Lorin Morgan-Richards

Richards attributes his interest in the Weird West genre was partly based on watching The Wild Wild West with Robert Conrad, a childhood hero whom he corresponded with in youth and as an adult on Conrad’s radio show.

Further, it has been found that Marcil d’Hirson Garron is an anagram of Lorin Morgan-Richards.

Imperfectualism is an anti-art treatise by Lorin Morgan-Richards, using the pen name Marcil d’Hirson Garron, and first published in January 2020. The book is notable for conceptualizing an avant-garde art movement of the 21st century, that is rooted in both Dadaism and Surrealism, but is crafted from organic or handmade processes meant to confuse automated production that is focused on perfection. Richards defines Impefectualism as art that cannot be easily replicated by machine. An imperfectualist looks to slow automation through their art.

Richards announced on social media in June 2018 that he was re-releasing previous albums and upcoming tracks under the new moniker Elder Moon.

Since 2018, Richards has syndicated his series The Goodbye Family on Tapas as well as through his social media.

In February 2018, artwork started daily on social media under the name Marcil d’Hirson Garron, with the artist coining their style as Imperfectualism. The artwork is free of precision and appears as minimalistic inked line drawings, however detail is seen hidden between the lines.

Since 2017, Richards has released his comic collections on a nearly quarterly basis, growing his audience, and solely focusing on The Goodbye Family and his Weird West brand. In an interview in 2019, he announced an early 2020 release of his second novel The Goodbye Family and the Great Mountain saying:

Between 2015 and 2018 Richards ran two weekly cartoons on Steamkat, a comic strip site, The Goodbye Family and The Noodle Rut. Richards won the 2016 Official Tasty Nugget award for his illustrated story Sad Lost Doll.

A Raven Above Press was founded in 2009 by Richards with a focus on printing his illustrated stories and promoting other authors and illustrators of Celtic and Native American origin. The press also became a catalyst for producing cultural events and art exhibits. Notably, the Los Angeles St. David's Day Festival. On August 1, 2013, Celtic Family Magazine hit the newsstands with a release party in Cardiff, Wales. Richards was the founder and publisher of Celtic Family Magazine from its inception in 2013 to its hiatus in 2017.

Richards became heavily involved in the Welsh-American community after the closure of the Welsh Presbyterian Church in December 2012. Before this, Richards had helped coordinate an Eisteddfod at Barnsdall Art Park in 2011. Feeling a need to fill the void of losing the church as a cultural center, Richards founded the Los Angeles St. David's Day Festival, an annual event taking place on or around March 1 celebrating Wales. The first festival took place on March 1, 2013. Singer and harpist Siobhan Owen headlined the large-scale event. In conjunction with the festival, Richards began producing Celtic Family Magazine, a nationally distributed print and digital publication on Celtic interests.

History was made at the film series on February 25, 2010, at the screening of Lost Nation: The Ioway when representatives of the Southern Ioway and Northern Ioway tribes gathered with Tongva leaders, making it the first time a meeting took place between Southern California and Midwestern Native American Nations.

Richards conceptualized most of The Goodbye Family characters in 2009 during a trip to the UK and France with his wife, although they were mentioned before this in his western novel Me’ma and the Great Mountain. Richards explains "I took a diary on the trip in order to write my second novel The Goodbye Family.

Between 2009 and 2013, Richards was bookbinding his limited edition versions of each title with runs equaling 50 to 400. These collectible books were typically oversewn by hand with a faux leather hard backing and linen pages inside. In an interview he states:

The film series in partnership with AIM Santa Barbara held a community birthday celebration at Nahui Ohlin in Los Angeles for Leonard Peltier on September 12, 2009, with an update on his status and how the public could get involved to petition his release. Richards spoke to a reporter: "This is all grassroots. Everyone's voice counts. The time is now because Barack Obama, our president, had said it's not the president that actually makes the change, it's going to be our pressure upon the president that will make the change." The event was followed in December by a screening of Warrior: The Life of Leonard Peltier with discussion afterward by Ben Carnes, members of AIM Santa Barbara, as well as friends and family.

Between 2008 and 2012, Richards partnered with Native American and Indigenous groups in Los Angeles to establish Bringing the Circle Together, a free monthly film series hosted at the Japanese American National Museum. The series offered a central gathering place to screen documentaries by and about Indigenous people while providing historical narratives with guest speakers, and art and cultural demonstrations. Special guests included Makana, Saginaw Grant, Douglas Miles, Blase Bonpane, among others.

In 2002, Richards moved to Los Angeles to start over where he refocused his artistic direction into writing and illustrating, which he said: "did not need the expenses of my past but only a pen and paper." While his novel Me’ma and the Great Mountain (2012) began drafts as early as 2002, it was Simon Snootle and Other Small Stories that became his first book release in 2009.

Between 1993-2003, Richards received an AA Degree in Liberal Arts at Cuyahoga Community College and credited his Anthropology Professor Mark Lewine as a mentor. During this time, Richards also achieved minor success in producing music projects containing modern dance and theater, and befriended and collaborated with artist Textbeak. "I first attended Tri-C Western campus where my focus was on Liberal Arts. At the time, I kept a journal of random thoughts, doodles, and lyrics and used the filter of music as my art. So, the bulk of my classes were in this field of study. I made connections with other artists who shared similar passions, and we were all eager to form various projects of expression. I moved to Lakewood to be closer to the performance spaces and switched to Tri-C Metro where I was awakened out of my shell by an Anthropology teacher named Dr. Mark Lewine." In 1999, Richards solo album ENKI and subsequent live production were based on Zecharia Sitchin's book The Twelfth Planet. The show premiered in Cleveland, Ohio under the choreography of Michael Medcalf. Native American musical act Shouting Mountain opened the evening. In 2001, Richards followed the success of ENKI with the production of An Occurrence Remembered, influenced by the metaphysical war writings of Ambrose Bierce. The performance premiered in New York City. Richards reflects on the performance: "Rehearsals were underway when 9-11 happened and I recall we continued only for our own therapy of the situation, knowing theater-goers were not going out. It was a tremendous performance, but it financially broke me."

Lorin Morgan-Richards (born 16 February 1975) is an American author, illustrator, and composer, primarily known for his young adult fiction and Weird West series The Goodbye Family. He is also the founder, vocalist and songwriter of the music project Elder Moon.

Richards interest in Native American and American Western history began in childhood. "I remember my first book as a child was The Indians Knew by Tillie S. Pine, an early reader from 1965 explaining the cultural ways and historical resourcefulness of Native Americans and how they are applied in the sciences today."

Richards Great Uncle was Elliott D. Canonge who worked with the Comanche and Inuit. On his mother's side, Richards ancestor was the 19th-century Welsh-American poet Robert Dennison Morgan. Robert's father (Richards direct ancestor) John Morgan left the Tredegar area of Wales and emigrated to southern Ohio in the early part of the 1800s.