Gideon Stargrave - History

History

The first published Stargrave story appeared in Near Myths #3 (December 1978), as part one of "Gideon Stargrave in The Vatican Conspiracy", written and drawn by Morrison. Parts two and three were included back to back at the start of Near Myths #4 (1979), and ended with a teaser panel for "Gideon Stargrave in The Entropy Concerto". Near Myths was cancelled after issue five, before any more Stargrave stories were published, but according to Morrison there were "dozens of unpublished comics and prose stories" which he "wrote obsessively when was 17" which he subsequently found very embarrassing to read, calling it "pretty embarrassing stuff - the work of a seventeen year old who doesn't get out of the house".

Though unpublished, "Entropy Concerto" featured a second version of Stargrave, with a "Beatles '65 haircut and Swinging London vibe" which Morrison says "was much better, in that I can still read the stuff without cringing". In the early 1980s, Morrison and Tony O'Donnell went to London for a meeting with the publishers of Pssst! magazine, who said they wanted to publish Morrison's Gideon Stargrave stories as well as some of their other work. Morrison said "I'd done a new Gideon Stargrave story... it's my favourite one I've ever done in my life and it's never been seen anywhere." Like Near Myths though, Pssst! was cancelled before it was published, leading Morrison to "feel that was some kind of albatross". Stargrave's next appearance was in "Gideon Stargrave in Famine", a two page comic strip in Food for Thought (a British benefit comic to aid Ethiopian famine relief ) in 1985.

The character next made an appearance in Morrison's The Invisibles (Vol. 1, #17–19, 1995) as an alter-ego of King Mob, one of that title's main characters, who in literary terms is reported to have been based on Stargrave. In this incarnation, Stargrave is used by King Mob to confuse his enemies during interrogation. Gideon is a '70s spy modelled after James Bond and Jason King who spends every scene he appears in seducing his partner, and is supposedly the main character of King Mob's works as an author. In these sequence, we see not only the actual Stargrave story (quoting his earlier unpublished Stargrave stories directly) but King Mob's cover identity (or probable real world identity) as Gideon Starorzewski, who produces his work under the pen name Kirk Morrison.

This ties the real creator (Grant Morrison) in with his various fictional creations (Gideon Stargrave and King Mob/Gideon Starorzewski/Kirk Morrison) and bringing together the various creations in a metafictional conceit. Much of the premise of The Invisibles involves the philosophy that language is a perfectly acceptable method of creation so the notion that Gideon Stargrave is a fictional character does not preclude him being also a real person. Morrison has also said that he wrote "that Gideon Stargrave story which is kinda the last word on The Invisibles, where he just dissolves into the flashbulbs and that's Gideon's entry into the Supercontext, his death experience".

Stargrave appeared in Vertigo's Winter's Edge #1 (January 1998) in "And We're All Policemen" with piercings and a shaven head like King Mob, but wearing the trademark purple coat of his first incarnation from "Entropy in the U.K.". His fictional writer, Gideon Starorzewski, starred in its companion short story "I'm a Policeman" in Disco 2000 (1998). Winter's Edge #2 (January 1999) included "Dress to Kill" – cut out cardboard figures of Lord Fanny and King Mob, with alternative costumes, including the purple outfit for King Mob of "his teen fictional counterpart, GIDEON STARGRAVE, King of the Mods".