This is the epilogue to a series of posts looking at why Alan Moore doesn’t like Grant Morrison.

Part 1: Grant Morrison’s First Ten Years of Comics (1978-1987)

Part 2: Karen Berger, the Berger Books, and Vertigo (1981-1993)

Part 3: Grant Morrison Writes Spoofs About Alan Moore and Says Nice Things (1980’s-2010’s)

Part 4: Comics Written by Alan Moore, then by Grant Morrison (1980’s-2010’s)

Part 5: Grant Morrison Says a Lot of Things about Alan Moore (1980’s-2010’s)

Part 6: Alan Moore Says What He Thinks of Grant Morrison and Morrison Issues a Fierce Rebuttal (2012)

Part 7: Alan Moore Describes the “Persistence of Grant Morrison” and Morrison Shuts Up About Moore (2014-2018)

This last part doesn’t have anything to do with Alan Moore, but it offers insight as to how Grant Morrison’s memory can sometimes be selective.

Brendan McCarthy is the artist who designed the characters for Zenith in 1987, Morrison’s first major work.

Here are McCarthy’s thoughts on one of Morrison’s most celebrated creations, Danny the Street.

Danny the Street, initially developed by Grant Morrison from an idea by Brendan McCarthy

BRENDAN MCCARTHY: Grant asked me to design stuff for ‘Kill Krull Krew’ (I think it was called) and Doom Patrol. I designed lots of the original designs for DP, and maybe a year later Grant bumped into me at a British comic convention and told me he was having trouble coming up with a good HQ for the team. We chatted and had a laugh and at some point, I suggested a transient transvestite street called ‘Danny The Street’, (which was based on The Beatles’ terraced houses in ‘Help!’ and Danny La Rue, a bizarre transvestite lounge-singer act seen on British TV in our younger days). Grant added the bunting and written notes in the windows etc and made it all work.

He gave me a credit in the issue of Doom Patrol that DTS debuted in. But curiously, Grant has subsequently claimed that he invented Danny The Street whilst walking backwards around Paris in a Situationist hash-trance… or something. And that’s annoying to me, as he can’t admit that what many consider to be the best idea in Doom Patrol wasn’t his.

You need to take what Grant says about Zenith and his earlier career with a pinch of salt. There’s a lot of revisionist legend-buffing going on.[1]

Danny the Street, retroactively created by Grant Morrison “whilst walking backwards around Paris in a Situationist hash-trance… or something.”

SOURCE

[1] The Curious Case of Brendan McCarthy’s Paradax… And Zenith (2013)

The images above are the property of their respective owners and are presented here for not-for-profit, educational purposes only, under the fair use doctrine of the copyright laws of the United States of America. The lyrics at the very top are from the song “Blame It On The Tetons” by Modest Mouse.