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The Invisibles #17-19 (1996)
Written by Grant Morrison
Art by Phil Jimenez and John Stokes
Even if you hadn't read any of the source material that "Gideon Stargrave" is a riff on, nor the author's note in the letters column where they tell you what that is, it'd be pretty obvious that the zany thriller nonsense that opens #17 and keeps recurring at intervals is not a jarring new subplot in the series, but an homage to or parody of something; a key quality of the style it's borrowing is that it very loudly claims to be a story, but clearly isn't one. There are several reasons it makes sense to throw in that kind of thing at this point. One (which I think any cartoonist can identify with) is that it's an excuse for Morrison to recycle some of their juvenilia and make it look really cool this time, like it was supposed to. Another is the in-story excuse: our critically injured dickhead hero King Mob (real name Gideon Starorzewski*) actually wrote this stuff, and has embedded it in his head in order to confuse enemy mind-readers. But there's also a practical aspect: you can't hire Phil Jimenez and not give him as much awesome shit to draw as possible.
( Read more... )
Written by Grant Morrison
Art by Phil Jimenez and John Stokes
Even if you hadn't read any of the source material that "Gideon Stargrave" is a riff on, nor the author's note in the letters column where they tell you what that is, it'd be pretty obvious that the zany thriller nonsense that opens #17 and keeps recurring at intervals is not a jarring new subplot in the series, but an homage to or parody of something; a key quality of the style it's borrowing is that it very loudly claims to be a story, but clearly isn't one. There are several reasons it makes sense to throw in that kind of thing at this point. One (which I think any cartoonist can identify with) is that it's an excuse for Morrison to recycle some of their juvenilia and make it look really cool this time, like it was supposed to. Another is the in-story excuse: our critically injured dickhead hero King Mob (real name Gideon Starorzewski*) actually wrote this stuff, and has embedded it in his head in order to confuse enemy mind-readers. But there's also a practical aspect: you can't hire Phil Jimenez and not give him as much awesome shit to draw as possible.
( Read more... )
