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Underground > Comic Books >

More on the filth

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21:21 / 09.02.03

well, i have bought eight issues of it, and that includes two from the exceptionally pricey comic store in glasgow's trongate.

and i am left with this strange feeling, this undefinable(as of yet) sensation that what i am reading is crap.

not crap like unreadable, but more crap like somebody released a grant morrison rarities album after they had already released all the songs he ever recorded.
you know, the albums with unfinished and shit songs on it.

can anyone tell me why i find this series lacking?

and maybe why i am buying it?

(i realise there are other filth threads, i felt i should keep my wonderings out of them)

21:38 / 09.02.03

I still reckon The Filth is one of GM's finest moments which is, unfortunately, eclipsed by the epic size and reach of The Invisibles. Pretty much anything he does for the forseeable future is going to be measured by a pretty intimidating yardstick.

21:50 / 09.02.03

do you think thats all it is?
i did get the impression it was perhaps too soon and too similar, what with the whole 'reality is not as it appears' motif.
it sorta feels like morrison should have done something a little further away, almost to prove he can, y'know?

maybe it's true what they say... "well, with grant, what you have to remember is he takes a lot of drugs. a LOT of drugs." (someone famous at a comicsfair in glasgow. i wish i could remember who.)

22:08 / 09.02.03

Maybe you find it lacking because it is, you know, lacking.

I mean, I like it fine but I do know what you mean. I get it simply for the ideas. I couldn't care less about the story. Yeah, I care about tony and greg, but really, if I couldn't get another issue for whatever reason I wouldn't be too bothered. It's only a fucking cat and his old man.

Maybe you buy it for the same reason I do? Cause it's grant morrison and some ideas in the book are cool. Also, I hope you not buying it cause you think it's all going to come to a head in the end. If anything it's going to end even more crap then it's been (because it's grant).

That's the Filth baby, utter crap, and you're wallowing in it.

22:26 / 09.02.03

I feel justified in buying it because it makes me laugh. I don't think it's a particularly involving story, and most of the concepts are Classic Morrison. There's not much GM can tell me about bad sex and perversion that I don't already know first hand.

23:05 / 09.02.03

It's really funny.

Though everyone I know has had that feeling you describe, toksie. Jaded.

I think this is intentional, though.

23:06 / 09.02.03

Everyone I know who's read it, that is.

23:07 / 09.02.03

I think Warren Ellis said the drugs thing.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

13:53 / 10.02.03

What issues did you buy Toksik? Cos if it was the porn issues then if you don't have a load of magic stuff to back you up I don't think there's any possible way you can avoid seeing it as utter crap. The last two issues are okay. At it's worst, it's a Jive Bunny Mastermix of Grant Morrison. But the second half of the series, if it keeps up, will go a little way to redeeming it. But currently X-Men is a better piece of work.

yawn - thing's buddy

14:20 / 10.02.03

It's not the series I thought it'd be.

Despite this, it's unlike anything I've experienced before and certainly an interesting fictional experiment.

Rather than a story, Filth DOES feel like medecine, or a vaccination of some kind.

But it also seems like bog roll with the covered in shite.

Buy the Filth.

It'll stain yer brain.

15:45 / 10.02.03

i have bought the whole run so far.

i am maybe missing out on some of the magickal significance of the series...

i did recently read Xmen and was definately a lot more into that.

--

16:11 / 10.02.03

Well, I like The Invisibles a lot, but I also like The Filth quite a bit. I like the character of Ned Slade a lot, and his compassion for his cat moves me. The whole Spartacus Hughes thing is interesting, and I'm curious as to how the whole thing is going to end. I thought the porn issues were very good, though some here seem to feel otherwise, they make for an interesting critique of the De Sade character from Vol. 3 of The Invisibles. And there is magic in the series, it's just a lot more subtle then it was in the Invisibles. Granted, most of the supporting cast isn't fleshed out very well, but that's life I guess. It moves me on a whole emotional level too, the sick cat slowly dying reminds me of the illness and death of my own cat months ago, in fact we had him put down and buried in the backyard a few days after I read issue 3, which ends with a cat being buried by Slade. That issue always moves me when I look back at it.

21:21 / 10.02.03

I think the characters are great - especially Mercury and Spector. More Secret Original would be good too though.....

21:25 / 10.02.03

i stopped reading it after 2 issues. i thought the monkey assasin was a bit trying too hard to be weird. it bored me. but then again so does going into comic shops at the moment.

22:28 / 10.02.03

Well, it IS called The Filth

Firstly I LOVE the Art... didn't really dig Chris's art on the Invisibles but it's rocking here...

Yeah it does seem to loom in the Shadow of the Invisibles... but that also seems intentional. Almost like Invisible the Movie...

Taking some core concepts and distilling a much more "potent" brew so to speak... Not as tastey I admit, but also not as ...er, random.

it's hard for me to judge until the series is complete, still, when I see it on the stands I GRAB it... the story don't linger in the same manor as the INVISIBLES and I really haven't re-read any of the issue... will probably do so just after orbefore issue 12.

22:59 / 10.02.03

It's defenitely more uneven than The Invisibles, or X-Men, but at its height, The Filth is up there with the best Invisibles. The best moments in the series are when Greg and Tony are spotlighted, because they're the only characters that seem real. The other characters are all sketches, that I'm hoping will hang together better if I read the issues back to back. It's an uneven series, but it's probably the best thing I've read by Grant, other than The Invisibles.

--

23:33 / 10.02.03

I thought the monkey was silly at first too but if evolution is a factor in the story his character is quite appropriate.

A

10:17 / 12.02.03

I'm really digging it. I have no idea where it's going, but I mean that in a good way. The artwork is great, too. Weston really seems to be in his element. I'm also really enjoying how deliberately uncool evrything in it is. It makes a nice change from the beautiful people in the Invisibles and NewXMen and suchlike (which are great, but variety is the spice of life, or something.)

oh, and chimps aren't monkeys. they're apes. like us. (sorry, but that always gets to me.)

Our Lady of The Two Towers

14:06 / 12.02.03

On Weston, I don't know whether I didn't like his Invisibles stuff because I'd really loved Jiminez stuff and didn't like his more gritty approach, combined with it being really static. But I'm enjoying for the most part his Filth stuff. It is better (possibly less rushed?) and hasn't really had any of the daft facial expressions some of his Invisibles issues had.

The Photographer in Blowup

10:40 / 13.02.03

The Filth has been something of a disappointment to me so far.

Although i enjoy the idea behind the Hand, as a secret agency making sure the world runs nice and smooth, the use of sex seems way too gratuitous, more than i would even expect from a Vertigo title.

The story doesn't seem to have coherence, and all characters are very one-dimensional, excepting Greg Feely and Tony (?) - i think i'm still reading the series just to see whether the cat makes it or not, and to see all that Greg-Feely-is-a-paediophile stuff getting cleared out.

Right now, i think New X-Men is a lot better.

15:38 / 13.02.03

Just a thought: The Hand is Morrison's Illuminati. The five divisions, etc. The fact that Greg/Ned ends up having sex with an african american woman is too close to the Illuminatus. Without the abrupt time changes.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

16:37 / 13.02.03

Well, I was wondering about that. After all, Grant is Scottish and, we've been reliably informed you don't get many black women up there, ooh he's being transgressive again! < runs away quickly >

18:12 / 13.02.03

well, i mean, is boy really in the invisibles for anything other than jack potting the black?

(are they going to crucify me, father?)

18:45 / 13.02.03

But he doesn't get to.

19:12 / 13.02.03

which is exactly the point, its a commentary on morrisons own 'initiation' into the counterculture. living in scotland, the only black girls he knew were on TeeVee and in films, and were a lot like boy...he never got to either, dont you see?

02:39 / 14.02.03

Righto.

00:08 / 16.02.03

I like the concepts of the Filth, but the shock value is on the level of pro-wrestling.

That said, Issue 3's Paperverse easily makes Invisible' read like a old lady's knitting party..

With the exception of the JLA, nothing Morrison ever writes will escape the Invisibles comparison.

VR
The Shark

00:08 / 16.02.03

I like the concepts of the Filth, but the shock value is on the level of pro-wrestling.

That said, Issue 3's Paperverse easily makes Invisible' read like a old lady's knitting party..

With the exception of the JLA, nothing Morrison ever writes will escape the Invisibles comparison.

VR
The Shark

02:28 / 16.02.03

It's more puerility than shock value, I think.

I love puerile humour, but it does make you feel like a bit of an immature wank sometimes. (If you enjoy it.)

A

06:14 / 16.02.03

You can make plenty of comparisons between JLA and the Invisibles if you've got enough time on your hands. This thread is neither the timke nor the place to do such a thing, but go through Rock of Ages with a fine-toothed comb looing for Terence Mckenna references if you're bored one day.

15:08 / 16.02.03

for me bathos has always had equivalent power to pathos. its not like the peurility doesn't have a point, after all like the entire series it's intended to give an insight into the really cosmic weird things that go on, like people turning food into poo. after the beautiful invocation called the invisibles the path to the top requires a systematic destruction of those forces, the ego swollen to its height needs deflation or it just gets in the way. the king wears a blue wig because it makes him look silly.

read a review in sfx that gave a perfectly simple synopsis of the filth so far, then claimed to have no idea what it was about. what a twat. everyone knows why time moves quicker down there don't they?

20:44 / 16.02.03

"Why does it feel so crap, yet why am I convinced enough to buy it?"

For the same reasons we stay in relationships we know are going nowhere.

For the same reasons we eat foods we know are poisoning our systems.

For the same reasons we do psyche-stripping drugs like meth.

We're idiots for abandonment. The Filth is pretty and hints at Really Big Ideas, and we know if we read it hard enough we'll get the Message. Whatever the fuck it is.

We were set-up by The Invisibles to interpret and find meaning and all that, and we're applying that to The Filth. And maybe Grant has something to say here that we aren't getting. Don't you look stupid to not be as hyper-intel as Morrison? Or is a writer ever held accountable for deliberate reader-confusion?

And like a proper junkie I have all issues so far. And I'm trying to decide if I should be insulted, like the implied message is "I don't understand why you don't get it, it's plain as plain to me."

Or maybe I am dip-shit who should stick to The Ultimates.

21:08 / 16.02.03

gotta say, I love the devotion to Morrison that's embodied in statements like "It seems to be a load of crap, that leaves me feeling like it's not very good but maybe it's SUPPOSED to be a load of crap that leaves me feeling like it's not very good..."

which would make it a load of crap that's not very good.

m.

03:44 / 17.02.03

What if you think it's great and crap?

05:10 / 17.02.03

I keep telling you people.

Morrison isn't really writing the filth in the typical manner. He is using cutups to randomly write the story and then edits it into a feasible form. That is why the first few episodes felt disjoined. As the story progresses, Morrison uses the cut up style less and writes more since the basics have already been established by the cutup method.

Morrison is writing from his subconscience. The filth is the Naked Lunch of comics.

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