27/7 Summer Fun
BALD BRAT SUMMER
Nice to see Cassandra Nova tearing up the global box office in Deadpool vs. Wolverine! I haven’t seen it yet, so still no idea how annoying Ryan Reynolds can get!
When I started on New X-Men at the start of the century, I chose to drill down on the ‘soap opera’ aspect of Marvel comics. I wanted the stories to be filled with marital infidelities, family drama, and mysterious siblings turning up at the door out of the blue!
Noting that Eastenders and Emmerdale constantly had long-lost family members bringing new drama, we embraced the classic trope to introduce a terrifying new member of the Xavier family in the form of Cassandra Nova (named for the Trojan prophetess Cassandra and given the ‘Nova’ appellation of a new species).
The ‘mummudrai’ (I’d decided that the Shi’ar language would have echoes of Sanskrit) was a bodiless ‘opposite’ encountered by every sentient being in the womb. It is intended as our first representation of the ‘Other’, which we must overcome there in the oceanic uterine bliss of our origins.
As so often happens with my work, a simple idea was, and often still is, regarded as something wild, weird, utterly bizarre and even confusing. In fact, the ‘mummudrai’ is nothing more than an exotic, made-up alien word for something human folklore has long known as a ‘fetch’.
Emma Corrin makes for a fantastic younger version of Cassandra, but I’ll admit to being slightly disappointed when the actor talked about basing ‘their’ character on Willie Wonka and Christophe Waltz’ brilliant Hans Landa performance from Inglorious Basterds.
How about ‘I based my character on the wonderful Cassandra Nova as created by fellow artists Grant Morrison and Frank Quietly’?
Oh, go on!
HOCUS FOCUS
My old pal Richard Metzger has interviewed more than 50 contemporary magicians for his ‘Magick Show’ Kickstarter project. I’ve watched the first episode and it’s the best presentation of contemporary magic, how it works, and the type of people drawn to it, that I’ve seen.
I agreed to help out the Kickstarter by doing some sigil magic/artwork for the top tier ‘Ipsissimus’ level. If you think paying big money for me to do you a power sigil for the ages is a good idea, let me introduce you to some nice people…
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/richardmetzger/magick-show-a-masterclass-in-modern-occultism
So far, we already have one taker! Just don’t expect me to do the ‘charging’. No-one’s getting my DNA on a postcard!
Here’s an article on the subject from last weeks Sunday Times.
Comic king Grant Morrison on reinventing Batman, thanks to magic rituals (thetimes.com)
TOMORROW’S TOWNSHIPS TODAY
Got my copy of Nova Scotia New Speculative Fiction from Scotland Vol. 2, with my story Peter’s Thoughts in there. You can read about the background to the story on the Luna Press website here
Grant Morrison: Nova Scotia Vol 2 Anthology. Pre-Order Available Now! (lunapresspublishing.com)
The book’s released on July 30th – there’s a launch event at the Mitchell Library in Glasgow that day, from 6.30 to 7.30pm - and it’s well worth picking up for all the other brilliant stories and voices.
DEMONMONDE
And finally, I’m appearing with Jane Flett – author of Freakslaw – to talk about our novels, and the grand tradition of the Scottish grotesque, at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on the 10th August. Tickets are still available from their website here.
Hope to see you there!
Picture by Kristan, GM at Horsepasstown 2024.
Jesus, Grant. You don't do the charging AND you don't do banishing. I'd say what's left is writing but you actually remove half of that! ;-)
Granted, it looks to be for a cause and I'm kidding, mostly. It's just that if what you're doing is supplying the intent, I know I have a surplus of that and it sure looks like most of your work is overflowing with untapped intent too. I know every time I read anything by you, I end up going off and writing half a gig of notes for things nobody will publish coming from me and it sure seems like nobody else wants to grow anything from the roots you plant either!
Sometimes, being a fan of your work is like watching a master line up a billion dominos in a tantalizing formation like some kind of hyper dimensional stone henge and before you or anybody else can have the satisfaction of knocking all those dominos over or at least witnessing the calendars they form as the daylight dances through them, your editors encase it all in glass and whisk it away to be stored in a warehouse with the Ark of the Covenant and Jimmy Hoffa's bones. I feel sometimes like you must have been itching to pay things off at a certain point in your career and are now used to the toys being carted off into storage before you're finished with them! Now it's just a load of time capsules and ephemera that your lack of offspring will be unliving for generations waiting for in hopes of an inheritance that time forgot. Maybe somewhere in the multiverse, your dreams have endings and sequels. Alas!
I haven't seen the movie yet. Looking forward to it.
One question I have- I've been reading the recently concluded run of the Krakoa era of X-Men comics (I know Cassandra Nova turns up there on I think the second Marauders run). Have you read any of these? One of the interesting things is they openly turn Scott/Jean into a Scott/Jean/Emma/Wolverine polycule. It works quite nicely.