Emmanuel Quartey

Grant Morrison on Superheroes

Over on Wired, there’s a wonderful interview with Grant Morrison that revolves around Supergods, his memoir/cultural and critical history of superheroes. I’ve read the interview multiple times, and there’s no doubt that I’ll be revisiting it many more times before the end of the summer.

This is Morrison on the evolution (or lack thereof) of the comic book medium.

“It’s always a mistake whenever new technology comes along, and an old form tries to translate. It’s like film a century ago, where directors were simply re-creating the look of a play in a theater, rather than moving the camera around. So far, online comics have done the same.”

“We’re trying too hard to re-create comics on the digital screen, and I think that’s a mistake. I think there is a lot more we could be doing. Digital comics should become a much more fractal experience, where you can use hypertext to get character histories at the press of a button, or be able to play sections of the story in game form or whatever — something. And I’m sure someone is already working on how to do that right now. Certainly, I’m thinking along those lines, but there is a lot of interesting work to be done to create comics for that medium.”

And this is Morrison on how superheroes, like gods, embody eternal human qualities.

Superman possesses the qualities of the very best man we can imagine at any given time. In that sense, he’s divine. Batman is representative of our dark subconscious, who nevertheless works for the good of humanity. They embody the same ideals.”

“You know, Flash, like Hermes before him, is a messenger god of communication and electricity, although he’s more modern so you’d probably have to add coffee and Red Bull. [Laughs] What superheroes have done is give these ancient qualities a new dress so we can recognize ourselves again.”

Again: What superheroes have done is give these ancient qualities a new dress so we can recognize ourselves again. Isn’t this beautiful?