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Annotations
The
titles of the "Black Science" story arc (Bangin', Kickin' Sorted, and
Safe) are all English dance music (or am I supposed to say "electronica"?)
slang phrases. [JBU] 'Bangin' refers to the drumbeats of tunes. Also
it's a euphemism for sex, a la Robin and KM on page 8.[L]
o
[page 1] "It's the end of the word as we know it": A reference
to "It's the End of the World as We Know It" by REM? "The word" as in
"The Word" of the Bible? The "word" of Key 17 from 1.24? [JB]
o [page 4] King Mob's shirt has
a picture of Cuban revolutionary Che Guevera on it. [CE]
o [page 6] [panel 1] Robin's "Nice
and Smooth" echoes the first words spoken by King Mob on page 1, panel
4 in 1.01. [CE] Is this indicative of something? The first volume to
a large extent revolved around KM. In addition, he was the leader of
the cell during this time. Perhaps Robin's saying this first thing in
this volume means that Volume 2 is primarily about her (which holds
true for most of the run so far) and that she is the leader. We'll see
when Vol. 3 starts up how well this theory holds up. [CG]
o [page 7] [panel 3] "The horror, the horror": A reference
to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness as well, of course, to Coppola's
film Apocalypse Now. [CG]
o [page 9] [panel 3] Mason is very similar to Bruce Wayne
(a.k.a.Batman). Like Batman, when he was very young something happened
to him that really changed his life. [PV]
o [page 11] [panel 2] Those look more like Quimper-faces
than aliens to me... [RD] [panel 3] This whole "liquid information"
bit reminds me of Philip K. Dick's VALIS, which talks a lot about unusual
transmission media for information and postulates a god who is in fact
made of liquid information (see 2.04) [RD] [panel 5] "Did they try to
teach you a language?": This seems to refernce the common experiences
of DMT users, who often report that, after injesting the drug, enter
a realm in which bouncing globes or dwarves (I forget what Terence McKenna
calls them) try to gift you with a new kind of language. [JB] "They
use emotional aggregates...": This ties in with Columbine's "They talk
in emotional aggregates" in 2.07 p18 panel 3, spoken apparently with
regards to Jack and Fanny. [CE]
o [page 12] [panel 2] There's a face reflected in the
liquid that is in the glass. Who is she/he?It's certainly not Mason's
reflection, because of the position of his head. It could be KM, but
the next panel shows that he's sitting down. Could it be an "anticipation"
of Jolly Roger's arrival: she is nearly bald, too. I think it could
be an association to the liquid information Mason's talking about. [CI]
o [page 13] [panel 3] "Little Fluffy Clouds" is a song
by The Orb. The opening dialogue/lyrics to the song go like this, which
works nicely with the photo Robin is holding: MALE VOICE: What were
the skies like when you were young? FEMALE VOICE: The ran on forever
when I was... we lived in Arizona, and the skies always had little fluffy
clouds in them. They were long and clear and there were lots of stars
at night... Dunno if this is significant or not, but it is mostly appropriate
for the storyline, with 1) Robin appearing as a child in the southwest
US (NM not AZ, I realize) and Takashi's "time-as-cartoon-background"
theory, and if you want to read *way* too far into it, the shots of
a starry starry sky during the LSD scenes. [CE] [panel 5] I believe
this is the first time King Mob is shown with an eyebrow ring. [CE]
o [page 14] [panel 7] Notice that the shooting target
has a "Mod"/target symbol on its chest. King Mob wears a t-shirt with
identical target symbol placement on it, tying into what seems to be
a recurring theme of King Mob's imminent demise throughout v2. [CE]
o [page 15] [panel 1] "listen to the voice of Buddha":
opening and oft-reoccuring line from the Human League song "Being Boiled."
[RL] [panel 2] Jeeves was Bertie Wooster's butler in P.G. Wodehouse's
stories. [JBU]
o [page 17] From The New Scientist, 14/11/92: "Galvanized
into action by the discovery that the US Congress had voted to give
the US Army millions of dollars to test a controversial new AIDS vaccine,
the country's most senior health officials and AIDS researchers met
last week to consider whether to put the breaks on the trial." $20 million
was put aside for the Department of Defense to conduct a trial of gp160,
a protein from the coat of HIV. Early reports suggested a reduction
in the amount of virus from the injection of this protein. The director
of the NIH found none of the [family of] vaccines had any 'consistent
effect' on the amount of virus. [JBU] [panel 2]: popular conspiracy
theory: the CIA invented AIDS. [RL] AIDS as covert biological warfare?
See http://www.netspace.net.au/~newdawn/46a.htm
for a doctor's point-of-view. [While you're there, check out the whole
site - paranoid conspiracy theory with a mystical twist. Great stuff.]
[Z] [panel 3] Ebola: a virus causing severe hemorrhagic fevers. Ebola
virus first emerged in two major disease outbreaks which occurred almost
simultaneously in Zaire and Sudan in 1976. Over 500 cases were reported,
with mortality rates of 88% in Zaire and 53% in Sudan. Following incubation
periods of 4-16 days, onset is sudden, marked by fever, chills, headache,
anorexia and myalgia. These signs are soon followed by nausea, vomiting,
sore throat, abdominal pain and diarrhea. When first examined, patients
are usually overtly ill, dehydrated, apathetic and disoriented. Pharyngeal
and conjunctival injections are usual. Most of the patients develop
severe hemorrhagic manifestations, usually between days 5 and 7. Bleeding
is often from multiple sites, with the gastrointestinal tract, lungs
and gingiva the most commonly involved. Bleeding and oropharyngeal lesions
usually herald a fatal outcome. Death occurs between days 7 and 16,
usually from shock with or without severe blood loss. (From the website
"MARBURG AND EBOLA VIRUSES, Hans-Dieter Klenk, Werner Slenczka and Heinz
Feldmann, Institut Fur Virologie Philipps Universitaet, Marburg Germany").
In 1995 in Zaire the virus killed 245 people. [RL]
o [page 18] [panel 1]: The entity in the beam is explained
in 2.02, page 8. [RL]
o
[page 19] [panel 4] Yet another Robert Anton Wilson association,
as the number 23 ties heavily into RAW and Robert Shea's "Illuminatus"
trilogy. [CE] "23" is the number of ruin according to the I Ching. See
1.9 [PV]
o [page 20] Mason's theory about Pulp Fiction has been
widely circulated on the Net since the movie came out in 1994. (Quentin
Tarantino denies the story, but of course he would even if it were true,
wouldn't he?) Had anyone heard Mason's Speed theory before, or can we
assume that it's Morrison's creation? [RM]
o [page 22] [panel 2] "Well is that you, John Wayne? Is
this me?" Can anyone ID the movie this is from? It's a line that people
often use to make it clear they're doing a John Wayne impression--just
as you might say "I am not a crook" to do a Nixon impression or "a rilly
big shew" to do Ed Sullivan. [RM] This quote comes from Stanley Kubrick's
Full Metal Jacket, wherein someone mutters it to mock the badass drill
sergeant Hartman... [CE]
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