Quitely, 2004) and 'Vimanarama' (with Bond, 2004) . His most notable work for Vertigo remains 'The Invisibles' (with a.o. Yeowell), a conspiracy comic dealing with time travel, magic, meditation, and physical violence, which ran from 1994 to 2000. Grant Morrison was awarded an MBE Medal by Queen Elizabeth II in 2012.
'Starblazer' #15 (1979), 'Algol the Terrible'.