Credits

o Grant Morrison (Writer)
o Chris Weston (Artist)
o Daniel Vozzo (Colors)
o Clem Robins (Letterer)
o Julie Rottenberg (Ass. Editor)
o Stuart Moore (Editor)

The Invisibles created by Grant Morrison

Summary

Zombies are roaming around New Orleans. Lamerci calls Papa Guedhe, in the form of Jim crow to get vengeance. Jim Crow believes it has to do with the insect loa. He pulls a puddle off the ground and goes to meet Baron Zaraguin. It becomes clear that white businessmen have been lacing crack cocaine with a chemical that kills its users. They then use zombie-technology to inhabit the dead bodies and use them to commit rapes and murders. Baron Zaraguin gave them the knowledge of Zombie making. Crow strikes a deal with Zaraguin - to take the souls of the murdered boys back in exchange for something 'strong and powerful'. Meanwhile the businessmen inhabit some more victims and go to kill Lamerci, but Jim Crow bursts in and shoots them with his bone gun. He blows bubbles with the souls of the young boys inside them, and Lamerci takes charge of their progress. Scorion lights emerge from the dead bodies and fly towards the businessmen leading Jim to their source. When the police arive they find them dressed as minstrels ripping their boss open while Jim plays the banjo....

Characters

o Lamerci
o Jim Crow
o King Mob
o Baron Zaraguin

Analysis

Annotations

Grant said in this issue's letter column that his sources for this story are: "Divine Horsement" by Maya Deren; "Voodoo and Hoodoo" by Jim Haskins; ""Mama Lola" by Karen McCarthy Brown; and "The Voudoun Gnostic Workbook" by Michel Bertiaux. Note on Jim Crow's name: "Jim Crow" was originally a derogatory term for blacks, it has come to describe the situation of segregation that existed in the U.S. South after the Civil War ended slavery but before the Civil Rights movement. [RM] The voodoo gods are commonly referred to as Les Invisibles. [RL]

o [page 2] panel 2: "Twilight Zone" and "Outer Limits" are two '50s/'60s American TV anthology fiction shows known for their overarching weirdness. [PV/JB]

o [page 3] panel 1: "Les morts, les mysteres, les Marassa": French for "the dead, the occult arts and the ???" [PV] The "Marassa" are the Divine Twins of the Vodoun pantheon. Twins have a great deal of religio/magical significance in West African religions (most if not all African elements in Vodoun come from West Africa). [HE] panel 3: "Water-woman": Lamerci's referring to her element. [PV] "Water-woman" is also a reference to La Sirenne, the mermaid form of Erzulie, the capricious Loa of feminine beauty and sexuality. [HE] "Mambo": the name of the priestess in Voodoo. Sometimes the spirit gods "ride" [possess] the mambo. [PV] "Papa Guedhe"/"Baron Samedi": names of the Voodoo god of the dead. [PV] Guedhe is also the loa of sexuality and wild partying. He's sort of the Vodoun Dionysios. [HE] panel 4: Jimi Hendrix: famous left-handed guitar player. [PV] panel 5: "bel garcon" = handsome fellow (French). [PV] An alternative translation might be "pretty boy." [JBU] This is a translation of a Vodoun song about Papa Guedhe, which has parallels to a real event in Haitian history- during one of the more recent dictatorships, a host of Vodoun priests, all "ridden" by Guedhe and dressed to the nines, descended on the presidential palace in Port-au-Prince and caused much genial havoc. [HE]

o [page 4] On the tombstone you can see the penciller's name (Christopher Weston). [PV] Let's not forget that the Ace of Spades (in Jim's hatband) is associated with death. Also, the skull on the crotch of JC's pants is symbolically important, since he says in v1.23 that his gun turns sexual thoughts into death. Is there any significance to the time on his clock? The hands stay at basically the same positions, far as I can tell...[RD]

o [page 5] panel 2: The "ouija bird": Morrison used something similar in his graphic novel, Mystery Play. [PV]

o [page 7] panel 2: "magickal record": Mages often keep journals reporting all of their magickal operations. [PV] panel 4: Many of the words in this invocation are in "langage", a garbled mix of several West African languages, used by Vodoun initiates for magical purposes. "ti malice" = Little Troublemaker is one of the many titles of Papa G., so probably much of the rest of it is, too. And I'm pretty sure that "zozo" means "penis". [HE]

o [page 8] panel 1: "Season of ghouls"? "October meadows"? [PV] The blue puddle is a type of fluid intelligence often encountered during trips on tryptamine hallucinogens such as ayahuasca or DMT. The blue puddles are used by tribal shamans to view the spirit world of the dead or to divine the future. Try dimethyltryptamine, or read The Yage Letters by William Burroughs, or True Hallucinations by Terence McKenna. [JH]

o [page 9] panel 6: "Let's go walk with a zombie.": "I Walked With a Zombie" is a famous song--covered by REM, among others--by notorious acid casualty Roky Erickson of the '60s Texan psychedelic band 13th Floor Elevators. [CG/JB] "I Walked With a Zombie" is also a movie by Jacques Tournier, of "Cat People" fame. [RD] It's probably one of the earliest films using zombies. [RL]

o [page 10] panel 1: "Ville-aux-camps" = The City of Camps. Called "Lavilokan" in Haitian Creole, this is the otherworld of the Loa and the Dead, which supposedly lies under the sea. [HE] On the interstate highway sign is the fish-symbol of the the Nommo, the Dogon/Sumerian amphibious gods from the star Sirius. See The Sirius Mystery by Robert Temple for an incredibly in-depth study of the Nommo and their apparent impact on early human culture. [JH] panel 4: Magic mirror ??? See also issues 13-14 and 24 [PV] panel 5: "Molten imagination, the bricks and mortar of the universe, endlessly morphing, infinitely pliable. Liquid-looking glass. The door to Everywhere." This "liquid" will appear again and again in the rest of the series... See 1.13, page 9. [JB]

o [page 12] [panel 2] "stag thing": Refers to "stag parties": males-only gatherings, usually for viewing of porn films, etc. [JB]

o [page 13] [panel 1] "Our scientists ... found a way to design the crystals so that they would resonate at a given frequency." See Terence and Dennis McKenna's 1971 attempts to use electron spin resonance frequencies to permanently bond psychedelic molecules with the human genetic code in their book The Invisible Landscape. Also, the CIA has done research with the molecular frequencies of various substances to test their effects on the human nervous system. LSD has a resonant frequency of 11,000 cps (cycles per second) and when the brain is exposed to that frequency hallucinations and other bizarre phenomena are reported. The experiencer has a psychedelic trip from the chemical frequency, without requiring the actual chemical. [JH]

o [page 14] [panels 1-2] Jim Crow is singing a rude Guedhe song, this one having to do with Papa G's interest in both the "holes" that pretty women have. [HE] [panel 4] "Good UFOs" and "bad UFOs"? Could UFOs be metaphorical manifestations of good and evil emotions? [PV]

o [page 17] [panel 2] King Mob owes Baron Zaraguin...[JB]

o [page 20] [panel 1] "Bring out your dead!": A quote from the film "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." [BSI] The Monty Python quote is a reference to the rag&bone men who used to go around streets with a barrow collecting unwanted stuff from houses, and to the Plague (which is something of an anachronism by approximately 1000 years if King Arthur was around c.600.) [AD]

o [page 22] [panel 5] Crow quotes the opening line of Michael Jackson's song "Bad." [RL]

o [page 24] "Straight outta Camptown!" is a play on L.A. gangsta rap group N.W.A's hit album "Straight Outta Compton." [JB] "Camptown Races" was, I believe, a staple of minstrel shows. Can anybody verify? [BSI] Indeed it is. Although the song title might be "Camptown Ladies": "Camptown ladies sing this song, doo dah, Camptown racetrack five miles long..." [RM]