The Invisibles
I’m blocked. I want to write about the Arcadia storyline of The Invisibles, but I can’t think how to start. Furthermore, until I start, I find it impossible to read any of the other books I have by my bed. At least I still have music and television!
I can’t think my way around this block, so I’ll take the bloggers’ course and just start writing. I can ask myself: why is it so hard to start writing about The Invisibles?
The Invisibles is one of those works that changed my life. It not only opened up new areas of knowledge for me, but changed the very way I think. It changed the way I behaved. And like most such works, the changes were not all for the good. And I doubt I even know the extent of the ways it has affected me.
That explains why I want to write about The Invisibles and also why I can’t. I don’t want to write something not worthy of it: because I want to convey how wonderful I think it is to others, but also because I don’t want to bore others full stop. I’m afraid that I may just end up with some pointless and bitty annotations. I don’t want to spoil the magic: that might mean thinking less of The Invisibles, or forensically finding out something else unpleasant that I’ve picked up from it. I worry that I might have to change again.
So what is The Invisibles? It is a monthly comic book series that ran for 59 issues, from September 1994 to June 2000, written by Grant Morrison. At it’s simplest, it’s the story of one cell (of an organisation fighting for human freedom) trying to locate a device and use it in an important battle in their war against the alien forces of control. At it’s most complex, well, as Morrison says, it’s “about everything: action, philosophy, paranoia, sex, magic, biography, travel, drugs, religion, UFOs… you can make your own list.” It’s sort of Illuminatus! crossed with Valis crossed with an extreme time travel story as seen through the sexy-scary filter of a Scot living in America in the 90s. It’s the world’s first psychoactive comic book. It’s been collected in seven paperback volumes, which I started reading in late 2001. It’s big and contains multitudes.
Too big to write any nice summary or analysis. But I want to think about it. So I’ve decided to break out a chunk, issues #5–8 (January to April 1995), Arcadia. On the original comic covers it credits Morrison, Jill Thompson (pencils), and Dennis Cramer (inks). Daniel Vozzo did the colours and Clem Robins did the lettering. Why this story? Because as Morrison says on the letters page of #5:
Well, the Arcadia storyline shines a spotlight on the “philosophy” part of the deal. The theoretical scaffolding for the entire Invisibles series is revealed herein, but I’m still not sure whether people actually want to persevere with page after page of rambling historical bullshit.
It turned out that most people didn’t, with sales dropping from 64,000 to 20,000. But I did (seven years too late). The first collection contained the first eight issues. After reading them, I was sold.
What is Arcadia about? Our Invisibles cell must psychically travel back to the French Revolution to help relocate the Marquis de Sade to the present day, where he can create a blueprint for the future. But the enemy have tracked them down and interfere with their mission. Meanwhile, Lord Byron and Percy Shelley discuss the philosophy of Utopia. Guest starring a demon disguised as an Aztec god, a satanic figure, Mary Shelley, and the head of John the Baptist. Featuring a modern interpretation of The 120 Days of Sodom.
On the letters page of #7, Morrison provides a list of books he read to research the story. I’m not interested in that game of hunting the reference, but I have been and am doing some reading of my own which might be pertinent:
- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
- Julian and Maddalo by Percy Shelley
- Lines written among the Euganean Hills, Northern Italy by Percy Shelley
- How to read Sade by John Phillips
- Tabula Rasa #2 (hell: The 120 Days of Sodom) and #4 (sex: Sade) edited by David Carroll and Kyla Ward
- Salo directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini
And I’ve also managed to conjure up the relevant original published issues of The Invisibles (#5–12), to read the letters pages that appeared during and after Arcadia. (Prefaces to novels—recording half a conversation—get re-published forever, so I don’t understand why the letters page of a comic book doesn’t get collected with it.)
I’ve said a mouthful, but I haven’t really started writing about what I want to write yet. Oh well. Hopefully I’ve loosened up something. Maybe this will encourage someone else to read The Invisibles—I’ve already loaned my copies to five friends. Maybe this will encourage others to think about Arcadia and start a dialogue with me. Whatever—I will press on!