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Underground > Comic Books >

Promethea #32

  
  

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xenosss
20:41 / 19.02.05
In the above post, replace any weird looking symbols with & (and) signs.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
21:23 / 19.02.05
That's a beautiful comic. Nice one, jhw- it's truly lovely. Only now I have to go and buy another copy for all the postery goodness. (And I'm refusing to click on those links on the previous page... I want to make the poster myself, and see it taking shape).

Writing-wise? Yeah, clever, but nothing AM hasn't said already in the series. But I guess that's the point. It's the perfect ending to a wonderful journey; more an all-encompassing postscript or a summation. Didn't give me goosebumps quite like #31 did, but did leave me feeling all warm and lovely.

Like most good comics/movies/books/whatevers, I'm sad to see it go. But I'm glad it got to where it was headed, and as soon as my room's sorted out to a degree where I can actually FIND any given comic at any given time, I'll be hibernating for a couple of days for the full-on, back-to-back experience.

And as I've often said under different circumstances... "whoah. What a fucking wicked trip that was".
 
 
Mistoffelees
09:26 / 20.02.05

xenoss,

could you please check the link again?

I´ve been trying it like that:

http://img208.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img208&=11fp.jpg
http://img208.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img208&=28hk.jpg

and it doesn´t work.

And I´d really like to see those posters, before I decide to rip my comic apart.

Thanks.
 
 
FinderWolf
15:19 / 20.02.05
Hopefully we can get those links straightened out, would love the see the posters. Thanks to xenoxoss (spelling?) for trying for us all.

Loved the detail that there was already a Promethea character who was the spirit of imagination and Moore didn't know about it when creating the character - Moore is constantly experiencing cool magickal synchronicities like that.

Yes, this did seem to be a sequel to The Birth Caul and Snakes and Ladders (the latter especially).

J.H. did a beautiful job, as always.

And I loved the trivia that people's minds were blown by seeing Windsor McCay's cute little animated dinosaur when the film first showed...
 
 
The Falcon
16:57 / 20.02.05
The Helene Cixous one?

Yeah, Sophie was reading the book when hospitalised.
 
 
The Falcon
18:06 / 20.02.05
A very Promethea cover:

  
 
xenosss
18:15 / 20.02.05
Oh, it seems that more than just the & were replaced with that weird symbol. Here are the links again:

http://img208.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img208&image=11fp.jpg
http://img208.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img208&image=28hk.jpg

Replace the weird symbol (if it's there) with &image (andimage). Sorry for not noticing that before. Also, here they links are in snipurl form. They should work with no editing:

http://snipurl.com/cx6p
http://snipurl.com/cx6q

For anyone wanting to put the things together themselves, do it. But afterwards, the images can be used as a little keepsake, so you can have it on your computer whenever you want to look at it. I haven't looked at it, or heard anything, but I'm wondering how the whole thing reads in poster form. I would assume it'd be a bit confusing, but maybe a whole new meaning comes through.
 
 
Mistoffelees
18:55 / 20.02.05

Ah, wonderful, xenosss, now it works!

Thank you

And if it still does not work for someone,
Thats, how one of the links looks in my browser-window:

http://img208.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img208&image=28hk.jpg
 
 
Mistoffelees
18:58 / 20.02.05
http://img208.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img208 & image=28hk.jpg
 
 
Quantum
23:46 / 20.02.05
Finally got 32, very pleased. I thought it was an excellent finale to his thinly veiled magical treatise, absolutely beautiful posters (I prefer the blue side) and rivalled only by 'Metaphore' for quality. I love it when Moore indulges himself and I thought it was a fabulous send off for a fantastic character, best comic I've ever read. I encourage anybody to read it, especially if they have any interest in magick.
 
 
_Boboss
10:54 / 21.02.05
it was very pretty (no-one surprised by that), but the plot was the same as in like the past four issues. i was annoyed overall, because it had the sense of thinness to it that the widescreen ish and the first couple of summer holiday ishs suffered from. there should have been a shatterung revelation in there somewhere, and i didn't feel that here was. i think i'll pull it apart and read from 1-32, or backwards, or whatever, just to see if i like it any more.
 
 
Aertho
12:28 / 21.02.05
Gumbitch:

If you know what all your cards mean: start with Devil at ish 26 ProMEthea, and each issue following corresponds to each next card: making ish 31 your "earth-shattering revelation". What's silly about THAT little truth is that we don't learn anything we don't already know. Which, thematically, was the biggest revelation of them all.

Global insanity and shared hallucination resulted in the cracking of a new worldview: one that isn't adopted by all cells of the body, but definitely the most important parts. That's the important thing about understanding the post-apocalytic ABC.

32 was about integration, summation, and seeing the bigger picture. Hence, the flipside poster structure.

Love it.
 
 
Mistoffelees
13:17 / 21.02.05

You should have seen me the last hour. Taping those pages together, it was quite a challenge. I was surprised, how calm I stayed, when usually all those sticking and not fitting pages could have easily ticked me off.

And midway through, I realized, that I never pulled a comic apart before. Sacrilege! Moore, what have you done to me?!

And I´ll buy two more issues of course, to put the other poster up, too (wonder what they will look like, when the sunlight hits them) and have one readable copy...
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
14:38 / 21.02.05
The only thing that worries me is that everyone's buying three copies. What are the chances of there being any left when I go to pick up my other two?

Ah well. When the trades come out I can dismantle my "reading" copy anyway.

REALLY looking forward to the poster, though.
 
 
Aertho
15:38 / 21.02.05
It's amazing how Moore's dialogue contains cues that allow for [the comic/poster gold/poster blue] to be started at certain places, and end at others. Much like the infinity spread from Mercury Rising.

Little things like that are wunnerful.
 
 
Tamayyurt
02:58 / 22.02.05
This issue was great and it’s one I’ll refer to regularly from here on out. It’s really hard for me to pick which poster I like best since I love them both but I’d have to go with the golden one.

Oh and Chad, I had the same, um, impulse… to read Finnegan’s Wake after reading this issue but after looking at that daunting first page I may hold off on that.
 
 
Mark Parsons
05:58 / 22.02.05
"REALLY looking forward to the poster, though."

Are they selling the poster at a later date? I read that only the (unsigned) cover book would be on sale.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
06:46 / 22.02.05
Not as far as I know- I just meant I was looking forward to getting another copy so I could make the poster myself.
 
 
Nalvage
08:12 / 22.02.05
The (relatively trivial) thing that impressed me was that when in comic form the lines of stars match up across pages even though those pages aren't next to each other when it's in poster form, at which point the lines also match up with whatever page they *are* now next to. Ugh.
 
 
The Falcon
10:59 / 22.02.05
Here's the original page order just in case you want to put it back together at any point: 16, 29, 17, 4, 1, 20, 32, 13, 9, 28, 24, 5, 8, 21, 25, 12, 11, 26, 22, 7, 6, 23, 27, 10, 14, 31, 19, 2, 3, 18, 30, 15.
 
 
Aertho
11:27 / 22.02.05
Any word on Book 5 Hardcover?

I think the image on the cover should be a rocking chair. But it won't be. It'll probably be one of the naked Prometheas from ish 32, or something like that.
 
 
Warewullf
12:48 / 27.02.05
Bloody amazing comic. I had to buy it online since my comic shop sold out.
Loved it.

Is it true that the number of potential connection in the human brain outnumbers the number of particles in the universe?
 
 
Mistoffelees
16:40 / 27.02.05

Yes, it´s true:

The brain has about 100.000.000.000 cells, which are connected by x1000 connections. So, th real connections are 100.0000.000.000.000.

Now, the possible connections would be:
100.000.000.000 x 99.999.999.999 x ... x 1.

And that´s a real big number.
 
 
Abraxas
17:36 / 27.02.05
And by what, pray, would these connections (if they were to be put to work) be achieved except particles?

Unless I've totally misunderstood the word "potential" wouldn't this render the fact in question either untrue or rather meaningless?
 
 
Aertho
18:48 / 27.02.05
yeah, I guess so, unless you accept that "mind" is the fifth dimension. If time-space is a four dimensional soild, and the mind can imagine it as such, it means that mind(IMAGINATION) is outside that 4-D structure = fifth dimension. No go back and find that reference in the Invisibles about how the gods of one pantheon trapped an "evil" god inside the universe. Find also a passage that states that the universe is process by which "God" will be "born" after the transformative process of time/space.

By accepting that the mind could contain more potential connections than material particles in the universe, then you realize that God's going to "escape" 4-D and be born as an idea. Which, it has, already...

I've had too much sugar.
 
 
--
20:53 / 27.02.05
Just read it and... I dunno. I really wanted to love this series but ended up just liking it. "The Invisibles" ended sooooo much better then this (and it even had a storyline for that matter). A lot of the latter issues were very corny and syrupy and the whole thing just seemed to read like Moore's magical diaries with very little in the way of good storytelling or characters (odd that, he usually is quite good in those areas). GM incorporates a lot of magic into his comics but it usually isn't centerstage (most likely because the comics themselves are magical acts). He hints at just enough to get you interested and make you go investigate, whereas with Moore I felt as if he was holding the reader's hand the whole time while leading them through some kind of occult candyland.

Having said all that, the art was very good and the issues were good to look at, but it just seemed like so much eye candy. My favorite moments were probably the Qabalah issues, the rest just didn't captivate me. Maybe it's because my views of magic just don't jive with Moore's... I dunno. I was discussing this with another magician I know who's into comics and he said he thought that Sophia Bangs was just an avatar for Moore (not that that's a bad thing: GM did the same anyway) and that overall the story just wasn't there and it came off as slightly sexist (I'm not sure if I'd say sexist but, for all Moore's efforts to present us with magick as this new shiney thing, at his heart he's pure old skool... I mean, that whole issue where they were talking about the wand and sex magic and all that). And the last issue pretty much showcases everything I disliked about the series, instead of a captivating final issue we just get a two giant posters and an information overload that smacks to me of Moore showing off his qabalistic knowledge and quoting from tons of "out there" sources to show us just how "out there" he too can be. It all seemed more like a big marketing ploy then a comic to be read and enjoyed.

So in the end, I'd have to say that "Promethea" was enjoyable but other then that, little else. There wasn't one moment in the entire series where I felt brought to tears. Ironically, Morrison's work tends to move me more, which is odd as his stuff can very sometimes come off as cynical and manipulative.
 
 
Gary Lactus
07:48 / 28.02.05
Don't care if this final issue was a just a summary of the whole series. This handy-dandy booklet was great stuff. Went to my uncle's funeral with it. "Death is just an illusion of four dimensional perspective. Don't worry". Kinda wanted to stand up and read it to the congregation.
 
 
Digital Hermes
05:17 / 01.03.05
Possibly some of the most interesting ideas that blew me away:
1) This is the finale of the apocalypse of the ABC universe. To read it in entirety, you had to destroy the comic, whose pages were the barrier and window into this destroying universe.
2) Since one of the major elements of this work and Moore's magical motions in general is the proximity between 'fiction/art' and 'magic', and that they are not so far apart as you might think. By making Promethea talk to us (me, at least) directly, it became what might be one of the most successful tremblings of the veil between art/magic, and reality, in a non-drug induced way.
3) Leave aside criticisms of the narrative form; Moore has done and is doing something to the notion of how comics work and how they can be seen that surpasses the innovation of the tarot issue. It doesn't have a traditional narrative structure, but we all know that Moore is a master of narrative, so this form, this presentation, is intentional. So if it is obviously a choice of the creators, can the lack be considered a flaw, or simply that choice? Besides, if anyone is still following it to here, how surprised can we be that it ends as an explosion of images, ideas, and Art?

As a side note, to those who have tried Finnegans Wake; don't let it daunt you. The best advice I ever got was to not expect to get every word, or every page. If you let the dream-language flow over you, you'll pick up on the currents that you have your own access to.
 
 
Quantum
17:17 / 01.03.05
I loved the optical illusion on the cover that suggests the caduceus, when in fact it's just the one serpent of the Universe (World) Tarot card.
I just read mine from back to front and recommend it, just as worthwhile as front to back, or the front and back of the poster. (Love the 'other side' pun on the poster!)
Check out this quote I found which would have fitted nicely in with the rest;
"Self-awareness and the creative urge distinguish us from other creatures. To create requires that something can be envisioned before it can be caused. This is called Hellenic Imagination after Prometheus, the Greek God, credited with the discovery of the magical power of being able to imagine the future by projecting a horizon of possibilities."
(Alan Fletcher, 'The Art of Looking Sideways')

Coincidentally (Ha!) I wrote an article for Boy in a Suitcase a few months ago that is extremely similar in content and structure to #32, so imagine my surprise when I finally got hold of it- I thought Moore had been scrying on me for a paranoid moment, but it's just paralell evolution. Anyone else had any coincidences with this issue?
 
 
PatrickMM
01:52 / 02.03.05
I did a binge read of the whole series over the past week (previous I'd only read the first three trades), and I loved it. I think it's the best thing in comics, or pretty much any medium, since The Invisibles, and I would take issue with the idea that it's only a lesson on magic. It's definitley more didactic than The Invisibles, but even in the heights of the Kaballah storyline, there are strong emotional moments. Like, the blue Fatherland issue had some of the most affecting emotional and character stuff Moore's ever done. Some of it does cross the line to being basically just Moore's philosophy in comic form, but the beauty of the last few issues in particular is the way it combines character concerns with the philosophy stuff, in the same way a lot of The Invisibles does.

In particular, I loved the end of issue 31 which gives you a full idea of this new world, but also character closure for pretty much everyone in the series.

That said, I would agree that The Invisibles is by far the superior series. Invis seems to be more about introducing you to these concepts, and then making you work. It's an empowering series, that really rewards deep, detailed rereading, whereas Promethea seems to reinfornce all its points repeatedly, such that you'll definitely get them. But, it might just seem this way to me because I already read The Invisibles. I know her speech in 31, where she says, "Your world is ended," basically describes how I felt after reading The Invisibles, but your world can only be destroyed once, and this didn't do it.

And, The Invisibles has a lot more going on than magic, it's got deeper character work. I love the arcs in Promethea, but Invis is just a much larger work. Ultimately, they work together, and make each other stronger through their mutual existence. The Invisibles rewrote my reality and Promethea got me thinking about a lot of new ideas, and rethinking some old ones, so both were incredibly successful.

And amidst all its other virtues, the art on Promethea is the best ever done in comics. So much variety and consistent quality, you can't believe that one artist can do so much.
 
 
Tamayyurt
02:12 / 02.03.05
Ah, if only jhw3 had done all three vol. of the Invisibles!
 
 
FinderWolf
14:32 / 02.03.05
Some tiny fanboy part of me wishes the whole ABC Universe had really just got blown up good!! after Moore's comments that 'well, most comic universes threaten to have the world end but of course never really do...'
 
 
-
00:31 / 03.03.05
ok this is a hell of a way to start off on a series. sorry i've been generally uninterested in comics for the past year and don't make it to the shop every week. but i did go in today and picked up the last copy of 32 cause of the pretty colors. wow. SO, where do i go from here? get the trades and go in chrono order, go in 32's order starting with 16, try hunting down back issues and let random or luck of the draw determine the order? or the above suggestion of starting with the devil at 26 and then what? ...other suggestions? it will be a couple months or more before i am comfortable with buying the whole series and having time to digest it, so i should plan this.

my thoughts: the deliberate sequence and orientation is what threw me for a loop. i started reading it sequentially and it worked, then said well maybe i should do it numerically and it still worked. a little lost at 15-16 it's like she says bye and then hi. but still, the planning for something like this is incredible. it's both and both backwards, or hoewver you want to read it. (yeah you get a little time travel with invisibles) but to put it in the readers hand semi-deconstructed you're forcing them to think and question, even if it's just aw man now i gotta put together a puzzle. my question is could you order it in a way that you read it in infinite series (with chosen timelapses), say starting sequential then shifting to numerical, then by color tones, whatever else progressing to random? initiation never ends. i'd say no for #32, because of the way many things are presented factually you'd skip over them. would need to be in the vein of looped choose your own adventure, but i don't know how you'd address and reinterpret repetitive events...

and i love page as panel in itself, single or double page splash. but you add the tear apart/reconstruction aspect and talk about gutter space between panels scott mccloud! the 2 layers of fact vs dialogue and then the 2+ layers of layered linework vs page panel vs background posters. yes the facts are a bit hand-holding, but i don't know how else you'd get around it and still be so encompassing. the whole naked chick floating in the air gets a bit boring, but i guess you consider the general comic audience... the only other thing is it borders visual sensory overload, probably intended and keeps it interesting, but the lack of blank space really equalizes everything, you don't identify individual moments because they all look the same. heh, the A logo in the baby's ABC's

synchrontity-wise i just pinned up my architecture thesis today, in which i am presenting my glorified park bench throughout the day with shadows. so you start at black 1am and progress to white 12noon, like 12 shades of greyscale, yes i'm taking liberties. it's only halfway done but it will cycle back around through the night. at the same time you zoom from world scale to very small, like the powers of 10 video. ANYWAY, my whole thing was having it read as a whole, sequence, cycle. #32 tells me no, each moment is the present and the links between them is entirely user defined, like the butterfly mind. well, i need to digest this... but tonight i have to write a paper in the form of a structured argument, if 1 then 2 and 3 means conclusion...hm is not each assertion a singularity itself and the links between them entirely a thought association? can't conclusions stand alone? and then if you need supporting thoughts can't the individual construct them?

also something got me in the mood to put on themes from william blake's marriage of heaven and hell after the first read. the guy with the beard on p13 reminded me of plate 24. also the swedenborg quote. then thinking on the whole language-word subject and hearing stuff from plates 8 and 12... so is the written word or worded thought blasphemous, as it divides and associates thoughts? or is it only through conscious understanding of disparate entities that we are able to sense a greater whole? why can't we just BE? even with a silent/'nuff said comic are we still filtering images to wordthoughts? and if we are essentially being right NOW, why are we still caught up and ripped apart into words?
 
 
FinderWolf
14:48 / 03.03.05
one of the pics in issue 32 was indeed an image (probably jh3 redrawing it) from a Blake plate.
 
 
Aertho
15:00 / 03.03.05
- (hyphen), do yourself a favor and buy the Promethea hardcovers. Read from the beginning and go from there. I jumped in the month Sophie and Babs made it to Binah, and had to track backwards. In the order I read, issue 12 was the end until it hit the ground running with issue 26.

The Promethea books are a much more accessible telling of Morrisonian themes for grandchildren. That's reason enough to buy, keep, and treasure.
 
  

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