through fortune & flame

People scatter but I freeze, and the first thing I hear is the sound of heavy boots, and I hear metal and I hear purpose—and I see King Mob. This is exciting because it's like seeing Batman rip past you in the Batmobile, only this is better because Batman and the Batmobile don't exist, but King Mob does—because The Invisibles is not a work of fiction but an actual account of actual events, and I belleve every word of it. You believe it too, if you know him, and you know him if you love his work. I spent three weeks trying to figure out how to write this introduction, like a puzzle, trying to crack some code explaining to you, with oocasional poetry, why you already love the book you're holding, why we both love it. But this is all I need to say:

The Invisibles is a bullet, made of liquid silver, exploding through the skulls of a thousand teenage idols, passing through me, passing through you.

Changing the both of us.

Technicolor. Goliath.

Faster than something faster than the speed of light.

There is a misconception that Grant Morrison's work is the product of psychedelic drug use. People believe this because it makes for a good story and it's easy to explain, and because the truth is a threat—the truth is that his work is the product of an individual who is completely realized, fully formed, and 100 percent fearless.

Grant Morrison is my friend. He has inspired me since l was 15, and he is more special to me than almost anyone else I know. Doom Patrol made me a fan, but The Invisibles made me terrified of what the human brain was capable of, and in awe of what an individual could become.

I'm in my kitchen and it's 2011. The sun is going down and Grant is telling me how he summoned John Lennon, but he didn`t channel him—he was very specific about that. He tells me it was simple and that it really happened, because it did. He sat in a room with his Beatles records spread out and his shiny black boots on, and he listened. And in my kitchen, he explains:

"I just pushed it all away, tuned it all out. "Everything that wasn't John Lennon. "Everything that wasn't love."

He says it again and he smiles. He talks like this all the time. And he smiles when he says it, not in arrogance but in the joy of discovery. Things that existed for him to scare from their hiding places—little truths and rubies—he finds, and then hands to you.

This is Grant handing you a grenade. Here's how he handed me mine:

I'm in Glasgow and it's 2006. I'm out from the bowels of the Barrowlands, and a big gray Glasgow sky gently spits on everything, as it often does. A man in a suit with a shaved head waits by the open door of a very fast car, hands in the pockets of his trench coat, sunglasses in the rain, and he smiles.

"Get in," he says.

So I did. I never got out.

And I can't wait to see where he takes me next.