From: [b--b--k] at [mack.rt66.com] (Bob Kelly)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.alternative
Subject: The Invisibles Semi Exposed #2
Date: 10 Jul 1995 22:46:52 -0600


Subject: The Invisibles Semi-Exposed #2

The Invisibles Semi-Exposed
The Meanderings and Thoughts of 
Grant Morrison's The Invisibles
Published by DC/Vertigo

Issue #2, Down and Out in Heaven and Hell
"They're using our televisions! They're using our satellites!  They're
using the muzak in bars and shopping centers! When was the last time
you had a thought that wasn't put there by them?"


--------------

OK, Cool Beans News #1

Grant Morrison himself is participating in the Semi-Exposed 
annotations, which is sort of a blessing and a curse due to 
the nifty knowledge we will gleen and the fact that we will
realize when we're looking too hard into some things.

Sort of fun, that.


OK, Cool Beans News #2

The Grant Morrison Voodoo Love Fetish contest is up and running--
I've expanded the first contest prizes to be Doom Patrol issues
#19 through 22 -- Crawling through the Wreckage (from?). Last day
is monday, July 17th!

So, check it out!!   

      http://www.rt66.com/bobek/gmvlf

The Mr. Nobody Quote Server is NOT vapor ware... it's just very, 
very VERY complicated to tdo what I want to do with it.  It will 
be worth the wait.

--------------


Lots of this Episode of Invisibles Semi-Exposed is brought
to you by Paul O'Brien <[p--b] at [festival.ed.ac.uk]>.  Unless it 
is marked by BK, you can presume it is from him.

Now, maybe it's that this story is set in England, and maybe 
I was a lazy obstinate asshole in school when growing up, but
I *really* want to blame my lack of Shakespearean Knowledge on 
the American public school systems... 



Page 1.
This is presumably supposed to be Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park,
London.  It's a place which is supposed to embody the right to
free speech, in that anybody at all can come along, stand up and
say anything they like without fear of prosecution or libel action.

Obviously this was a lot more significant in the days when failure
to agree with the present government carried the death penalty.
I should imagine the choice of location is deliberate, though -
another token concession by the powers that be.

BK: ELF generators have been a staple of good conspiracy theories 
for a long time.  I was happy that Grant included them here.  I 
am also expecting this guy to show up again in a later issue.


Page 2.
Probably a statement of the obvious, but the title is a reference 
to George Orwell's 1933 book "Down And Out In Paris And London."

BK: Not to me.  1984 and Animal Farm are the only one's I could
find in my library when I was a kid.  Then again, I found Oscar 
Wilde and William Burroughs.

Page 3
BK: Boy.  I really like her character the most in this series, I 
believe.

Page 4
BK:The spiked hair girl.  I thought she was just a throw away 
character, but she shows up again in issue #11.  As someone else
pointed out, it looks like she's plugging Dane for info.

Page 5, panel 1.
Ah, Tom O'Bedlam.  My copy of the complete OED defines a Tom
O'Bedlam as a madman discharged from Bedlam and licensed to 
beg on the streets.  Cynics would say that this is more or less the 
government's current policy on dealing with the mentally ill.

BK: The American Heritage College dictionary doesn't even 
identify Tom O Bedlam.

Page 5, panel 2.
Tom spends a great deal of this story quoting lines from Act 3
Scene 4 of The Tragedy of King Lear.  All the lines he quotes are
more or less complete gibberish spoken by Edgar, who is 
IMPERSONATING a Tom O'Bedlam at the time.  Presumably that's the 
point.  Line numbers vary from edition to edition, so I won't give
them (it's a very short scene anyway), but I'll identify the
quotations that I've noticed.  "Tom's a-cold... star-blasting and 
taking" is one.

Page 5, panel 3.
"Take heed... proud array" is another Lear quotation.

Page 5, panel 4.
"Who gives anything... fire and flame" is another.  BTW, Grant
isn't quoting these lines in the order in which they appear in
the scene.

BK: Is Tom picking his nose?

Page 5, panel 5.
"This is... the harelip" is another quotation.

Page 6
BK: So why women's clothes?

Page 8, panel 5.
BK: "Counting raindrops for the boss."  Probably one of my
favorite Grant lines since Mr. Nobody.

"Swithin... foal" is another.

Page 9, panel 2.
"The Prince of Darkness... Mahu" is another.  Incidentally, it
doesn't even seem to be a true statement.  My dictionaries reveal
that "Modo" and "Mahu" were indeed names for demons, but suggest
that they were high-ranking officers in the Army of Hell rather 
than actual names for Satan.  "Modo" was responsible for the 
7 Deadly Sins, as near as I can make out.  "Mahu" is thought to 
be a corruption of "Mahound", and ultimately a reference to 
Mohammed.  No references to either name is listed for after 1603, 
and both are (not surprisingly) labeled obscure.

BK: So obscure that American Dictionaries don't list them either.
I'm beginning to like Malcolm X's attitude towards dictionaries.


Page 9, panel 5.
"Through the sharp... warm thee."  Another quotation.

Page 10, panel 1.
"Pillicock sat..." is, again, Lear.  A pillicock, incidentally,
is an obsolete word for a penis.  The word survives in modern English 
as "pillock."

Page 11, panel 3
Little Winstons... shades of the JFK sphinx from P. Milligan's 
Shade.

Page 12, Panel 3
BK: Ahhhh, Lord Fanny.  Soon the one liners will come.  I have to 
say this, Grant portrays transvestites/transsexuals pretty 
accurately from my experience: some of them have been the kindest
people in my life.  Sister Mary Vicious Bitch and Sister X have 
been two of my idols ever since they rescued me from downtown LA.

Page 12, panel 1.
The Big Issue is a newspaper-cum-magazine which is sold on the
streets of London and other major British cities by homeless 
people (or people recently homeless).  It's very well-meaning but 
utterly awful.  My attitude to it can best be summed up by Chris
Morris's line, "I don't mind buying the Big Issue.  It's just 
having to read it that I object to."

BK: Ah yes, we have those here.  I like it when they report 
"Homeless Man Returns 1 million of Stolen Money."

Page 16, panel 5.
A crucifix with a television strapped to it.  Interesting.  Just 
off the top of my head, the incorporation of technology into 
existing religions recurs more explicitly in the voodoo story.  
There may well be other examples.  This could be the first 
appearance of a motif.

BK: Actually, the TV as sacrificed god has been used many times in 
artwork and such.  Note the bicycle tire and headlight... very 
profound :)

Page 17, panel 3
BK Luan-Dun.  Anyone got a reference?

Page 18
A button is lost?
Barbelith?
The ET-looking dudes?
An operating table?

Page 19, panel 3
Dane's third eye you think?

Page 20, panel 3
BK: The Alphans are here!!!

panel 4.
I can't find any reference to "Urizen" or the quotation.  The 
closest I can find is "urisen", a word with many variant spellings, 
but that's an obsolete ecclesiastical word meaning a prayer, so I 
doubt that can be it.

BK: Urizen is a greek/roman water god, like Poseidon, I believe.

Page 21, panel 1.
Canary Wharf is a horrible building in the London Docklands,
usually thought of in Britain as a symbol of what went wrong with 
Thatcherism.  Millions of pounds were poured into redeveloping the
Docklands, with Canary Wharf as its centrepiece.  It was completed 
just in time for the property crash, lost a fortune, and remained 
empty for quite a while.  It's now in use as a set of offices, as 
far as I remember, but the connotations remain.

I've never heard of the Southern Dragon Line.  Presumably it's a
ley-line.

panel 2
BK: "Some magic is strong than mine.  It's old and sick, but 
strong still."  Interesting statement, that.  I think Grant will
investigate in later plots.

Page 22, panel 2
BK: "Last night I heard the Dog Star Bark..."  Is this a fairy 
tale or nursery rhyme?

panel 6.
"Child Roland... British man" is a quotation from Lear once again.
It's Tom's last line in this issue, and Edgar's last line in the
scene.

Page 24
BK: Lord Fanny, ahem, has red hair and isn't very tall without his 
heels.

---
Well?  Talk already! :)



-- 
-Bob Kelly-
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-- 
-Bob Kelly-
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