100 WEEKS OF SERVITUDE

Ninth Art is 100 weeks old this week. In the grand scheme of things, that's not very old at all, but I can assure you, it feels like a lifetime to me. So forgive me please, I'm going to be a little self-indulgent.

In 100 weeks, we've had 200 updates containing over 500 articles running to something like 600,000 words or more in total. Every one of those words has passed before my eyes, usually at least three times. That figure includes 100 forecasts, 100 reviews, and over 200 original essays - 50 of them by columnist supreme Paul O'Brien. Highlights along the way have included trips to Bristol, Caption, San Diego and SPX, the hyper-intense 24 Hours @ Ninth Art comic making challenge, and getting a big wet kiss on the lips from the delectable John McCrea.

We've been in business longer than many commercial dot-coms - we celebrate our second anniversary in just over a month - and we've never charged anyone a penny or made any attempt to make money - which is probably why we're still here. We've kept to our twice-weekly update schedule without fail, even when our computers have died, or our server has gone down, or when the entire editorial board has been steamed out of its head on daiquiris at Lafitte's in New Orleans. With any luck, we'll keep that record. Failing that, we'll order another round of daiquiris.

'Ninth Art is 100 weeks old. It feels like a lifetime.' I'm enormously proud of what we've achieved over the past couple of years, and I'm hugely grateful to everyone who has helped us to become one of the most respected and varied comics sites around. We said in our mission statement on day one that we wanted to create "an expanding repository of ideas, analysis and contemporary thought, exploring every aspect of the arts and industry of comics". I think we're doing pretty well. Some say we're too highbrow, some say we're too lowbrow; I say that mean's we've got it about right.

Thank you for reading the site. You're the reason it's worth all the late nights, the tears and tantrums, the huge bottles of gin and the tiny bottles of tonic water. I raise a glass to you, the reader.

OK, let's talk comics.

PUBLIC GRANT

Grant Morrison came to London last week. He was granting an audience at the Institute of Contemporary Art, which, for those of you who like to believe everywhere in London is within earshot of Big Ben, is basically next door to Buckingham Palace.

It was a fascinating evening, compèred by that redoubtable bastion of the British comics scene, Paul Gravett. It's difficult to be sure when Morrison is telling the truth, since he's admitted to wearing masks in interviews in the past, but this time around he claimed he was giving us 'Corporate Grant', which means he probably only lied about the pension plan. Corporate Grant wears a spiffy pinstripe suit, but sadly it was an off-the-shelf high street label, which isn't very 'superstar'. Warren Ellis wears Armani, you know.

'Morrison's next big undertaking is to bring a comic to life.' Morrison began by telling us about his major influences, including his soldier-turned-activist father and his comics addicted mother, whose greatest wish for her son was that he grow up to be Mr Spock. He remembers his first comic as the issue of MARVELMAN where the hero meets the great liar Baron Munchausen, surely another formative influence. The comics that had the most impact, though, were the works of John Broome.

John Broome perhaps isn't a name you'll hear a lot these days. After all, he's dead, and the comic industry is only too quick to bury its dead. Broome spent nearly twenty-five years up to 1970 creating some of the most influential and often subversive science fiction tales in comics, primarily at DC. He's credited as one of the architects of the Silver Age, and was father to the era's Flash and Green Lantern.

The influence on Morrison is best exemplified by a single issue; FLASH #163, with the Flash holding up his hand on the cover and telling the reader; "Stop! Don't pass up this issue! My life depends on it!"

The story, "The Flash Stakes His Life On You", illustrated by Carmine Infantino and Joe Giella, sees the Flash slowly fading from existence thanks to the meddling of a gang of crooks. His only hope for survival is to get the world to believe in him once more, and he's saved thanks to one little girl, who keeps the hero's memory alive with her drawings. It doesn't take a scholar to find the traces of the work in Morrison's FLEX MENTALLO, THE INVISIBLES, THE FILTH or even JLA.

Grant Morrison is a corporation now. GM Word (or gmWORD, if you have no respect for proper capitalisation) is the corporate monster he 'invoked' to enable him to talk to larger corporations. A suit that allows him to pass through their world. It's corporate magic, of the sort suggested by the Hex Corporation in Morrison's MARVEL BOY. Morrison had plenty to say about his use of magic, but to the frustration of the heckler at the back who loudly proclaimed, "I didn't pay to come to a comic convention! I want to hear about war and aliens and magic", it was all very much tied to the comics.

Morrison's next big undertaking, for example, is to bring a comic to life. I probably won't be able explain this very well, because I'm not entirely sure I understood it, but I think it boils down to this: Corporations and symbols outlive their originators, and they evolve and interact with successive generations. According to Morrison, if something lives long enough, it starts to think. That's why, when writing a story, there comes a time when the story seems to takes over. Because it does take over.

Therefore, comic characters, and comic universes, must be alive. If they're alive, then they're largely dormant. Grant Morrison intends to 'wake up' a comics universe, and in doing so, create a comic that will engage directly with the reader. A living comic.

It's dangerously insane, of course. The stuff of gods and madmen. If he's not careful, Grant Morrison will surely be eaten by his living comic, and one day he'll be found staring out of the cover, screaming at the witless reader; "Stop! Don't pass up this issue! My life depends on it!"

Andrew Wheeler is a London-based entertainment journalist.

This article is Ideological Freeware. The author grants permission for its reproduction and redistribution by private individuals on condition that the author and source of the article are clearly shown, no charge is made, and the whole article is reproduced intact, including this notice.