At his spotlight panel today at WonderCon in San Francisco, writer Grant Morrison responded to an audience question about the delays that have plagued several of his recent comics with a rather inscrutable reply, even for the enigmatic Morrison.

"Any delays in the release of my works are the result of the high creative standard to which I hold myself and, despite laughably false rumors to the contrary, not because I am some sort of wizard sworn to protect our reality from sinister mystical consciousnesses out to erase us from existence." He discussed several complex reasons for the delays on projects such as Batman, Inc. while taking great care to discount previously unheard-of accounts involving magical forces threatening the fabric of reality as we conceive of it."It's a simple matter of wanting to make sure fans receive the best comic possible," explained Morrison. "I'm certain that I could ensure a new issue is released every month. But is it so hard to believe that I'd rather take the extra time to craft something that, rather than merely being appreciated in the moment and then discarded, instead leaves a lasting, meaningful impression in readers' minds? That will make them reconsider the world, lead them to cherish it and find new and fantastic sources of wonder in it?"

"These books are delayed for your benefit," continued Morrison, who paused and then added, "And when I say your benefit I obviously mean as a reader, and not because I couldn't write them due to the fact that I had to be present at some kind of hypothetical two week long banishing ritual to stop a malevolent spirit from robbing humanity of its ability to imagine."

When asked for clarification, Morrison responded, "Look, all I'm saying is that there is no such thing as disassociated mindforms existing on a plane of reality parallel and entwined with our own. And that these beings, which do not exist and you have no reason to worry about, are not driven by a hunger to split apart our universe until it becomes a disjointed mass of unconnected concepts and ideas, time is undone and meaningless, and they can scatter our psyches into the vacuum of non-forever and rebuild creation as if we had never been. Most of all I certainly am not involved in any form of hidden coordinated effort to fight back against their every plot."

Met with a room of blank stares and dropped jaws, Morrison added, "I'm not sure how to explain that more clearly."

"I don't want to point fingers," Morrison continued, "But there's this weird sense, and it often comes from the American press, that everyone and everything in Britain is somehow magical and we're all wizards. Simply because Harry Potter was written here, or something. And it's all fanciful nonsense."

"I'm getting tired of having to point out how Alan Moore doesn't actually draw eldritch energies from within his beard. He simply likes how running his hand through it helps him think, and is looking forward to dressing as Father Christmas once it goes completely white. And there's absolutely no truth to the old story about how we sent Neil Gaiman over to the States to monitor background levels of arcane power there. Or to the more recent hogwash about how his trips to China to research Journey to the West were all just a cover for a mission to forge an alliance with the eternal celestial dragon in our struggle with the nameless ones. And for the last time, Paul Cornell is most certainly not a Time Lord."

Morrison then abruptly stopped speaking and remained motionless for about five seconds, before remarking, "I'm afraid we're going to have to end it there. I apologize, but I'm needed elsewhere." He then hurried out of the room.

When approached later for comment on this story, writer Warren Ellis breathed fire directly into a reporter's face.