GRANT MORRISON AND DEEPAK CHOPRA

July 27, 2008 on 5:58 pm | In Comics, San Diego Comic Con |

Virgin Comics Chief Creative Officer Gotham Chopra started off the panel by introducing the stars of the show: Grant Morrison and Deepak Chopra.

Gotham opened the panel by asking Deepak what is the soul and asked Morrison to talk about superheroes.
“As you’re listening to me, turn your attention to who is listening,” instructed Deepak. “Do you feel a presence? If you do, that’s your soul. It’s not your mind. That’s the voice saying, ‘I wish I’d gone to the bathroom before.’ Your mind is a conversation.”

“Which brings us onto superheroes, I guess,” said Morrison. “The superhero, I feel ask if it’s rising in conscious as a desperate way to rise out of the situation we’re in right now.”
Morrison referenced an All-Star Superman issue that displayed human history and its attempts to visually depict the superhuman—from Krishna to Superman.
“That imaginative concept is actually one o fthe best ways out of the deathtrap western culture has gotten itself into,” added Morrison. “This whole thing to me is about the stories we try to tell each other and that I try to tell in comics.”

Gotham then asked the panelists to talk about the role mythology in culture today.
“We read Superman comics and we start looking at what the actual problems are and what powers we have to stop them,” said Morrison. “For me, the fact that the superhero is coming through is a good thing.”

“The field of human consciousness is a field of infinite possibilities,” said Deepak. “It’s beyond your imagination. Yet the best we can do is qualify or represent the infinite through a symbol. The symbolic expression of that is what we call a superhero because that superhero has dormant potentials that you have, that we all have.”

“If you want a more close-up view of it, think about yourself sitting in that chair,” said Morrison. “We’re all one thing. And every single one of us has the potential to influence that one thing.”

“You have to admit, this panel is always so different than any other one out there,” joked Gotham.

Gotham referenced the various characters the two addressed with their particular works of fiction—Batman, Superman, Buddha and Jesus—and asked how they all connect.
“I think the theme here—Batman, Superman, Jesus, Buddha—is redemption and resurrection and death,” said Deepak. In order to recreate something, to lift yourself to a higher existence, you have to let something die. The other theme is the constant battle between good and evil.
“These are cosmic forces. If you had only good and creation, there would be no universe,” continued Deepak. “If they were only destructive forces, then the universe would disappear in the black hole.
The good guys have to keep winning, but they can never win.”
Deepak went on to explain that the universe needs the tension between good and evil—the two keep each other moving forward.

A trailer also played a trailer for Morrison’s upcoming project with Virgin Comics, MBX, a digitally animated film that presents a re-imaging of the Mahabharata, the Hindu myth telling the story of an epic war and the Hindu deity of Krishna.
“To me, it’s part of the whole exchange that we’re talking about, with Deepak doing a story about Christ and me doing a story about Indian myth,” said Morrison. “It’s time for us to be doing this cross-cultural swapping.”

Before the video started some technical difficulties that left the room dark staring a black screen.
“We are now staring at the field of pure potential,” laughed Morrison for the trailer started up.

Morrison explained that when researching the story of the Mahabharata, he discovered many of the characters represent the exact idea of the superhuman and the potential within all of us.

Questions then opened to the audience.