Annotations


COVER NOTES:The SEVENTH SEAL reference is obvious--the image of the "Dance of Death" across the top of the cover is, I believe, a scanned still from the film itself. equally obvious is the "hidden" seven, in Edith and Death's hands (Death is extending five fingers, Edith two--making seven total). But to me it looks as if Edith and Death (near anagrams, those) are playing the schoolyard game "Rock/Paper/Scissors". And that Edith has triumphed over Death: scissors cuts paper. [JF] The cover's background image is indeed scanned from Ingmar Bergman's film "The Seventh Seal". [See the original image] [FH]

o [page 1] That's the statue of Shiva with a gun (representing the old ways of the Invisibles) and a syringe (representing the new ways of the Invisibles i.e. Key 23). [Mr Whisper]

o [page 2] [panel 1] The book Mason and King Mob have been reading is most likely "Impossibility : The Limits of Science and the Science of Limits", by the astrophysicist John D. Barrow. [see a review] I note with interest that one of the points of the book is that even "type omega" civilizations, with seemingly unlimited power, would be subject to limits of various sorts, including limits on how perfect a society they could construct. As the reviewer notes, paradoxes involving democratic voting systems ("Arrow's Impossibility Theorem") mean that there can be no optimal way of making social decisions democratically; "the only voting systems that are strategy-proof are dictorial", according to Barrow, to which the reviewer adds "In the end, we can best replace the dictator with random tie-breakers. So perhaps we would be wise to appoint the ... lottery as our final constitutional arbiter." Randomness as an alternative to dictatorial rule: now there's an Invisibles sentiment! [FH] That fuzzy image is the Jimenez/Stokes drawing of Jack and Fanny dancing for the Harlequin to get the Hand of Glory (V.2 #7, page 18, panel 6) [Jack Frost] [panel 2] Nikolai Kardashev is a Russian astrophysicist who proposed what are now known as the "Kardashev classifications" in his 1964 paper "Transmission of Information by Extraterrestrial Civilizations (Soviet Astronomy, vol.8, No.2, pp.217-220, 1964). [more information] [FH]

o [pages 2-3] Notice the horse dying in the background and the people loading up a giant syringe and gun in the back of a truck. Is this the same gun and syringe from the Shiva statue? [Mr Whisper]

o [page 5] [panel 1] A flashback to King Mob's experience in Australia back in volume one. [Mr Whisper]

o [page 8] [panel 5] The fly buzzing around Sir Miles seems to add to the series ongoing insect motif (along with the description of the armored Mrs. Dwyer in the House of Fun arc as insect-like, the butterfly totem that guided Fanny as a child, the fly that sat on Jack's hand in Vol 2, Issue 22). [Mr Whisper]

o [page 10] [panel 5] Harpocrates or Heru-pa-khered was a deity of Ancient Egypt, a defender of the weak and the innocent against outside forces and who was depicted as a child with his finger held to his mouth. [More info] Antiques Roadshow is a PBS television show wherein antique experts invite people in the cities they visit to have their family heirlooms, etc appraised. [Mr Whisper] They are more likely to be referring to the English version of Antiques Roadshow which has been a staple of British Sunday evening television for twenty years. [TEC]

o [page 11] [panel 5] Flint is using the Invisible Alphabet. He also mentions John A'Dreams who we haven't heard of/from in a while.[Mr Whisper]

o [page 16] [panel 1] A Lagonda, twould seem, is a vintage car. [More information] [Mr Whisper]

o [page 19] Notice how Mr. Reddy looks like Jack did to the Blind Chessman in Vol 2, Issue 19. Is that how we all look "stripped off"?[Mr Whisper]

o [page 18] Does Edith's mentioning of fictionsuits have anything to do with Robin's fiction suits in the immersion tanks she used in 2005? [Mr Whisper]

o [page 22] Edith's speech bubbles suddenly become Barbelith's. [I]