Supergods, by Grant Morrison
Feb. 28th, 2012 10:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aI was pretty excited when I picked up this history of the main "ages" of the comics industry by master writer Grant Morrison. Then it took me months to finish and now I can only say that it was alright.
Morrison's writing really sparkles here and there. But the first part of the book, before Morrison entered the picture (in his own career), is deadly dull. That's what actually took me the longest to read; for quite a while I just read 5 or 6 pages right before bed. When Morrison enters the picture, the story because more vibrant and evocative, but it also starts splitting time between the history of comics and the history of Morrison. I would have quite enjoyed an actual history of the comics industry; I would have sort of enjoyed an autobiography of Morrison; but the combination is just a mishmash.
Meantime, while Morrison is writing about some pretty minor project like Seaguy and correlating it to the hippy/punk 22-year cycle caused by the magnetic pole of the sun flipping, Neil Gaiman's foundational Sandman gets all of one page. Yep.
Oh, and if it wasn't obvious by that reference to the sun's poles, there's a whole bunch of pseudo-science in here. Perhaps not a surprise from the man who brought us Doom Patrol,The Invisibles, and some of the weirdest Batman ever, but another disappointment given the advertised scope of the book.
Most of all, I think the book needed an editor, who might have commented on the sloppy focus on the book.
I give it 3 stars out of 5, 6 points on a 10 point scale, or a thumbs up, as you prefer.
Morrison's writing really sparkles here and there. But the first part of the book, before Morrison entered the picture (in his own career), is deadly dull. That's what actually took me the longest to read; for quite a while I just read 5 or 6 pages right before bed. When Morrison enters the picture, the story because more vibrant and evocative, but it also starts splitting time between the history of comics and the history of Morrison. I would have quite enjoyed an actual history of the comics industry; I would have sort of enjoyed an autobiography of Morrison; but the combination is just a mishmash.
Meantime, while Morrison is writing about some pretty minor project like Seaguy and correlating it to the hippy/punk 22-year cycle caused by the magnetic pole of the sun flipping, Neil Gaiman's foundational Sandman gets all of one page. Yep.
Oh, and if it wasn't obvious by that reference to the sun's poles, there's a whole bunch of pseudo-science in here. Perhaps not a surprise from the man who brought us Doom Patrol,The Invisibles, and some of the weirdest Batman ever, but another disappointment given the advertised scope of the book.
Most of all, I think the book needed an editor, who might have commented on the sloppy focus on the book.
I give it 3 stars out of 5, 6 points on a 10 point scale, or a thumbs up, as you prefer.