TRoOB: Promethea
Dec. 16th, 2002 10:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jducoeurIt's the latest edition of The Review of Obscure Books. The topic du jour is one of the most intriguingly strange comics being published today: Promethea, by Alan Moore.
So a few years back, Alan Moore went and got a comic imprint of his very own: America's Best Comics. This is currently owned by DC, but is quite separate from the rest of DC's universe; really, the ABC universe is scarcely even in the same world as itself. It's all interesting: I may well cover Tom Strong (a delightfully innocent pastiche of older comics) or Top Ten (think Hill Street Blues with Superheroes) at a later date. But the most unusual of the bunch is definitely Promethea.
The heroine of our story is fictional. I don't just mean that the story is fictional: I mean that in the story, she's fictional. She's basically a sort of primordial heroine who occasionally gets channeled by individuals who concentrate on the character strongly enough. But since the people doing the imagining are quite different, the heroine who comes out are quite different. The current incarnation, Sophie, is a fairly straightforward Wonder Woman type, but some of her dead predecessors (who are also major characters) range from the flamboyantly gay man who wrote her stories decades ago, to the terribly down-to-earth immediate predecessor, Barbara.
But mostly, this book is a complex exploration of the subject of magic. Every issue is full of assorted strangeness -- Alan Moore is a great devotee of ritual magic of all sorts, and the story goes into a lot of thought about what it is about. And the past dozen issues have been particularly esoteric, as Sophie and Barbara go on the long walk up the planes, visiting the spheres of the Tree of Life at a rate of one per issue. The entire storyline is an extended collection of metaphors, tying together all the major Qabalistic disciplines and literally exploring each sphere in considerable depth.
This story is not for every taste -- if Qabala isn't your thing, you'll probably find the whole thing terribly overstretched. On the other hand, if you're into modern ritual magic, and especially if you're into its philosophical underpinnings, you may want to check this out. The art is lush, and the writing, while sometimes a tad distant, does a fine job of expressing the underlying flavor of magic and the quest for it. The whole story is worth reading, although I especially recommend reading from around issues 24-37, which IIRC are roughly the Tree of Life story. I'll warn you that this isn't a quick read: if you care about it at all, you'll care enough to read it slowly and think about it.
Overall grade: B+ if you like funky magic, B otherwise. Not Alan Moore's best work, but that's praising with faint damnation -- this is the man who wrote V For Vendetta, IMO the best graphic novel of all time...
So a few years back, Alan Moore went and got a comic imprint of his very own: America's Best Comics. This is currently owned by DC, but is quite separate from the rest of DC's universe; really, the ABC universe is scarcely even in the same world as itself. It's all interesting: I may well cover Tom Strong (a delightfully innocent pastiche of older comics) or Top Ten (think Hill Street Blues with Superheroes) at a later date. But the most unusual of the bunch is definitely Promethea.
The heroine of our story is fictional. I don't just mean that the story is fictional: I mean that in the story, she's fictional. She's basically a sort of primordial heroine who occasionally gets channeled by individuals who concentrate on the character strongly enough. But since the people doing the imagining are quite different, the heroine who comes out are quite different. The current incarnation, Sophie, is a fairly straightforward Wonder Woman type, but some of her dead predecessors (who are also major characters) range from the flamboyantly gay man who wrote her stories decades ago, to the terribly down-to-earth immediate predecessor, Barbara.
But mostly, this book is a complex exploration of the subject of magic. Every issue is full of assorted strangeness -- Alan Moore is a great devotee of ritual magic of all sorts, and the story goes into a lot of thought about what it is about. And the past dozen issues have been particularly esoteric, as Sophie and Barbara go on the long walk up the planes, visiting the spheres of the Tree of Life at a rate of one per issue. The entire storyline is an extended collection of metaphors, tying together all the major Qabalistic disciplines and literally exploring each sphere in considerable depth.
This story is not for every taste -- if Qabala isn't your thing, you'll probably find the whole thing terribly overstretched. On the other hand, if you're into modern ritual magic, and especially if you're into its philosophical underpinnings, you may want to check this out. The art is lush, and the writing, while sometimes a tad distant, does a fine job of expressing the underlying flavor of magic and the quest for it. The whole story is worth reading, although I especially recommend reading from around issues 24-37, which IIRC are roughly the Tree of Life story. I'll warn you that this isn't a quick read: if you care about it at all, you'll care enough to read it slowly and think about it.
Overall grade: B+ if you like funky magic, B otherwise. Not Alan Moore's best work, but that's praising with faint damnation -- this is the man who wrote V For Vendetta, IMO the best graphic novel of all time...
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(no subject)
Date: 2002-12-16 09:20 pm (UTC)The other reason I stopped getting them is purely financial. The boyfriend who got me into the comics (Jon) and I stopped being friendly. I asked him to stop buying them for me. And I couldn't afford comic book trips very often. *sigh* Oh, to be a millionaire ...
The other three books I read (past and present tenses) when I have/had a chance are The Watchmen, Strangers in Paradise, and Midnight Nation. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2002-12-17 05:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2002-12-18 05:44 am (UTC)I recommend simply asking. Most of the guys who work there are generally friendly, and happy to help if you ask. There's one guy who is a bit less knowledgeable and a bit more dour, but he seems to only be on about once a week. Steve (the owner) is especially good about helping folks find what they want. He's the relatively thin, dark-haired guy; tell him I sent you. (I'm one of his two best customers.)
As for what's good -- well, that's sort of what TRoOB is for. Comics are a big enough field these days that Sturgeon's Law applies in force. And different comics are definitely for different tastes.
(no subject)
Date: 2002-12-18 06:16 am (UTC)any itme i go into outer limits, i feel like i am i na museum, and i shouldn't touch anything. will try again. i think i will have time next week. do you knwo what hteir schedul;e is like over the holidays?
(no subject)
Date: 2002-12-18 08:16 pm (UTC)I don't remember the exact proportion, but roughly speaking, Sturgeon's Law is, "90% of everything is crap". It's one of those useful maxims of the universe.
do you knwo what hteir schedul;e is like over the holidays?
As a rule of thumb, they're closed on actual holidays (so they'll presumably be closed on Christmas and New Year's proper), but they're usually open other days. Their hours are generally short on Sunday (noon-5 or something like that); they're open until 6:30 most other day
Random bits...
Date: 2002-12-21 08:40 am (UTC)I'll put in a vote for Top Ten and another for Tom Strong. Eliz liked Top Ten as well, but she doesn't really appreciate the pulp-Golden-Ageness of Tom Strong.
-dsr-
Re: Random bits...
Date: 2002-12-21 09:22 am (UTC)Guilty as charged -- one of his top two, actually, as I understand it. (I once asked Steve if I was his top customer, and he assured me that there was someone else who spends even more there.)
But my recommendations are mainly based on observing the staff interacting with others. I pretty much never need help finding stuff myself, since I mostly know the current comics better than anyone on the staff does, and I've been shopping there for 15 years. But the times I've seen people ask, they've generally been helpful..