A brief thought on Grant Morrison's "Animal Man"

[andrewducker]

I just re-read the entire of Grant Morrison's run of Animal Man.

More than anything else it reminds me of Synecdoche, New York. Not for plot, but for the way it illustrates its creator's uncomfortableness with fiction, and life, and the relationship between them.

As an actual story, it's laughably weak. As a musing on comics mythology, fiction, and the relationhip between the author and their character it's marvellous.

I'm now looking forward to the release of Flex Mentallo, which (IIRC) builds on this idea.

On the other hand, I'm also glad to Morrison grew out of this, and that his more recent comics largely valued plot over existentialism (particularly for things like We3 and All-Star Superman. Obviously Seaguy is still heavy on the subtext. I'm hoping that gets finished at some point.)

Comments

[nanaya]

Yes, I'd love to see more 'Seaguy' too.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

regarding your LJ pic.

Daughter asked me a wee while ago if I ever got bored. I told her no: life and the world is so full of wonders that it's impossible to be bored as long as you're capable of observing, thinking and doing.


she seemed to like that a lot.

[ajr.livejournal.com]

Have you read Doom Patrol? Flex Mentallo first appeared in an issue of that series.

[khbrown.livejournal.com]

Have you looked at Dave Sim's Glamorpuss? Odd combination of a history of comics artists and musings on female fashions.