Grant Morrison ran out of steam before finishing the Invisibles

The Invisibles Omnibus – Grant Morrison (1994-2000)

            The Invisibles Omnibus collects all the issues released of the Invisibles series which ran from 1994 to 2000.  Compiling comic books like this can be an issue as many are created to be open-ended, allowing the story to continue with new writers and artists indefinitely.  In the early 90’s a wave of comic book writers started to break away from the corporate comic book structure, in which anything created is the sole property and responsibility of the parent company.  They wanted to control, to “own” the content they were creating, without having to resort to the comparatively limited publishing and distribution capabilities of small presses and underground publishers.  This allowed some of the industry’s top people to set up deals with the big publishers, where they would hold the rights to the material and essentially have free rein as to what stories they wished to craft, and where the stories would lead to and ultimately end.  Neil Gaiman took this and ran with it in the Sandman series.  Alan Moore did so as well with a sequence of amazing titles.  One of their contemporaries was Grant Morrison, the British writer that penned the entire run of the Invisibles for the Vertigo imprint.

            Both Moore and Morrison are fringe thinkers, interested in the esoteric, occult, and mysterious in the world we exist in.  Both draw from the mass of occult literature and their own personal studies into the weird to write their stories.  Whereas Alan Moore’s work has a serious, intellectual feel to it, as if you are being told a preposterous story by the world’s wisest man, Grant Morrison’s work is like spending a month with a LSD-addled speed-freak who wants to share everything they have heard/seen/read/experienced regarding the Occult and esoteric, and whose narrative cannot be fully trusted due to the disjointed, haphazard nature of his mind.  It is an odd difference, and one which has divided the two writers.

            The Invisibles is an exciting book, for the most part.  It is an interesting tale, for the most part.  It is clever and witty, for the most part.  Perhaps it would have benefitted me to read just one issue’s worth of it every month like comic book fans have to do.  Since I do not have that luxury of time, I had to read it over the course of a month.  The story, like so many others, builds and builds as we meet new characters, explore their lives, both past, present, and future, and discover countless conspiracies, secrets and horrors, until it comes at you like an onrushing tsunami, unstoppable and violent.  It really does “fry your brain” at times with the vast amount of freaky conspiracy and magic, all with double and triple meanings and outcomes. This tempo and intensity are not sustainable in a work of literature of this length.  The book drags heavily around the ¾ mark, and the ending is nowhere near as inspired as the earlier parts of the book.  Perhaps, having aged many years since he began the work, Grant Morrison’s anarchic sensibility was tempered by time and wisdom.  Who knows?  All I can say is that for all the wild information contained within, I do not see how anyone who was not already deeply familiar with the weirdness presented in this book would enjoy the story, which is the standard “secret society exists to fight another secret society, both of which are mortal enemies of each other, or ARE THEY?”  Boring.

            The Invisibles is one of those works where the creator decided to throw everything including the kitchen sink at the page and see what sticks.  While I was entertained mostly, and informed very slightly (I already knew about nearly every aspect of weird that Morrison details in this book), I was left with an empty feeling.  There is no real substance behind this book.  I do not think it will hold up well as the years go by.  It in fact becomes a tedious read toward the latter parts.  Part of this is due to the inability of Morrison to craft an ending as satisfactory and weird as his beginning and middle, and part of it is due to the lack of cohesive focus in the way the story is presented.

            The very best work is crafted by either an individual or by equal partners who see things through from beginning to end.  The Invisibles did not use the same artist for the run of the comic.  In fact, many issues have 4-6 different illustrators drawing the story, which to me distracts from the tale being told.  Art and the decisions made in the process of making Art require purpose, actual purpose.  Neil Gaiman’s Sandman epic did not use the same artist for every tale, but it did use the same artist for all the cover art, and the same artist for each complete “chapter” of the stories.  This adds a cohesion that is absent in the Invisibles.  The book suffers from this greatly.  Comic books are the ultimate combination of Art and Words.  The very best of the genre is created by dedicated teams.  The Dark Knight Returns was a masterpiece, and it was only helped by the fact that the same writer (Frank Miller), artists (Frank Miller, Klaus Jansen), and colorist (Lynn Varley) handled every panel of every page of every issue.  Alan Moore’s The Watchmen also benefitted greatly from the partnership of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.  Having the artist and the writer share in the design, layout, and creation of any comic greatly improves it.  

            While there are many cool things in this comic, it never captured me, and I never felt any affinity to any of the characters involved.   Much of it seemed overly complex, and disjointed, for no discernible reason.  Every two pages the story flips from one sub-plot to another, creating a very shitty reading rhythm. It’s like Grant Morrison tried to create magic through a comic book and did so purely by regurgitating every single occult and conspiratorial idea he had ever run into, but without the humor and intelligence of The Illuminatus Trilogy for example, or the deep exploration of history found in Alan Moore’s From Hell, a far more disturbing and beautiful book.  Oh well.  Live and learn.  On to the next book.

(This book can be purchased here:  The Invisibles Omnibus  )

Paranoia is for the strong!

Everything is Under Control: Conspiracies, Cults & Cover-Ups – Robert Anton Wilson, Miriam Joan Hill (1988)

My man Robert Anton Wilson never disappoints!  His books have blown my mind countless times and altered how I perceive my reality tunnel, all to my benefit.  Robert Anton Wilson (RAW), due to his exposure to so much of the fringe, has compiled a vast storehouse of information on conspiracies, perceived conspiracies, and the people involved in them.  With this book, he has created an encyclopedic collection of most of the important names, places, and events dealt with by “conspiratologists.” 

The listings are alphabetical and nearly every one provides links to further online reading about the subject.  Everything is covered, from the far-right (“The Federal Reserve is run by communists!”), to the far-left (“The Federal Reserve is run by fascists!”), and from ridiculously implausible ideas (“Jesus was an alien from Orion and the Opus Dei organization keeps this a secret”) to actual real-life conspiracies that came to light (The P2 conspiracy where the Vatican, the CIA, and the MAFIA were all hand in hand creating many dozens of fake banks worldwide and laundering cocaine money, or the Iran/Contra conspiracy where the CIA was buying cocaine with guns and selling the cocaine in the USA to buy more guns, in an effort to undermine the elected government of Nicaragua).  The overall effect either leaves you doubting everything you hear or open to anything you may hear.  Either way it is a good change from the norm!

"They" were out to get Hunter S. Thompson too....

There are many people these days that dismiss anything called a “conspiracy” with a shrug, as if the very term “conspiracy” means fanciful or make-believe.  This is part of the ruse!!!  Conspiracies are very real and take place every day all around us.  If they were not real why does every government in the world have laws against conspiracy, and top secret intelligence offices to combat conspiracy?  Only the truly deluded and stupid dismiss outright the idea that conspiracies exist.  The world is full of unscrupulous people, all with specific agendas, and all with the desire to avoid the eye of the government or the police.  It happens every single day, especially IN the government, as organizations like the CIA do not have to report what they do to anyone, and purposefully maintain shields and ruses to deflect attention away from their actual activities.  Those that get too close to uncovering the truth are “exposed” as quacks believing in conspiracy theories, and the idiots who like to live their lives thinking as little as possible automatically dismiss them.  Like RAW quotes in this book, “Just because you’re paranoid does not mean they are not out to get you.”

(To read this book, click here: http://endthelie.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Everything-Is-Under-Control-Conspiracies-Cults-and-Cover-ups-0062734172.pdf )

Sometimes the truth is so murky that the lies overwhelm it

The Murdered Magicians: The Templars and their Myth – Peter Partner (1982)

            If there is one group of people in history that have had the most fanciful stories told about them and their influence, it is the Knights Templar.  Everything from Freemasonry to Illuminism to Satanism has been attributed to them and claimed to be derived from them.  The actual historical accounts of this order are so few and so scrubbed by later theologians and church historians that to find the truth one has to dig through a mountain of poorly researched and ornately embellished writings hoping to eek out the small kernels of actual fact.  Mr. Partner spends the first half of this book discussing the facts as can be deduced from church and Templar documents and contemporary accounts, and the second half of the book discussing the many ways the myth of the Templars was created a grew in the centuries after their dissolution.

            To begin, the Templar Knights were one of two military orders of the Roman Catholic Church, the other being the Order of the Hospitalers.  The Templar Knights were originally an order of what were then “middle-class” type people, merchants, soldiers, etc., who joined the Order to do religious duty, much like people join convents or monasteries.  They were frugal by decree, living only on what was supplied to them by the local churches and benefactors, and using their arms to protect pilgrims heading to the Holy Land.  Over time, they grew in influence and wealth and were used by the Catholic Church as an armed force in the early Crusades to the Holy Land.  After a while the Knights Templar began to act as an independent arm of the Catholic Church, with all the bureaucracy expected of that, and controlled many towns and cities in the Holy Land.  With their increase in power and prestige lords and kings sought to align themselves with them and therefore deeded many properties, castles, and land holdings to the Order in exchange for protection and military favors.  Eventually the Order became so prosperous and powerful that they began to draw the jealous eye of the King of France, under whom they were supposed to serve, especially after the Crusades were over and done with.  Leaders of religions always fight with leaders of nations for power and this was no different.

Using every trick and lie that governments and religions have always used against their perceived enemies, they brought down the hammer on the Templar Knights.  Torture was used to extract ridiculous confessions.  These included things like renouncing Christ, forcing members to commit sodomy, requiring new members to kiss the butthole of the brother who is initiating them, endless blasphemes against the church, the denial of God’s divinity, black magic, witchcraft etc.  These were all base lies, but they served to end the Order of the Knights Templar, especially after their leaders were burned alive on November 22 in front of the public.  Every bit of treasure and property that the Templar knights had been granted was stolen by the French King and the Catholic Church.  The full might of the Catholic Inquisition stomped the Templars into oblivion.  For some reason, it seems that churches heap their most virulent scorn not upon pagans who do not believe as they do, but upon heretics, who believe slightly differently than they do.  It is all about controlling the message, which is the priority of any cult.  The same claims made against the Templars were used to torture and destroy the church’s enemies for centuries.

Do not make enemies with deluded fools who think they are infallible.  It never ends well.

This is the extent of the historical facts of the Templars, but almost as soon as their end people started crafting lies about them, demonizing them and their activities.  The myth grew instantly.  Several hundred years after this, when the Middle Ages were seen very romantically, writers came claiming that the reason the Templar Knights were destroyed was because they had renounced Christianity and instead worshiped a false idol named “Baphomet.”  This was developed into a lie saying they were full on devil worshipers.  Most believe that “Baphomet” is a mangling of Mohammed, but instead of claiming that the Templars were Muslims, the ignorant bastards of the 1700’s claimed they worshiped Satan himself, in the guise of Baphomet.  The sad part is that Baphomet is actually the Old French word for Mohammed.  You figure historians would not fall prey to such stupidity but they certainly do.  It makes no sense to think that a group of illiterate, devout soldiers would ever contemplate any of the evils that their opponents claimed of them.

The myth of the Templars grew and grew and became entangled with every single conspiracy you can imagine, as more and more fanciful extrapolations were made over the centuries.  Eventually the Knights Templar were supposed to have discovered the Ark of the Covenant, discovered the bloodline of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, hidden in secret for centuries controlling secret societies from within, etc. etc.  The bullshit just grows and grows.  It is cool to read such a well-researched account of what is a very murky subject.  All I know is that the Catholic Church seems to be a pox on humanity and will turn on its own the moment there is something to gain.  Shit don’t change.

(Another review of this book can be read here http://adsmithlor1949.org/Transactions/Volume%204/PDF%20Files/80A%20-%20The%20Murdered%20Magicians%20review.pdf )

(This book can be purchased here:  AMAZON  )

This is some scary shit...

Deeper Insight Into The Illuminati Formula for Creating Mind-Controlled Slaves – Fritz Springmeier, Cisco Wheeler (1996)

            As I travel through the literary fringes of the world, I find much reference to the claim that the government/Big Business/Entertainment Industry engages in what is essentially mind-control.  Based on all I have read in the news or in history books, the US government claims (a) that mind control/brainwashing does not work (which means they at least tried it), (b) that our enemies use mind-control techniques (which would imply that they do work), (c) that the CIA engaged in a project titled Project Monarch under the banner of  MKULTRA, which was “terminated” in the early 1970’s, to try and create mind-controlled slaves, (d) That the heads of the CIA ordered all materials for project MKULTRA destroyed (which means that, knowing how government really works, they hid the program under a new name and pretended to end it to stop the inquiries), (e) that the human mind, when faced with horrific trauma, will disassociate itself, creating separate “personalities” or “alters” to cope with the trauma.

The Mind can only take so much.

            Mr. Springmeier writes about how the methods of creating these slaves came about, how they do what they do, and how they use the slaves they create.  It is scary, scary stuff.  The worst of trauma, psychological, physical, sexual and much, much worse are inflicted on young children under the guidance of controllers who, using all the techniques developed by Nazi scientists, USA scientists and CIA/Government sick fucks, and secret societies, can create “alters” which will be used for anything from sexual slavery, to assassination, to human data couriers whose mind is accessed by implanted codes and signals, usually taken from much of popular culture. 

            While the hierarchy that supposedly controls these groups, “The Illuminati,” may be more of a red herring than a true organization, it is a verified fact that our own government, and others around the world, conducted unethical, immoral tests on humans, with and without their consent, giving them drugs, electroshock therapy, isolation, torture, and far, far worse.  Our government claims it stopped these things.  (Suuuuure….just like they claim that the CIA no longer runs cocaine and heroin shipments like they did during the Vietnam War)  Believe nothing these fuckers tell you.  They are either lying or they are not in the know.  Those not involved claim it does not really exist.

            The implications of these horrors are so profound, so evil, so outright inhuman, that it makes this book a very hard read.  Quite frankly, evil hides in plain sight.  The more we all know about their methods the easier we can spot their use around us.  I would not recommend this book to all, as the content could trigger latent memories of abuse, and one needs to be ready for that, hopefully with professional help on hand to guide one through these things.  The evil that humans do to other humans is far worse than any horror fiction can suggest.  Horrible stuff.  This book is a follow-up to his previous book The Illuminati Formula Used to Create an Undetectable Total Mind Controlled Slave which details the methods used.  Not for the faint of heart.

(This book can be found in .pdf format here:  http://www.whale.to/b/deeper.pdf )