[comics] John Byrne on Grant Morrison and Alan Moore: ‘I get no sense from [Grant] Morrison’s work that he has any “love for the genre”. I get the same vibe I get from [Alan] Moore — a cold and calculated mixing of ingredients the writer knows the fans like, but to which the writer himself has no eviceral connection. Nostalgia without being nostalgic, as I have dubbed it.’ [via ADD]
John Byrne on Grant Morrison and Alan Moore
This entry was posted on Sunday, March 14th, 2004 at 2:51 pm and is filed under Alan Moore, Comics, Grant Morrison.
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I’ve always had the feeling that John Byrne has a lot of self-love and no talent to go with it.
I do get this feeling from Warren Ellis’ work sometimes, but not from Grant Morrison and I think it’s a preposterous accusation against Alan Moore. 1963, the ABC books, Supreme… how much love does the guy gotta show?
John Byrne really hasn’t moved with the times. The work he did on X-men was ground-breaking but that was decades ago! He’ll continue to pump out pretty much generic comic book super-hero stuff indefinitely without even trying to take the form somewhere new. I mean – don’t get me wrong – his stuff is really high quality, but it’s not innovative. It’s not setting the pace any more. Grant’s work isn’t always successful but I’ve never seen him write something that isn’t an attempt to push something forward and do something new. I’m extremely disheartened by a rejection of the Grantish reworking of the Doom Patrol because he’d articulated a new concept – stripped it down to the basics and built it up again from there. I would have hoped someone else would have been able to do something with that.
!
John Byrne : “A lot of writers do what I call “Shoehorn Stories” — which is to say they start with the story, then look around for an opportunity to use it. First character(s) handed to them, they shoehorn in the story, whether it fits the characters or not.”
There have been rumours about John Byrne doing a Doom Patrol series for years and years. Back when Morrison started writing Doom Patrol it was suggested that Byrne had also made a pitch for it. It seemed strange at the time – why would the guy writing a high-profile book like Superman want to work on a failing book about a load of crappy characters?
Anyway, he’s waited and waited, obviously. And now he’s got the job and appears to have slung out existing continuity. I didn’t read the whole thread (too much “John u rool” for me) but that’s my impression. I’m not too hung on continuity either. However, it does suggest that he’s waited well over ten years to draw this comic and he’s doing the story that he wrote back then. It’s “shoehorning” in reverse.
Tom: “He’ll continue to pump out pretty much generic comic book super-hero stuff indefinitely without even trying to take the form somewhere new.”
Bing!
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