THE IMAGES
AUTHORING (AND DRAWING) THE IMPOSSIBLE
MAN IS A CREATURE WHO MAKES PICTURES OF HIMSELF AND THEN COMES TO RESEMBLE THE PICTURE.
IRIS MURDOCH
THE THING ABOUT COMICS . . . IT’S THE MAGICAL ELEMENTS OF IT. THAT’S WHAT I LOVE MOST: THE ARTIFACT. . . . THE IDEA THAT THE COMIC FORM ITSELF IS REALLY BEAUTIFUL BECAUSE IT ENGAGES THE RIGHT HEMISPHERE AND THE LEFT HEMISPHERE OF THE BRAIN SIMULTANEOUSLY, SO YOU’RE PROBABLY GETTING INTERESTING HOLOGRAPHIC EFFECTS, WHICH I THINK IS WHAT ALLOWS COMICS TO COME TO LIFE IN THE WAY THEY DO.
GRANT MORRISON IN PATRICK MEANEY, OUR SENTENCE IS UP
The mythical themes and paranormal currents of popular culture are generally transmitted through two modes intimately working together: words and images. Here something like the comic-book medium—serialized panels that look more than a little like frames of moving film—is definitely a good share of the message, and it certainly is most of the magic. In the spirit of the conclusion of my last book, where I suggested that we think of an “author of the impossible” as someone who can bring online both sides of the brain, I have transmitted my ideas here through one left-brain-dominant mode (writing) and one right-brain-dominant mode (graphic art). Moreover, in this same two-brained spirit, I have “explained” the illustrations in the body of the text, even as I have “illustrated” my ideas through the images.
I am reminded here of something the French chemical engineer René Warcollier suggested in his 1946 Sorbonne lecture, which became Mind to Mind (1948), a seminal text on telepathic drawings (les dessins télépathique) that, along with Betty Edwards’s Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (1979), has informed my own impossible thinking about the secret life of popular culture. Warcollier, who was first awakened to the subject by his own telepathic dreams, believed that telepathic communications most likely reveal a form of psychical operation that employs paranormal processes, predates the acquisition of language, and reveals the very “substratum of thought” in what he called “word-pictures.” As Warcollier demonstrated through a series of drawings and his own text, condensed, telepathically communicated word-pictures are often creatively expanded on, exaggerated, and added to by the recipient’s imagination until they become words and pictures, and finally stories—in essence, minimyths.
Word-pictures. This is simply an initial way to suggest that there is something very special about the double-genres that we are about to encounter, and that it makes no sense at all to encounter them only in their word forms. The pictures are just as important, if not more so. Even if what the images carry cannot be captured by words, and especially when what they carry cannot be captured by words, these beautiful images can transmit something directly—“mind to mind,” we might say.
0.1 Kali exultant. Photograph by Rachel Fell McDermott, used with permission.
0.2 The Tree of Life. Promethea #13 (La Jolla, CA: America’s Best Comics, 2001), n.p.
0.3 Sex magic instructions. Promethea #10 (La Jolla, CA: America’s Best Comics, 2000), cover image.
0.4 Aliens behind the comic. The Invisibles #21 (New York: DC Comics/Vertigo, 1996), cover image.
1.4 The gray guide. Lloyd, Etidorhpa, 95.
2.4 An insectoid superhero. Ultimate Spider-Man #1 (New York: Marvel Comics, 2000), cover image.
2.5 Ditko’s Spidey eyes. The Amazing Spider-Man #1 (New York: Marvel Comics, 1962), cover image.
2.6 The alien suit. Secret Wars #8 (New York: Marvel Comics, 1984), cover image.
2.7 Kali in her two forms. Photograph by Rachel Fell McDermott, used with permission.
2.9 Ray Palmer as the Atom. Showcase Presents #36 (New York: DC Comics, 1962), cover image.
2.10 Ray Palmer as himself. Courtesy of Cushing Memorial Library and Archives, Texas A&M University.
2.12 The flying saucer debuts. Fate #1 (Chicago: Clark Publishing Company, 1948), cover image.
2.14 Space race to the moon. The Fantastic Four #13 (New York: Marvel Comics, 1962), cover image.
2.15 The coming of Galactus. The Fantastic Four #49 (New York: Marvel Comics, 1966), cover image.
3.1 Doctor Manhattan. Watchmen (New York: DC Comics, 1986, 1987), 20.
3.2 Mystical mind meld. Marvel Masterworks: Doctor Strange #1 (New York: Marvel Comics, 2003), 221.
3.3 Radiation transformation. The Incredible Hulk #1 (New York: Marvel Comics, 1962), cover image.
3.5 The human hero as fallen god. The Mighty Thor #145 (New York: Marvel Comics, 1967), cover image.
3.6 Metron tows a planet. Jack Kirby’s Fourth World Omnibus (New York: DC Comics, 2008), 4:372.
3.7 The space gods return. The Eternals #1 (New York: Marvel Comics, 1976), cover image.
3.9 The parapsychologist as superhero. Spirit World #1, 4.
4.1 The coming of the X-Men. The X-Men #1 (New York: Marvel Comics, 1963), cover image.
4.2 The martial arts comic. Marvel Premiere #22 (New York: Marvel Comics, 1975), cover image.
4.3 The occult sports comic. Strange Sports #1 (New York: DC Comics, 1973), cover image.
4.4 Jean Grey studies parapsychology. The X-Men #24 (New York: Marvel Comics, 1966), 1.
4.6 The manifestation of the Phoenix. New X-Men #128 (New York: Marvel Comics, 2002), n.p.
4.7 Phoenix unleashed. Uncanny X-Men #137 (New York: Marvel Comics, 1980), 42.
4.8 Magneto meditates on Mount Tam. Uncanny X-Men #521 (New York: Marvel Comics, 2010), cover image.
5.3 An SI. Ted Owens, How to Contact Space People (Saucerian Press, 1969), cover image.
5.5 Batman’s Hyperdimensional imp. Batman R.I.P. (New York: DC Comics, 2010), n.p.
6.3 VALIS. From Philip K. Dick, VALIS (London: Corgi Books, 1981), cover image.
7.1 Her. Whitley Strieber, Communion: A True Story (New York: William Morrow, 1987), cover image.
7.4 Ghost Rider. Marvel Spotlight #5 (New York: Marvel Comics, 1972), cover image.
All images, unless otherwise noted, are from my private collection. They are reproduced here under the professional practice of fair use for the purposes of historical discussion and scholarly interpretation. All characters and images remain the property of their respective copyright holders credited above.