Annotations


Cover First time I've noticed the little marijuana leaf on the front of Pierrot's mask/hood. Seems an odd symbol for the Harlequinade..? [Ganesha]

o [page 1] [panel 5] This is Jacqui, an ex-girlfriend of King Mob, who we last saw in Volume 2. [TEC]

o [page 2] [panel 1] Raudive was that guy who made tape recordings in haunted houses and found mysterious voices when he played them back really loud. Burroughs writes about him in The Adding Machine. [Jackie Susann]

o [page 5] [panel 4] So all of our confusion from issue 4 about Pennington / Rossiter seems to have been on purspose, as Miles is himself confused. Are their identities switching? It's as if Miles' "schizophrenia" is not restricted to himself, therefore identies of those around him are switching -- as result of the impending collapse of distinction between the two sides. Especially as one of them is a traitor, the opposition is dissolving, and it is most visible to the "schizophrenic" Miles, who has seen both sides. [Mystery Gypt] [panel 5] At first I thought that this "conscious mind can hold eight seperate things" was maybe a reference to the Buddhist 8-Fold path of escaping Samsara: this 8-fold path leads to Nirvana, the extinguising of distinctions; and here Miles follows his comment about eight with a joke reffering to to non-distinction between Pennington and Rossiter. But because of the reference to the Hylic Grail, i think perhaps it is a reference to the "ogdoad" of Gnosticism, the eightfold emanations of thought from which the universe follows. In fact, the Gnostic and Buddhist 8-fold schemes are contradictory: one creates, one annhiliates, the world. So here in one vague line, Grant removes the distinction from these two opposing thoughts. [Mystery Gypt] [panel 6]Pennington/Rossiter is himself forgetting distinctions. He confabulates when Miles said "the black sun" and "the hylic grail" (# 4, page 22, pn 2) into just one phrase, "The Black Grail" Hylic is again from Gnosticism, meaning material, base, and totally damned -- versus the gnostic (which immediately go to heavenly light) and the psychic (which could go either way). Since the Archons, in Gnosticism (as in the comic), are the nasty fucks who are the opposite of heavenly light, but are instead of the non-holy and most dense and material matter, the hylic-material grail would be the power source of evil. I've heard of the hylic grail before but can't remember where. [Mystery Gypt]

o [page 10] [panel 1] that's KM and Fanny in their homeless duds in the foreground. [Jackie Susann] [panel 2] That's John Lennon and Stuart Sutcliffe strolling by, just as they were in issue 1#1. [Mystery Gypt / Broad Arrow Jack] [panel 3/4] The Harlequinade appear to be walking outside the phone booth. [Jackie Susann] [panel 5] Someone pointed out that "She was a girl from Birmingham" is from the Sex Pistols' song "Bodies" why? perhaps because the next line in the song is "She just had an abortion" whichi is maybe stuck in KM's head because it was said so many times in reference to the moonchildbeast. [Mystery Gypt]

o [page 12] [panel 3] What's Jack got in the Galaxy chocolate box? A second Hand of Glory? There's no green glow... [Ganesha]

o [page 15] [panel 5] Miles is again confusing Rossiter / Pennington BOTH or EITHER ONE could be the betrayer, depending on whose side Miles REALLY is on. [Mystery Gypt]

o [page 20] [panel 5] Helga is carrying her Cut-and-Paste Grimoire of the Black Grail last seen in 3#4. [TEC]