The Invisibles reread, part 6

The Invisibles #20-25 (1996)
Written by Grant Morrison
Art: #20 by Tommy Lee Edwards, #21 by Paul Johnson, #22-24 by Steve Yeowell & Dick Giordano, #25 by Mark Buckingham & Mark Pennington

I don't know what if any overarching structure Morrison had in mind for the series ahead of time, but by this point it's apparent that the current version of the series will be closed out soon and designated as Volume 1, and that the Phil Jimenez-illustrated Volume 2 will follow after a short break—so it's time to wrap up the current threads, reinforce the main things that Volume 1 has been about (establishing who the main team members are, the general kind of evil they're facing, and why Dane is so important), and drop in a couple of mysterious new things for us to be curious about during the break. These six issues do all of that in a way that to me feels pretty awkward about half of the time; for the other half, I'm still into it.
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Nine Faces of Nothing

I've finished a self-published thing that I feel good about, even though its subject is a massive bummer and even though this is kind of a weird time (given the state of the world) to be putting out something so interior-focused and solipsistic. In a way, it functions as an excuse for why I haven't been very productive with previous projects. It's also something I just felt compelled to do.

Nine Faces of Nothing is a 60-page small-format black-and-white comic collection that looks at the experience of major depression from different angles and in different styles. Some of it is directly autobiographical; some is pretty abstract; there's some comedy, some very grim stuff, some grim comedy, the kind of self-indulgent formal experimentation that I find hard to resist, and also an adaptation of an early 20th century Gothic classic by someone even less sane than me. I can't say I have any great insights, and there's no advice here at all, but maybe it at least succeeds at making visual drama out of some of the failure modes of human consciousness.

Click here to see how to get it—there's a paper version and an e-book.

Now I'll see about getting back to making other kinds of things!