Scans_Daily

It's a fair point. But to clarify what I've said: I said that SUPERHEROES are not really the place for that. I said we have other avenues for that.

Watchmen and especially Miracleman seemed like excellent avenues to explore politics, economics, utopianism and totalitarianism. Morrison's problem is that he's possessive of the superhero genre; he thinks he owns it; he has deep-rooted ideas of what superheroes are and he frowns when others don't want to play by his rules.

I am speaking only of this particular work and what it has to say about that particular genre. Because this particular genre DOES affect people. Otherwise this site would not exist, correct? I don't see lots of Joe Sacco or Los Bros being posted here. I'd love that, if so. And this book, IMO, simply explores THAT.

Ever since there's a popular culture, people have always preferred escapist fiction to confronting the real world. Flex Mentallo is not saying anything particularly original, it's just illustrating and ancient and tragic truth - people prefer being reassured all the time than being shown the inevitable reality of their harsh lives. As Umberto Eco wrote, if literature teaches us anything, it's that we're all going to die.

I would also say this: Maybe he has not done anything heroic. But have you? Have I? Have most writers in comics? In any genre? What has Dan Clowes done to help the world, say? Or Chris Ware? (both of whom I actually like more than any superhero writer) But their art is in fact all they are meant to create. Should all artists drop their work and go work in Africa or something?

But of course I haven't. I'm an ordinary human being, with an ordinary sense of human decency, vulnerable to all the flaws a normal human being is capable of. If I had lived during the Third Reich, I probably would have joined the Nazi Party like million others. The difference is that I'm capable of enough self-scrutiny and mental honesty to admit that, unlike other people who say that if they had lived in Hitler's Germany, they would have heroically fought the Nazis, of course they would have. Like George Orwell wrote of Gandhi, that kind of nobility is the stuff of saints not men.

The matter here is not whether I or Dan Clowes have done something heroic - I've done my share of good deeds to other people, like anyone else. The point is that no writer but Grant Morrison, and self-help gurus, claims that their texts can make people morally better. Fiction is not for that. Clowes and Ware don't want to make me a better person, they're just expressing some ideas about the human condition. But Morrison in recent years has become a self-help guru full of ideas about how superheroes can make your life better. And if he's going to say that, then maybe his own life should set an example. He's a hypocrite and his hypocrisy taints all his moralizing fiction, especially Flex Mentallo.

You know who's a hero? Alan Moore's a hero. It's not because of his stance of creators right, it's not because he's not afraid to talk about corporate comics where his 'peers' remain silent. It's because of this: when Awesome Comics folded, Moore had lots of artists dependent on him for work - they had bills and mortgages to pay. So what did Alan Moore do? He creates ABC, but he doesn't own Tom Strong and Promethea and Top 10. Why? Because he gave up his rights in return for up-front money so that his artists could get the money faster. That's right, the man who vowed never to work for DC again because of a creators right dispute, when he had to choose between helping artists and retaining rights to his own creations, he chose the artists. For the second time in his life he had to see his own creations taken away from him. I can only imagine how horrible that must have been for him. But that's the kind of hero he is, and he doesn't brag about it, he doesn't mention it in every little interview he gives, most people don't even know this.

So when I read Morrison say this:

"I'm sorry that people were discouraged, but anyone who expects me to take any stronger "stand" on this issue are going to be disappointed. I'm not the leader of a political party. I'm a freelance commercial writer who sells stories to pay the bills. I'm not an employee of any company except for the one run by me and my wife. I'm not a role model or the figurehead for any movement. I don't doubt that corporations can be underhanded, and I feel sorry for anyone who genuinely gets caught out. We live in a world where every day involves multiple negotiations with corporate power in one way or another, and all I can say is, enlist a lawyer to go through any contract before you sign it. Or self-publish."

I feel very disgusted. Moore isn't a political leader either, he's a freelance writer too, and yet he has a basic human decency that Grant-superheroes-teach-us-important-moral-values-Morrison has never shown to possess. So you want to believe in Flex Mentallo? Do so.

I prefer to re-read Portnoy's Complaint, Alex Portnoy isn't half as loathsome as Mr. Morrison.