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Kill Your Boyfriend
A Vertigo cult classic returns with this new, third printing of KILL YOUR BOYFRIEND, written by Grant Morrison (FINAL CRISIS, THE INVISIBLES) and illustrated by Philip Bond (VIMANARAMA) and D'Israeli (THE SANDMAN). Originally published in 1995, KILL YOUR BOYFRIEND is an over-the-top black comedy of rebellion and teen romance topped with a heady mix of random violence and dark humor.
A British schoolgirl yearning for excitement joins up with an angry rebel boy intent on tearing down middle-class England. Through their violent, anti-authority joyride – filled with sex, drugs, and anarchy – Morrison offers a scathing, often-hilarious take on the British suburban landscape, where edgy behavior provides an escape from sanity. This new printing also includes Morrison's 1998 afterword to the story and the origami "fortune teller," with bizarre messages specially created by Morrison.
A British schoolgirl yearning for excitement joins up with an angry rebel boy intent on tearing down middle-class England. Through their violent, anti-authority joyride – filled with sex, drugs, and anarchy – Morrison offers a scathing, often-hilarious take on the British suburban landscape, where edgy behavior provides an escape from sanity. This new printing also includes Morrison's 1998 afterword to the story and the origami "fortune teller," with bizarre messages specially created by Morrison.
55 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
3 people are currently reading
683 people want to read
About the author
Grant Morrison
1,791 books4,566 followersGrant Morrison has been working with DC Comics for twenty five years, after beginning their American comics career with acclaimed runs on ANIMAL MAN and DOOM PATROL. Since then they have written such best-selling series as JLA, BATMAN and New X-Men, as well as such creator-owned works as THE INVISIBLES, SEAGUY, THE FILTH, WE3 and JOE THE BARBARIAN. In addition to expanding the DC Universe through titles ranging from the Eisner Award-winning SEVEN SOLDIERS and ALL-STAR SUPERMAN to the reality-shattering epic of FINAL CRISIS, they have also reinvented the worlds of the Dark Knight Detective in BATMAN AND ROBIN and BATMAN, INCORPORATED and the Man of Steel in The New 52 ACTION COMICS.
In their secret identity, Morrison is a "counterculture" spokesperson, a musician, an award-winning playwright and a chaos magician. They are also the author of the New York Times bestseller Supergods, a groundbreaking psycho-historic mapping of the superhero as a cultural organism. They divide their time between their homes in Los Angeles and Scotland.
In their secret identity, Morrison is a "counterculture" spokesperson, a musician, an award-winning playwright and a chaos magician. They are also the author of the New York Times bestseller Supergods, a groundbreaking psycho-historic mapping of the superhero as a cultural organism. They divide their time between their homes in Los Angeles and Scotland.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 93 reviews
July 5, 2023
Grant Morrison and Philip Bond's firmly tongue-in-cheek dark comedy centred around that eternal cliché of a 'good girl' falling for a 'bad boy'; this could have been a lot more innovative and interesting in my opinion, especially if it had stuck to the theme suggested by its title! 5 out of 12, Two Stars.
2013 read
2013 read
June 8, 2017
Cult Vandalism!
This backcover gives you the pith of the story.
Yet, don't go by the title . It is much, much deeper than that.
A one-shot story that handles the issue of self expression taking form of violence.
Rebellion of a girl who is in her teens and her idea of being cool is twisted. She comes from a nice family. But she is bored of this safe and comfortable life. In her own words, she is bored to death and she isn't 18 yet. Has a boyfriend but they are not intimately close.
This builds up inside her and frustrates her. A local bad guy offers a lucrative helping hand. She indulges in sexual experimentation and vandalism in her pursuit of fun. She dresses up for him for his approval. Why? Because that has been in her fantasies, something that were in the deepest recesses of her mind.
An opportunity opens the lid to all the things she couldn't do earlier. Here's a scene where she wears a skimpy dress for the bad guy she just met and seduces him.
Angst turns into crime and sin they commit. Adolescence blooms and sometimes takes form of mutiny. Not against anyone but restrictions. They burn up cars, join a group of freaks and the title - murders her boyfriend. Goes all out on self-destruction mode in the name of being a liberal!
Grant Morrison has done a commendable job in bringing out the irritation of a teenage. He is open on topics of conservative parents not gelling with the changing ideologies and palpitating fantasies of their young girl. Nothing matches, not their thinking, not the tone of their voices.
The bad guy frees her up from her predicament and what starts with flirting and enjoyment, rolls up into arson. Killing the boyfriend and rolling into anarchy - happens within hours.
We are defined by the choices we make.
How many of us can say that we haven't done anything in our teens that we are not proud of?
Such is this satirical story of cynical translation of being liberated. Downward spiral is the trajectory of such liberations.
Draws out the revolting thoughts that are parts of a 16-something.
This backcover gives you the pith of the story.
Yet, don't go by the title . It is much, much deeper than that.
A one-shot story that handles the issue of self expression taking form of violence.
Rebellion of a girl who is in her teens and her idea of being cool is twisted. She comes from a nice family. But she is bored of this safe and comfortable life. In her own words, she is bored to death and she isn't 18 yet. Has a boyfriend but they are not intimately close.
This builds up inside her and frustrates her. A local bad guy offers a lucrative helping hand. She indulges in sexual experimentation and vandalism in her pursuit of fun. She dresses up for him for his approval. Why? Because that has been in her fantasies, something that were in the deepest recesses of her mind.
An opportunity opens the lid to all the things she couldn't do earlier. Here's a scene where she wears a skimpy dress for the bad guy she just met and seduces him.
"I know what you're thinking. Rebellion is all very well but does it really include becoming a blonde bimbo? What you have to understand is that I'm not real anymore. I'm just a figment of his imagination. I'm no longer responsible."
Angst turns into crime and sin they commit. Adolescence blooms and sometimes takes form of mutiny. Not against anyone but restrictions. They burn up cars, join a group of freaks and the title - murders her boyfriend. Goes all out on self-destruction mode in the name of being a liberal!
Grant Morrison has done a commendable job in bringing out the irritation of a teenage. He is open on topics of conservative parents not gelling with the changing ideologies and palpitating fantasies of their young girl. Nothing matches, not their thinking, not the tone of their voices.
The bad guy frees her up from her predicament and what starts with flirting and enjoyment, rolls up into arson. Killing the boyfriend and rolling into anarchy - happens within hours.
We are defined by the choices we make.
How many of us can say that we haven't done anything in our teens that we are not proud of?
Such is this satirical story of cynical translation of being liberated. Downward spiral is the trajectory of such liberations.
Draws out the revolting thoughts that are parts of a 16-something.
June 23, 2017
A bored schoolgirl falls for a slightly older bad boy townie. Together, they go on a killing spree for shits and giggles! It can only end one way… and in Blackpool?!
Grant Morrison and Philip Bond’s Kill Your Boyfriend was an ok comic. Morrison, inspired by the real life case of Charles Starkweather, has fun taking the pee out of the middle class with his angry protagonists and he made me laugh a couple of times with his outrageousness (particularly that twist ending). It also feels like we’re getting a sense of what he was going for in The Invisibles when our outlaws yell at the pretentious artistes who pose and do nothing else to change the world.
Oddly for Morrison, it’s kinda one-note. Often his comics are trippy windows through his opened third eye with multiple subtexts and meta themes but this one is as straightforward as can be with just our main characters killing until they don’t. It’s a bit weak and stops being exciting before the end. I’m also not a fan of Bond’s blocky art.
Kill Your Boyfriend isn’t a bad comic but it’s definitely one of Grant Morrison’s minor works and not really a must-read for anyone but completist fans of this writer.
Grant Morrison and Philip Bond’s Kill Your Boyfriend was an ok comic. Morrison, inspired by the real life case of Charles Starkweather, has fun taking the pee out of the middle class with his angry protagonists and he made me laugh a couple of times with his outrageousness (particularly that twist ending). It also feels like we’re getting a sense of what he was going for in The Invisibles when our outlaws yell at the pretentious artistes who pose and do nothing else to change the world.
Oddly for Morrison, it’s kinda one-note. Often his comics are trippy windows through his opened third eye with multiple subtexts and meta themes but this one is as straightforward as can be with just our main characters killing until they don’t. It’s a bit weak and stops being exciting before the end. I’m also not a fan of Bond’s blocky art.
Kill Your Boyfriend isn’t a bad comic but it’s definitely one of Grant Morrison’s minor works and not really a must-read for anyone but completist fans of this writer.
August 25, 2020
Nihilistic Dionysusian killing spree from the heyday of 90s Vertigo before even movies made killing sprees cool!
Grant Morrison was so on fire in those days, and the punk AF art by Philip Bond, what a short and sweet graphic novel.
They don't make em like that anymore
Grant Morrison was so on fire in those days, and the punk AF art by Philip Bond, what a short and sweet graphic novel.
They don't make em like that anymore
September 8, 2013
'Kill Your Boyfriend' came out a year before Columbine. The eponymous Columbine. The tragic and fearful Columbine. It would be understandable in this post-Columbine, post-Vtech, post-9/11 world if a reader might have difficulty with some aspects of this story, but if art is war on another battlefront, Morrisson is a sniper behind enemy lines.
Like a sniper, his work is rarely pretty to see, skilled as it may be. It reminds us of the suddenness of this big, ugly world. Sometimes Morrison misses his mark, usually when he grows overly self aware. However, the lighthearted and straightforward tone of this book means he has little chance to derail his own story.
Morrisson is a prophet by way of pessimism. It seems that by expecting the worst from mankind, we can rarely be disappointed. However, like Chekhov, Morrisson is tempered by a firm belief in a single person riding over that bloody tide by strength of personality.
This need not mean the unattached, humorless anti-hero that is so often cast as Nietzsche's Ubermensch; Too often, we forget that Nietzsche was the philosopher who told us to love and seek beauty and dance, and that skepticism can free us from the static even as it reminds us why our heart aches.
Morrisson tells of growing up confused, self-unknown, with a need to scratch an itch without a place. Morrisson tends to find that place in an unlikely locale--be it a cybernetic dog or a homicidal teen girl.
Morrisson's search for beauty in all things horrific and horror in all things beautiful comes from his need to be different at any cost. In The Invisibles, this often interferes with our empathy or even our comprehension, but it is not so forced here.
If it upset you that 9/11 turned into the unquestioned Iraq war, or that the Vtech massacre will more likely result in a new book by Dr. Phil than in any change in how we treat each other, then perhaps it is time to take a little revenge. Perhaps it is time to sit back for a moment and wonder what it might be like to Kill Your Boyfriend.
My Suggested Readings in Comics
Like a sniper, his work is rarely pretty to see, skilled as it may be. It reminds us of the suddenness of this big, ugly world. Sometimes Morrison misses his mark, usually when he grows overly self aware. However, the lighthearted and straightforward tone of this book means he has little chance to derail his own story.
Morrisson is a prophet by way of pessimism. It seems that by expecting the worst from mankind, we can rarely be disappointed. However, like Chekhov, Morrisson is tempered by a firm belief in a single person riding over that bloody tide by strength of personality.
This need not mean the unattached, humorless anti-hero that is so often cast as Nietzsche's Ubermensch; Too often, we forget that Nietzsche was the philosopher who told us to love and seek beauty and dance, and that skepticism can free us from the static even as it reminds us why our heart aches.
Morrisson tells of growing up confused, self-unknown, with a need to scratch an itch without a place. Morrisson tends to find that place in an unlikely locale--be it a cybernetic dog or a homicidal teen girl.
Morrisson's search for beauty in all things horrific and horror in all things beautiful comes from his need to be different at any cost. In The Invisibles, this often interferes with our empathy or even our comprehension, but it is not so forced here.
If it upset you that 9/11 turned into the unquestioned Iraq war, or that the Vtech massacre will more likely result in a new book by Dr. Phil than in any change in how we treat each other, then perhaps it is time to take a little revenge. Perhaps it is time to sit back for a moment and wonder what it might be like to Kill Your Boyfriend.
My Suggested Readings in Comics
May 11, 2021
something about the title motivated me to pick up this short, violent, gritty, grimy graphic novel.
it's kind of like if daria morgendorffer or jane lane had the opportunity to turn their jaded teenage cynicism into an energetic and murderous venture of sex, drugs, and crime. but i was kind of bummed that it took meeting a GUY to make this story's protagonist into a rebel.
the ANGST!!! the unbearable DESIRE TO GET OUT!!!
the story feels pretty derivative, but i wasn't expecting the bizarre twist.
it's kind of like if daria morgendorffer or jane lane had the opportunity to turn their jaded teenage cynicism into an energetic and murderous venture of sex, drugs, and crime. but i was kind of bummed that it took meeting a GUY to make this story's protagonist into a rebel.
the ANGST!!! the unbearable DESIRE TO GET OUT!!!
the story feels pretty derivative, but i wasn't expecting the bizarre twist.
February 7, 2017
A Bonnie & Clyde-style tale that, although it feels derivative, still manages to entertain. Part Natural Born Killers, part A Clockwork Orange, part Heathers, this one-off story is told a lot more straight-forward than a good majority of Morrison’s other work. While he blazes no new territory in terms of a presentation or moral (if there is a moral, which the lack of might’ve been the point), the colorful art and take-no-prisoners humor keep this comic moving along at a breakneck speed, until we reach the darkly funny final panel.
June 1, 2016
I read this one because of the Phillip Bond artwork. Morrison on this, as he often is, is too concerned with a clever story to spend much time endearing the characters to the reader.
March 23, 2014
Kill Your Boyfriend is very simple and straight-forward for a Grant Morrison story. A school girls gets bored with her life and chooses to "break bad" by becoming partners in crime with a psycho.
Grant Morrison calls this book "a love story" in his afterword, but all I saw was a couple of uninspired characters breaking the law for shit and giggles. He addresses the issue of sex and violence desensitization in a surprisingly unsubtle manner and fails at his attempt to inject humor and pathos into a rather forgettable story.
Not Morrison's best!
Grant Morrison calls this book "a love story" in his afterword, but all I saw was a couple of uninspired characters breaking the law for shit and giggles. He addresses the issue of sex and violence desensitization in a surprisingly unsubtle manner and fails at his attempt to inject humor and pathos into a rather forgettable story.
Not Morrison's best!
September 24, 2021
Keby som to čítala 10 rokov dozadu, tak to asi odhodím so zhnusením a nudením sa. Teraz mi to prišlo ako fajn jednohubka. Čakala som viac-menej akčnú záležitosť, pritom je to vkusné dielo miestami plné filozofovania týkajúceho sa osobnosti. A samozrejme sexu, drog, vraždy a anarchie. Kresba je "kvalitný" i kvalitný oldschool.
July 23, 2014
If I read this as a teenager, when it first came out in 1995, I think I would have been far more drawn in by the depiction of frustration of hum-drum suburban life, the thirst for anarchy, and the romance of a Bonnie and Clyde "let's watch the world burn, together" kind of fling. It also would've been pre-Columbine, when this kind of senseless violence was more of a social commentary than an actual thing that could happen. And as Grant Morrison mentions in the Afterward, this comic was written before Tarantino-style violence was brought to the forefront of mainstream entertainment and this premise of lovers on a rampage hadn't yet been done to death.
It's probably unfair to compare a comic to a movie - a medium that is so different in length and scope to what this comic is trying to accomplish - but I loved Natural Born Killers and I can't help comparing the two. The chemistry between Micky and Mallory and the juiciness of the media frenzy and social commentary gave that movie so many layers to sink your teeth into. Having that movie in my mind while reading "Kill Your Boyfriend" probably caused me to find the characters and story to be a bit flat.
But teenage-me would've loved this comic.
It's probably unfair to compare a comic to a movie - a medium that is so different in length and scope to what this comic is trying to accomplish - but I loved Natural Born Killers and I can't help comparing the two. The chemistry between Micky and Mallory and the juiciness of the media frenzy and social commentary gave that movie so many layers to sink your teeth into. Having that movie in my mind while reading "Kill Your Boyfriend" probably caused me to find the characters and story to be a bit flat.
But teenage-me would've loved this comic.
April 24, 2012
very violent.. very twisted... very nice art...
Read the "afterward" in which Grant Morrison says that to him, this book signifies a relic of the quickly-becoming-nostalgic 90's, and a point in his life to some extent. I found that interesting.
Very, very twisted. Not the *most* violent comic I've ever read, but definitely twisted. Someone else commented this was published right before Columbine- that's interesting to think about too. Yes maybe it comes across as more shocking after the many real-life violent tragedies that came in the years after its publication, maybe this book speaks to the feelings of suppression of self-expression or rebellion etc which might have lead to those very events. Maybe this work would be so much more dangerous to write/publish today because it expresses more of a desire to enact violence than we care to stomach in our fiction right now, because we've seen too much of that desire realized since then... I'm not sure at this moment.
Was interesting to read some of Grant Morrison's older stuff though (that was the real reason I wanted to read it. When I bought it last week, the guy was like "ah, some old-school Grant Morrison" ha ha).
Read the "afterward" in which Grant Morrison says that to him, this book signifies a relic of the quickly-becoming-nostalgic 90's, and a point in his life to some extent. I found that interesting.
Very, very twisted. Not the *most* violent comic I've ever read, but definitely twisted. Someone else commented this was published right before Columbine- that's interesting to think about too. Yes maybe it comes across as more shocking after the many real-life violent tragedies that came in the years after its publication, maybe this book speaks to the feelings of suppression of self-expression or rebellion etc which might have lead to those very events. Maybe this work would be so much more dangerous to write/publish today because it expresses more of a desire to enact violence than we care to stomach in our fiction right now, because we've seen too much of that desire realized since then... I'm not sure at this moment.
Was interesting to read some of Grant Morrison's older stuff though (that was the real reason I wanted to read it. When I bought it last week, the guy was like "ah, some old-school Grant Morrison" ha ha).
March 4, 2014
Well it was interesting, that's for sure. Morrison's book here is pretty much 'help I'm stuck in a dead end life, and I'm not even 18 yet. I need something to shake up my life.'
I don't think this is meant to be a literal take on the events that happen, maybe just a metaphorical take on what could happen if you took things very far.
At one point the main character even says to us the readers that everything from this point forward is in the brain of the male lead character, his fantasies.
Near the end, we also see secrets revealed about the girl's parents, and we see, maybe she's not so bad to want to revolt against them and what they represent. One of the last reveals is kind of a whoa, creepy moment; but also gives that little 'OK see this is what could happen if you take it this far...maybe just revolt a little against the establishment, not go full out Bonnie-Clyde.
Still, an interesting piece of work, and Morrison's afterword is very revealing about what it means to him and where he identifies it, so I liked that.
It's not a bad read, but I didn't exactly have my socks blown off. This may again just be the fact that I didn't read it when it first was out.
I don't think this is meant to be a literal take on the events that happen, maybe just a metaphorical take on what could happen if you took things very far.
At one point the main character even says to us the readers that everything from this point forward is in the brain of the male lead character, his fantasies.
Near the end, we also see secrets revealed about the girl's parents, and we see, maybe she's not so bad to want to revolt against them and what they represent. One of the last reveals is kind of a whoa, creepy moment; but also gives that little 'OK see this is what could happen if you take it this far...maybe just revolt a little against the establishment, not go full out Bonnie-Clyde.
Still, an interesting piece of work, and Morrison's afterword is very revealing about what it means to him and where he identifies it, so I liked that.
It's not a bad read, but I didn't exactly have my socks blown off. This may again just be the fact that I didn't read it when it first was out.
October 22, 2014
My heart is broken but I have to be honest. Although I love Grant Morrison, this was just not my cup of tea. Even though I felt that this comic made some good points, it had me questioning what's the point of this whole story?! Again I did enjoy some parts of this story and it's message, but overall it just wasn't for me.
July 28, 2018
This was a Vertigo one-shot graphic novella. I finally read it recently and it seemed to do the same stuff that an Oliver Stone movie did in the 1990s: was it Natural Born Killers? This may have pre-dated it, too. I liked this for the fine comics storytelling of these creators, and the cartooning and comic art by Philip Bond.
Mildly recommended.
Mildly recommended.
January 14, 2021
Personally 3.5
Technically 3.5
This was pretty dark. But it was also a bit of a Starkweather retelling. Enjoyed it more than I thought I would.
Technically 3.5
This was pretty dark. But it was also a bit of a Starkweather retelling. Enjoyed it more than I thought I would.
July 7, 2023
This is a fantastic book. One of the things you gotta keep in mind when you’re reading is kind of the era it came out, I mean there was a blatant scene where this girl this guy kill her boyfriend they just shoot him. It’s pretty amazing I mean it’s really crazy there’s like a psychedelic bust, there’s lots of drugs, there’s references to DND. This comic is pretty amazing and it’s short. I mean, one of the things I like about Grant’s work sometimes is you know he won’t draw something out. This was his idea and this was it. It’s very compact and very short and he says what he wanted and gets out. When he has a lot to say about a certain subject he will, you know do something as large as The Invisibles but the beauty of his writing is he could do something like this too, which is just in and out so. Kill Your Boyfriend
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November 16, 2025Praticamente um zine punk com arte final.
August 5, 2019
Violencia, sexo, drogas, palabrotas… El amor no es solo un par de cosas bonitas plasmadas por un artista cursi, un enamorado irremediable o los grandes almacenes deseosos de vender en San Valentín. El amor también mueve a los actos más siniestros y perturbadores del ser humano. Por todo esto, cualquiera diría que Mata a tu novio es otra de las idas de olla de ese loco que es su autor Grant Morrison (Animal Man, Los Invisibles), y quizás lo sea, pero es algo más: el grito de todos esos sentimientos contradictorios que forman parte de la adolescencia, es un alarido de desesperación que cualquier persona ha bramado alguna vez cuando fue joven. Y todos sabemos que el amor es capaz de todo, tanto de lo bueno como de lo malo, y Mata a tu novio lo deja más que claro.
Este cómic trata sobre una adolescente que conoce a un chico malo en busca de un constante acto de rebeldía. Ese suceso, aparentemente tan simple o nimio, será la vía de escape para pasar de ser una chica normal y corriente a una criminal de una sociedad en una constante crisis de valores que la ha engendrado. El primer golpe que ella debe asestar para escapar de todo su mundo es acabar con su fracasado novio, un friki que nunca la ha satisfecho, ¿y cómo? Su nuevo chico tiene la solución: dispararle un par de balazos y acabar con él. Desde ese punto de partida, la degeneración de la joven no ha hecho más que comenzar y esta nueva pareja, unos Bonnie y Clyde de los nuevos tiempos, empiezan a toda velocidad, uniendo sexo descontrolado y drogas, un camino hacia un paraje tan habitado como es la autodestrucción.
Crítica completa http://makingofezine.com/2014/02/14/m...
Este cómic trata sobre una adolescente que conoce a un chico malo en busca de un constante acto de rebeldía. Ese suceso, aparentemente tan simple o nimio, será la vía de escape para pasar de ser una chica normal y corriente a una criminal de una sociedad en una constante crisis de valores que la ha engendrado. El primer golpe que ella debe asestar para escapar de todo su mundo es acabar con su fracasado novio, un friki que nunca la ha satisfecho, ¿y cómo? Su nuevo chico tiene la solución: dispararle un par de balazos y acabar con él. Desde ese punto de partida, la degeneración de la joven no ha hecho más que comenzar y esta nueva pareja, unos Bonnie y Clyde de los nuevos tiempos, empiezan a toda velocidad, uniendo sexo descontrolado y drogas, un camino hacia un paraje tan habitado como es la autodestrucción.
Crítica completa http://makingofezine.com/2014/02/14/m...
March 23, 2016
Despite the crime and violence, this one-shot is a fun break in your day with some dark humour, unexpected turns, and a (predictable) plot twist thrown in for good measure. Not as good as Vimanarama (see review), but still worth a read.
Read as part of Kill Your Boyfriend/Vimanarama Deluxe
Read as part of Kill Your Boyfriend/Vimanarama Deluxe
June 26, 2020
This really failed to grab me and it's a pity. I like violence but this was just very blah for me. It made me think of the movie Heathers, which I liked a lot, but someone how it failed to entertain me.
Although, all these comments and no one is going to mention that they were siblings? Did everyone miss that he was the baby her parents gave up before she was born? Because that was just an extra weird thing that happened in there.
Although, all these comments and no one is going to mention that they were siblings? Did everyone miss that he was the baby her parents gave up before she was born? Because that was just an extra weird thing that happened in there.
October 7, 2019
would have liked it better if I'd read it when I was a bit younger. Yet, it is still pretty fun, and the art is absolutely amazing. Would give it 3/5 but D'Israeli and Vozzo's beautiful work deserve a star for themselves.
November 28, 2014
Ironic, dark humor written by Grant Morrison and beautifully illustrated by Phillip Bond.
January 11, 2016
Every guy who isn't a coward and who was born in 1995-onwards has already seen it all. That's why I'm attracted more to stories that AREN'T just rapid drug-sex-violence romps. That's why I like things that are more about meaning than titillation. That's why I like things that have a deep message. What I like about Grant Morrison is that he recognizes that stories full of violence, drugs, sex, etc are fun, and that fun can be a vehicle to deeper meaning.
Like no other artist that I know of Grant Morrison combines standard modern mindless degenerate entertainment with provoking philosophy and a good message. What's awesome is that he is sincere. He puts violence, drugs, sex, etc in his stories because he recognizes that these things are escapist thrills. He goes over the top in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way. But the messages and meanings in his stories are 100% sincere. He really does want to challenge his readers, he really does have a point he wants to make.
The message of "Kill Your Boyfriend" is a complicated one for a story about doing drugs and blowing up buildings. The system gives us a pre-packaged identities we feel like we can't escape from and these pre-packaged identities are obstacles to genuine self-knowledge. Even worse, the system gives us a narrative for our lives that we get swept up by like leaves by the wind. The narrative has already predicted our future, so we feel like we can go through our entire lives on autopilot since every decision has already been made for us. Most insidiously of all, the pre-packaged self that we internalize thinks that the decisions made for him by the narrative are actually HIS decisions, even though they may not be his interests at all.
Youthful political extremists (I'm talking Anarchists, Communists, even Libertarians...) dream of a society that doesn't try to do this to the people who are participants in it, but that dream is thoroughly impossible. The art students in this book represent that. Society, in order to ensure its own survival, will have to create pre-packaged identities with pre-determined narratives. It is the very nature of society. If there were only FOUR humans on planet earth, and they wanted to create a stable society for themselves and their children, this problem would still arise. It's just inevitable.
The Greeks, who were of course much wiser than we are (why do you think so much Western culture is just english-translated, re-packaged Greek culture?), recognized this problem in frustration and because of that they created the Cult of Dionysus, the Greek God of Wine and the patron saint of Drugs, Sex & Rock'N'Roll, The worship of Dionysos consisted of getting into ecstatic frenzies were the conventional self (who is restrained by internalized societal norms, conscience, etc) is completely lost and in its place is a hedonistic, uninhibited person who fulfills its every desire for pleasure and pain at every whim and regardless of the cost to the self.
The female participants of the Dionysos cult were called Maenads. The female protagonist of Kill Your Boyfriend is an archetypical Maenad: She hates the restraints put on her by society and fantasizes about killing people and having sex. When she meets the male protagonist of this story (who is essentially an Avatar of Dionysos, though he is unaware of this status) she gets initiated into the mysteries of hedonism and begins her sensual enlightenment.
I respect and am perfectly aware of the power of Drugs, Sex, Rock'n'Roll, Violence - all those Dionysian things - to transform the self. The REASON why they do those things is because they disrupt the normal thinking patterns of the conventional self, and that gives us a chance to create a new self in its place, or at least conceive of an inner world without it or beyond it. There actually was a time when those four forbidden fruits had a quite positive effect on me, but I abandoned all four a long time ago. I don't think that any of my friends who remained on that Dionysian path have benefitted at all. In fact, I think they have been harmed by staying on that path.
Essentially, while those four forbidden fruits have the power to disrupt the self, they do so in an extremely chaotic way and there is no guarantee that the change will necessarily be a better one. It is a wanton massacre of everything within yourself, but how can one truly know that when you go about killing things inside you that you don't kill the best things about you? But the risk will sometimes still have to be taken, because there are things inside of us that only Dionysos can kill. It is like playing with fire. When you play with fire, you're gonna get burned. But you rather or not you get INCINERATED when you
play with fire, well, that's all up to you!
The girl in Kill Your Boyfriend is the kind of girl who needs to play with fire in order to burn the inner cage and let her demons run amok for a while. Kill Your Boyfriend is a story about Dionysos's mesmerizing power over the young. But Grant isn't going to totally romanticize Dionysos and the four fruits in his garden, because he is too intelligent for that. Instead it is completely ambiguous over rather or not the unnamed girl in this story has actually changed for the better. We know she's changed, though. But that's the kind of transformative power that intoxication is. It will change you, sure, but it won't change you in a specific direction. If you want to change in a direction that you know will positive, you will have to engage in the blissful practices of meditation and prayer. You'll have to take up delighting in the worship of the Celestial Gods instead of the Chthonic Gods.
The truth repeated by the girl in this story multiple times is that she realizes that the individual self, your personal identity, is a fictitious illusion created partially by yourself and partially by others. Once you realize this you are free to change it however you wish. The self becomes a ball of clay in your hands you can mould into whatever the hell you damn feel at any given point in time, anytime. But The Buddha realized this truth, too, and taught it, and he realized it without drugs or alcohol. That alone proves that while intoxication CAN help you on the quest for truth, you don't know FOR SURE if it will or not. But it will always remain necessary for some people. Eventually, I hope, those under Dionysos's power will realize the precise moment when they no longer need him as I did, and then they will begin to walk down a more sober path.
All in all, Kill Your Boyfriend has a ton of youthful energy. You get swept away by it from the very first page and you stick with it until the passionate energy of the characters has exhausted itself.
Like no other artist that I know of Grant Morrison combines standard modern mindless degenerate entertainment with provoking philosophy and a good message. What's awesome is that he is sincere. He puts violence, drugs, sex, etc in his stories because he recognizes that these things are escapist thrills. He goes over the top in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way. But the messages and meanings in his stories are 100% sincere. He really does want to challenge his readers, he really does have a point he wants to make.
The message of "Kill Your Boyfriend" is a complicated one for a story about doing drugs and blowing up buildings. The system gives us a pre-packaged identities we feel like we can't escape from and these pre-packaged identities are obstacles to genuine self-knowledge. Even worse, the system gives us a narrative for our lives that we get swept up by like leaves by the wind. The narrative has already predicted our future, so we feel like we can go through our entire lives on autopilot since every decision has already been made for us. Most insidiously of all, the pre-packaged self that we internalize thinks that the decisions made for him by the narrative are actually HIS decisions, even though they may not be his interests at all.
Youthful political extremists (I'm talking Anarchists, Communists, even Libertarians...) dream of a society that doesn't try to do this to the people who are participants in it, but that dream is thoroughly impossible. The art students in this book represent that. Society, in order to ensure its own survival, will have to create pre-packaged identities with pre-determined narratives. It is the very nature of society. If there were only FOUR humans on planet earth, and they wanted to create a stable society for themselves and their children, this problem would still arise. It's just inevitable.
The Greeks, who were of course much wiser than we are (why do you think so much Western culture is just english-translated, re-packaged Greek culture?), recognized this problem in frustration and because of that they created the Cult of Dionysus, the Greek God of Wine and the patron saint of Drugs, Sex & Rock'N'Roll, The worship of Dionysos consisted of getting into ecstatic frenzies were the conventional self (who is restrained by internalized societal norms, conscience, etc) is completely lost and in its place is a hedonistic, uninhibited person who fulfills its every desire for pleasure and pain at every whim and regardless of the cost to the self.
The female participants of the Dionysos cult were called Maenads. The female protagonist of Kill Your Boyfriend is an archetypical Maenad: She hates the restraints put on her by society and fantasizes about killing people and having sex. When she meets the male protagonist of this story (who is essentially an Avatar of Dionysos, though he is unaware of this status) she gets initiated into the mysteries of hedonism and begins her sensual enlightenment.
I respect and am perfectly aware of the power of Drugs, Sex, Rock'n'Roll, Violence - all those Dionysian things - to transform the self. The REASON why they do those things is because they disrupt the normal thinking patterns of the conventional self, and that gives us a chance to create a new self in its place, or at least conceive of an inner world without it or beyond it. There actually was a time when those four forbidden fruits had a quite positive effect on me, but I abandoned all four a long time ago. I don't think that any of my friends who remained on that Dionysian path have benefitted at all. In fact, I think they have been harmed by staying on that path.
Essentially, while those four forbidden fruits have the power to disrupt the self, they do so in an extremely chaotic way and there is no guarantee that the change will necessarily be a better one. It is a wanton massacre of everything within yourself, but how can one truly know that when you go about killing things inside you that you don't kill the best things about you? But the risk will sometimes still have to be taken, because there are things inside of us that only Dionysos can kill. It is like playing with fire. When you play with fire, you're gonna get burned. But you rather or not you get INCINERATED when you
play with fire, well, that's all up to you!
The girl in Kill Your Boyfriend is the kind of girl who needs to play with fire in order to burn the inner cage and let her demons run amok for a while. Kill Your Boyfriend is a story about Dionysos's mesmerizing power over the young. But Grant isn't going to totally romanticize Dionysos and the four fruits in his garden, because he is too intelligent for that. Instead it is completely ambiguous over rather or not the unnamed girl in this story has actually changed for the better. We know she's changed, though. But that's the kind of transformative power that intoxication is. It will change you, sure, but it won't change you in a specific direction. If you want to change in a direction that you know will positive, you will have to engage in the blissful practices of meditation and prayer. You'll have to take up delighting in the worship of the Celestial Gods instead of the Chthonic Gods.
The truth repeated by the girl in this story multiple times is that she realizes that the individual self, your personal identity, is a fictitious illusion created partially by yourself and partially by others. Once you realize this you are free to change it however you wish. The self becomes a ball of clay in your hands you can mould into whatever the hell you damn feel at any given point in time, anytime. But The Buddha realized this truth, too, and taught it, and he realized it without drugs or alcohol. That alone proves that while intoxication CAN help you on the quest for truth, you don't know FOR SURE if it will or not. But it will always remain necessary for some people. Eventually, I hope, those under Dionysos's power will realize the precise moment when they no longer need him as I did, and then they will begin to walk down a more sober path.
All in all, Kill Your Boyfriend has a ton of youthful energy. You get swept away by it from the very first page and you stick with it until the passionate energy of the characters has exhausted itself.
January 8, 2024
Grant Morrison's and Phillip Bond's nihilistic, postmodern take on the Bonnie & Clyde story is serviceably entertaining but struggles to really get its point across. The sociopolitical environment of the middle class in the United Kingdom is the backdrop to Kill Your Boyfriend, but most of the exploration is very surface level - though that is likely the product of this being such a brief story. The plot centers on a bored secondary school girl who becomes infatuated by a local bad boy. But the pair quickly get involved in a crime spree that escalates quickly from petty vandalism to a few murders. The motivations are never clear, but it's clear that Morrison wanted to be tongue-in-cheek about the way violence by disaffected working class people is portrayed across media. It's a fair bit meta in this way, but the execution is murky at best. Phillip Bond's artwork is nice enough, but nothing that really stands out either.
This isn't terrible by any means, but it's also not very good either. Morrison fans may get a bit more out of this, but it also isn't as esoteric as more of their other works can be.
This isn't terrible by any means, but it's also not very good either. Morrison fans may get a bit more out of this, but it also isn't as esoteric as more of their other works can be.
March 26, 2021
A pretty similar plot to both films: "Natural Born Killers" and "Badlands" (wrongly called Heartlands in the author's afterword). As is pointed out in the afterword this novel pre-dates Natural Born killers.
A fairly normal lower middle-class girl becomes infatuated with bad lad I think he's unnamed or called Boy. Petty vandalism, becomes murder and it soon escalates even further with the couple going on the run.
The art style draws comparisons to Morrison's own The Invisibles as well as Tank Girl (no surprises given Philip Bond and D'Israeli have worked on both). The comic is described as a work of satire and humour wise it has the anarchic streak of 2000 AD and Lord Horror; but arguably doesn't go as far or manage to be as cynical as those.
I found it enjoyable, but not a must read. It's a quick read and less intensive than something like Ghost World. It's a familiar Bonnie & Clyde story, but done with a fair dose of panache.
A fairly normal lower middle-class girl becomes infatuated with bad lad I think he's unnamed or called Boy. Petty vandalism, becomes murder and it soon escalates even further with the couple going on the run.
The art style draws comparisons to Morrison's own The Invisibles as well as Tank Girl (no surprises given Philip Bond and D'Israeli have worked on both). The comic is described as a work of satire and humour wise it has the anarchic streak of 2000 AD and Lord Horror; but arguably doesn't go as far or manage to be as cynical as those.
I found it enjoyable, but not a must read. It's a quick read and less intensive than something like Ghost World. It's a familiar Bonnie & Clyde story, but done with a fair dose of panache.
March 28, 2019
Well, this is garbage to say the least. It does not matter how much Grant tries in vain to adorn it as a social critic or a retelling of a myth, it is just the same of the evil nasty character is cool unlike the human race and its tendency to benevolences and altruism, which seems as nothing but a thing to be completely abhorred by the critical thinking of real decent people: read Morrison.
The plot is a deep as this: young girl meets a sociopath lad, they have sex, they meet other freaks and have sex with them and kill people. At the end, they are fighting the establishment. Even real great authors who usually are outsiders and critical of capitalism like Alan Moore would never come to this. But then Moore is a real genius.
The plot is a deep as this: young girl meets a sociopath lad, they have sex, they meet other freaks and have sex with them and kill people. At the end, they are fighting the establishment. Even real great authors who usually are outsiders and critical of capitalism like Alan Moore would never come to this. But then Moore is a real genius.
February 23, 2020
I'm done with Morrison's own stuff but would probably read him again on a Batman or British character. He's just too predictable with all his anarchy and HIS mostly extreme characters annoy me.
I didn't like the story- at least the way he told it BUT this book did give me something that specifically interests me. He uses dialogue to spotlight some of England's sociopolitical issues that informed and interested me. I hadn't realized that they were -and probably still are- witnessing their country rapidly turning into a museum and attraction geared for tourists at the expense of the citizens.
I didn't like the story- at least the way he told it BUT this book did give me something that specifically interests me. He uses dialogue to spotlight some of England's sociopolitical issues that informed and interested me. I hadn't realized that they were -and probably still are- witnessing their country rapidly turning into a museum and attraction geared for tourists at the expense of the citizens.
April 3, 2025
As a 90s punk coming of age film this rocks. It’s what Y.A. should be. Why’s everything so sanitary now? How can you make a novel as punk as these images of a teen girl shredding her homework and sitting on her desk in her underwear, having decapitated her teacher and holding an SMG, I think the edit I'd make is sticky, shiny blood covering her like in the automatic gun massacre in 'Battle Royale.' The way a a blood soaked character looks in a vintage Japanese movie, or I guess Kill Bill... That’s a now old school badass girl. It doesn’t make being in your underwear cool, it just captures how it’s preferable over a uniform. More of us is present.
It has the voice of a very good British movie.
“He’d gunned down my whole future.”
Written while Morrison travelled New Zealand!
Joe Orton's plays to be read soon...
It has the voice of a very good British movie.
“He’d gunned down my whole future.”
Written while Morrison travelled New Zealand!
Joe Orton's plays to be read soon...
November 2, 2020
Esta es otra de esas obras "de culto" pero de culto a un autor. En este caso el excepcional Grant Morrison. Nos embarcamos en un Road trip variopinto por Inglaterra dónde se nos plantea desde un asesinato hasta aspectos de trascendencia espiritual. Pero repito solo para seguidores acérrimos de Morrison. Los demás irse con cuidado.
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