SuicideGirls > Grant Morrison Interview

SuicideGirls > Words > Grant Morrison:

"...DRE: What's the novel about?

GM: It's about an ex-special forces SAS soldier who gets kidnapped and is forced to write the manifesto of a terrorist group. The terrorist group is composed of teenagers who claim to come from outer space [laughs]. It's a bit like 'Children of the Damned' meets 'A Clockwork Orange' and the basic idea is what might happen if children decided to go to war with adults. The hero has to write the account of what happens and I have to write about him writing it...

DRE: You've spoken quite openly about the drugs you've done over the years. I had a teacher years ago that was also a priest and we had an argument over drugs. He said that the same feelings you can reach with drugs you can get to naturally with meditation.

GM: That's not true but I do understand what he's trying to say. Theoretically, you can recreate all states of consciousness just by thinking about them but having tried both meditation and drugs and often both at the same time I'm not sure about this one. It's a bit like saying you can recreate the feeling of a Thanksgiving Dinner using meditation. Maybe you could but why would you? Meditation can take you to some places that some drugs can also take you too but I don't believe meditation can reproduce a full-on acid experience or a high dose mushroom or DMT trip, nor would it be helpful if it did. It can reproduce something like an ecstasy experience. Meditators who claim they can recreate all of these drug states are probably either unfamiliar with the drugs or they're being slightly disingenuous about the whole issue...

DRE: This may be old news but was the controversy over The Matrix films being like The Invisibles blown out of proportion?

GM: It's really simple. The truth of that one is that design staff on The Matrix were given Invisibles collections and told to make the movie look like my books. This is a reported fact. The Wachowskis are comic book creators and fans and were fans of my work, so it's hardly surprising. I was even contacted before the first Matrix movie was released and asked if I would contribute a story to the website.

It's not some baffling 'coincidence' that so much of The Matrix is plot by plot, detail by detail, image by image, lifted from Invisibles so there shouldn't be much controversy. The Wachowskis nicked The Invisibles and everyone in the know is well aware of this fact but of course they're unlikely to come out and say it.

It was just too bad they deviated so far from the Invisibles philosophical template in the second and third movies because they blundered helplessly into boring Catholic theology, proving that they hadn't HAD the 'contact' experience that drove The Invisibles, and they wrecked both 'Reloaded' and 'Revolutions' on the rocks of absolute incomprehension. They should have kept on stealing from me and maybe they would have wound up with something to really be proud of - a movie that could change minds and hearts and worlds.

I love the first Matrix movie which I think is a real work of cinematic genius and very timely but I've now heard from several people who worked on The Matrix and they've all confirmed that they were given Invisibles books as reference. That's how it is. I'm not angry about it anymore, although at one time I was because they made millions from what was basically a Xerox of my work and to be honest, I would be happy with just one million so I didn't have to work thirteen hours of every fucking day, including weekends...

DRE: Why do comics enthrall you so much?

GM: Magic...

DRE: Would you want to direct movies?

GM: Naw, I couldn't be bothered. I hate telling people what to do."