I’m re-reading The Invisbles right now, and going through it with the Anarchy for the Masses guide to the series. I’ve always loved it, but working through it with the guide peels back a whole new layer of subtlety - so many allusions and references to things that I missed the first time around, and so many tiny, purposeful details are present from the beginning which only come into play toward the end.
The Invisbles deals with some very heavy stuff, but it’s successful in never losing sight of the overarching themes (free will vs. control). It’s simultaneously a great comic book and a great social critique of the comic book medium, much in the same way as Watchmen.
I think that as a work of literature, it’s easily up there with Thomas Pynchon’s finest works, and is probably the greatest work of art to come out of the comic book medium.
I’m curious - why? I’ve always thought that Maus got a pass, critically, because it’s about the Holocaust and people are terrified to give anything about the Holocaust (especially something made by a jew) a fair critical treatment. It’s not a bad book, but it hardly does anything exemplary in a medium where far superior books stretch and push the boundaries of narrative via words and sequential art.
I love Morrison, and I love the Invisibles, but…no, not at all the greatest comic book ever.
Not even Morrison’s best work. (That’d be his Doom Patrol run, which didn’t wallow quite so much in its own perceived importance. Flex Mentallo, which spun off of DP, also rates high.)
Invisibles is just another drugged out Morrison musing (I don’t know if Grant was using when he wrote the Invisibles, but it still has the same qualities), caught up far too much in its own importance to actually transcend ‘good’ into ‘great’, let alone ‘greatest’.
Interesting take, Tengu. I think that The Invisibles is far superior to Doom Patrol, the latter reading like a test run for the former at best; similar concepts and characters, and so on. Morrisson’s drugginess can certainly get out of hand - as with Seaguy or Vimanarama - but The Invisibles keeps things coherent (though mind-bending), while the drugginess is used to tackle plot elements that the human mind is simply incapable of comprehending anyway, such as looking at time from the outside.
Invisibles is fun, but all but incomprehensible. If the goal of a work of art is to communicate, it fails.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not as horribly Grant’s-head’s-up-his-own-ass as Seaguy, and I do enjoy Invisibles, but I’d rate his JLA run as solidly better.
My favourite comic would probably be Ghost World. I’ve never read The Invisibles but I’d put Ghost World up there with great works. I used to love Give Me Liberty but I don’t know if it would stand up now. *Maus *is the classic example of the non-comic reader’s comic. I don’t mean that in a sneery way but it is critically lauded generally from the point of view that comics are kids stuff and wow this guy did something adult with a comic, ignoring the rest of the field.
I started reading The Invisibles when it first came out, and eventually gave it up because it tripped my “pretentious wankery” meter. But I like a lot of Morrison’s stuff, and Douglas Wolk sang its praises in Reading Comics. I don’t think I’ll fall in love with Invislbles – Wolk and I aren’t critically in sync enough for me to think I’ll buy into his adoration, and he even says that he loves the book almost unreasonably. Anyway, I’m going to give it another shot one of these days.
Maus is very good, and in some ways has the unfortunate distinction of being obviously good in ways non-comics-fans can enjoy, which means a certain amount of reverse snobbery kicks in.
As for best comic? I’d vote for From Hell at this point, which combines a pleasurable amount of pretentious wankery with an amazing structure, indelible characters, evocative artwork, high entertainment value, and exceptional rereadability.
That, or Calvin and Hobbes, if newspaper comics are allowed. (Don’t know why they wouldn’t be, but I’m not the OP.)
I admit, I thought The Invisibles was almost unreadable. But I get a lot of that in Morrison’s writing. He just seems so self-indulgent and circular that it fails to get out whatever message is supposed to be in there.
Should we say it’s the best non(Moore/Gaiman) comic?
What do I know, I likedVimanarama. Short and Sweet.
On a completely unrelated note, since I don’t usually read comics threads, what do others think of Ellis’s Fell? I’m really enjoying it, and it’s a lovely concept too.
The issue where he interogates the loner-shooter guy is one of the greatest single issues of any comic i’ve ever read.
I’ve lent it to friends as a stand-alone comic (including friends who hate comics) and about 90% of them have ended up going straight online and buying the Fell TP.
If you want good Grant Morrison before he got his head stuck up his arse - indeed before his US success, in his 2000AD days - try his Zenith series: what if the world’s only extant super was a dim, spoilt, lazy self-serving pop-star? The second-best deconstruction of superheroes after Watchmen.
And Maus only got a pass among non-fans of the genre, because hey, it was an allegory for the Holocaust only told in pictures and stuff: maybe these funny papers can pretend to be Lit-Ra-Choor if they try.
My scariest comics related moment was when I was in Chicago in 2004. It was the first time I realised there was an actual real-life place called Cabrini Green. It features in Give Me Liberty and I just thought it was some made-up urban nightmare.
True that. Plus - Lovecraft references before they were cool.
OOh, that reminds me (British comics, not Lovecraft)- if I was voting for “great work to come out of the comic book medium”, in addition to your Watchmen and Sandman and From Hell.…man, i’d have to say, Pat Mill’s Charley’s War has to rank up there, at least for me. It’s the All’s Quiet on the Western Front of comics.
I love the medium, but comics hasn’t had a “great work” yet, in terms of a single graphic novel. When it does, it won’t be a superhero or sci-fi story.