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The Invisibles Appreciation Thread

post #1 of 18
5/12/08 at 10:32pm
Thread Starter 
Recently bought and read the final volume of this brilliant and baffling series. Unsurprisingly, it didn't really answer many of my questions. Still, it's really cool to see Morrison's "fourth dimensional thinking" in action, probably in its purest form here (and, surprisingly enough, in Seven Soldiers).

The first three books, volume one, whatever you want to call them, are extremely solid; if I have a criticism of any aspect it's the time travel excursion to Revolutionary France, which feels kind of arbitrary and deflates a lot of the tension, since it comes immediately after Dane joins the group and seems like a confusing side trip. Also confusing: the difference between this time travel and the "real" time travel used by Ragged Robin later in the series (or earlier...) And the art in that segment is pretty lousy.

Otherwise, incredible stuff, especially Lord Fanny's initiation and Gideon Stargreave. I love Morrison's story about how he inadvertantly cursed himself by having King Mob be tortured, so he began the next volume by giving him a luxurious vacation.

Books 4 and 5 are also great. I did find it all to be getting a little repetitive by book 6, though it played better the second time around. The final book...I'm still digesting. I guess my major lingering questions are about Mr. Quimper and The Harliquinade--what are/were they? I seem to remember inferring that the Harliquin's two servants were actually Tom O' Bedlam and his sister, King Mob's lover, somehow reborn or transferred through time or something...but that barely begins to explain what the hell was going on there.

Anyone want to trade theories and observations about this and other aspects of the book?
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post #2 of 18
5/21/08 at 11:02pm
The true nature of the Harlequinade is probably the hardest thing to wrap your head around in the whole series (which is a pretty impressive superlative). The Harlequinade is collectively everyone who has ever lived, liberated from their "fiction suits." Here's the relevant part of Morrison's original script for the beyond-ineptly drawn Volume 3, issue 2 (the next-to-last issue):

Quote:
The Harlequinade are still behind Jack but they've changed and are in their traditional costumes. Pierrot and Columbine make hand shapes. More images vibrate off them - Edith, Tom, Robin, King Mob...

Now they are the King in Yellow and his dwarves, making hand movements. Behind them, a whole crowd seethes - everyone who's ever appeared in the series...The Harlequinade is everyone.
The scene looks nothing like that, of course.
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post #3 of 18
5/21/08 at 11:13pm
http://www.disinfo.com/archive/pages...pg1/index.html

The Disinformation book about THE INVISIBLES is required reading.
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post #4 of 18
5/21/08 at 11:23pm
That's where I got the script bit from. And it's worth it for the Morrison interview alone.
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post #5 of 18
5/22/08 at 12:38pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt M View Post
Here's the relevant part of Morrison's original script for the beyond-ineptly drawn Volume 3, issue 2 (the next-to-last issue):
Ouch. But thanks to you and Devin, I've been looking for a good Invisibles annotation for a while now.
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post #6 of 18
5/27/08 at 8:16pm
Ive never, ever managed to muster up the strenght of mind to read The Invisibles after a failed attempt at a younger age...yet every interview with Morrison when he talks about his "I saw 5th dimensional beings while on opium and had a contact experience!" makes me want to give it another shot.
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post #7 of 18
5/27/08 at 10:42pm
Quimper was a spirit in the woods where Fanny grew up. He was captured by the men in animal masks at the party where Fanny was raped and corrupted by their natures. He was also the guy running the alien and human sex films and, along with the Colonel, ran the Dolce facility.

One of my complaints with The Invisibles is Quimper's role. I know he was this corrupted spirit working for the Outer Church, but I'm not sure why he was so important that Robin had to be sent back to take "Quimper off the board." Beyond the fact that it always was her that went back.

I loved this series. It influenced me beyond measure.
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post #8 of 18
5/28/08 at 12:27am
Quimper was also a reincarnation/avatar of John-A-Dreams, though. Who, after being "taken off the board," comes back into the story again as Jack Flint, and ends up explaining the nature of the conflict to Fanny.
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post #9 of 18
5/28/08 at 1:31am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt M View Post
Quimper was also a reincarnation/avatar of John-A-Dreams, though. Who, after being "taken off the board," comes back into the story again as Jack Flint, and ends up explaining the nature of the conflict to Fanny.
Yeah, in one of the worst drawn sequences of the series.
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post #10 of 18
5/28/08 at 1:25pm
Thread Starter 
Yeah, I *really* didn't get the continuity of Quimper. I think at the very end I picked up on the fact that he was that alien-looking dude who was crucified in the Eyes Wide Shut-style animal-mask rape party*, but not that he was a "spirit in the woods" in, I assume, Apocalypstick? Where does he appear there?

Also, that would make him pretty heavily linked to Fanny, and his corruption tied to Fanny's degradation (with Fanny being the one who finishes him off) but yeah, I don't really get why he's that important, or why he's John-A-Dreams.

The Harlequinade makes more sense given the above description, though. I'm no expert on the commedia del' arte, but I believe Harlequin is the character who can be invisible to all the other characters and move in and out of the story at will, manipulating events. So that fits in the context of this story.

*There's a sentence only Grant Morrison would make me type.
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post #11 of 18
5/28/08 at 2:36pm
John-A-Dreams began to realize the nature of the conflict between the Inner and Outer churches, and in Philadelphia he decided to enter the Outer Church and experience the conflict from that side. He reemerged into our reality as Quimper (specifically, as the alien gray that was captured in South America), then, after Fanny dispatches him at the end of Volume 2, he reenters the story as Jack Flint.*

It's a metaphor for how Morrison thinks the story should be read--looking at it from a different perspective every time (the same thing that 'Invisibles in a Can' from the last issue allows the reader (breather?) to do), and seeing that all the sides of the conflict are necessary to bring about the birth of the supercontext.

*Actually, I guess he reenters as the guy who then takes on the Division X persona of Jack Flint. And it's the forcible dissolution of that persona by Mister Six (via the Wicker Man) that wakes John up to his true nature.
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post #12 of 18
5/28/08 at 2:38pm
He doesn't appear in the Fanny arc. That "spirit in the woods" line was somewhere in the second volume...I'm not sure where.

Question:

Single favorite issue of the whole series? For me, it was 2.20, when Robin leaves. I actually teared up a bit.

Yes, I am lame.
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post #13 of 18
5/28/08 at 2:39pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt M View Post
John-A-Dreams began to realize the nature of the conflict between the Inner and Outer churches, and in Philadelphia he decided to enter the Outer Church and experience the conflict from that side. He reemerged into our reality as Quimper (specifically, as the alien gray that was captured in South America), then, after Fanny dispatches him at the end of Volume 2, he reenters the story as Jack Flint.

Matt, where did you get this information? I'm not saying you're wrong (in fact, I agree completely with your analysis), I'm just wondering if this is straight out of GM's mouth or something you thought of yourself?
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post #14 of 18
5/28/08 at 2:44pm
Well, Quimper's white suit and a couple of lines in volume 2 hint that he's John-a-Dreams. And, in the next-to-last issue, as Jack Flint's being killed by Orlando, he yells "It's just a suit!" (as in a fictionsuit), then he stands right back up as John, and tells Fanny that he entered the Outer Church in Philly, but that the Outer Church isn't what she thinks (or something to that effect).

The timeline (and the confirmation on the Quimper thing) came from the aforementioned "Anarchy for the Masses" book.
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post #15 of 18
5/28/08 at 2:49pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Devildoubt View Post
Single favorite issue of the whole series?
Tough one, but probably the last issue. It helps that Frank Quitely completely gets how to approach Morrison's scripts.
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post #16 of 18
6/25/08 at 11:56pm
one of the things that tripped me up the first three or four times i read The Invisibles was i kept getting caught up in the whole "who is what is when is where" aspect of the whole story. it's all a smokescreen. The Invisibles is (though written in the 20th century) the the 21st century take on Proust. memory and rememberance; biography and autobiography - like anthony powell's Dance To The Music of Time sequence it presents a roman a clef for two people: grant morrison and the reader. ideas come and go. the reason time travel differs from vol.1 to vol.2 is because grant was writing it later. the whole arc begs you to get lost amongst the trees but it's really a forest, a forest that changes it's geography each time it's entered.
sloppy, ill-prepared, and over indulgent just like our lives.

don't put too much stock in the conclusions of the annotated invisibles guide. read the series a good four or five times and get online to find the letters pages from the individual issues. then read the book.

john-a-dreams is everyone.


edit: oh yeah and check out grant's flex mentallo limited series that is painfully out of print. the invisibles is dragged kicking and screaming subtlely into it's narrative....
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post #17 of 18
6/26/08 at 2:49am
How does this series compare to 'The Filth'? Cause that was one weird arse comic book.
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post #18 of 18
6/26/08 at 2:58am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kriegaffe View Post
How does this series compare to 'The Filth'? Cause that was one weird arse comic book.
i think of the filth as a footnote of sorts to the Invisibles. i love the filth and i have only read it a couple of times so i'm not quite sure i "get" it. if the filth took like ten years to write and took 100 issues to tell and had a group fan based masturbation sequence, i think the ideas in the filth would be just as interesting (and maybe even filthier (no pun intended) than it was. we live in a time where grant (like neil gaiman) is too famous to actually have an ongoing series so, in my near constant negativity, i think we're never going to have a comic run that has the digressions that makes their type of story actually work.
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