Last year, The Doors announced a collaboration with Z2 Comics on a graphic novel dubbed Morrison Hotel. Excerpts from the comic, set to arrive on March 16th and celebrate the 50th anniversary of the album, were published by Rolling Stone on Wednesday and provide a backstage snapshot from the band’s infamous March 1st, 1969 concert at Dinner Key Auditorium in Miami, FL.
The Doors’ Morrison Hotel comic comes as the latest in a string of collaborations between Z2 and notable artists including Sturgill Simpson, Grateful Dead, and Gorillaz. Together with cooperation from surviving members of The Doors, writer Leah Moore and illustrators from around the globe were able to translate some of the myth and mystery that surrounds the band into tangible imagery.
“The Doors have so much theatre, and swagger and storytelling, they’re a totally natural fit for a comic,” Moore told Rolling Stone last year about the graphic novel. “The lyrics they wrote, and the energy they played with — I think the songs don’t just lend themselves to the medium, they actually cry out to be comics.”
In the excerpts shared on Wednesday, the band faces multiple crises ahead of the concert as it appears that an unscrupulous concert promoter oversold the show by thousands of tickets. The Doors and their manager, Bill Siddons, confront the promoter all while a notably absent and freshly-bearded Jim Morrison boards a late flight to the show and flirts with flight attendants.
While the preview pages set the scene ahead of the band’s concert, Morrison’s onstage escapades that later got him arrested and charged with indecent exposure, profanity, and public drunkenness are not revealed in the excerpts. Morrison received a pardon for the indecent exposure charge in 2010 from outgoing Florida Governor Charlie Crist and a clemency board.
Check out the excerpts from The Doors’ forthcoming graphic novel from Z2 comics, Morrison Hotel, available on March 16th. Click here to pre-order.
[H/T Rolling Stone]