I’m just going to say it, so prepare yourself. Are you sitting down? You should be sitting down. Please find a comfortable chair and just fall into it, there that’s better. Okay. Here it is. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

The Matrix, that film that was such a breath of fresh air and refreshing change of pace in the sci-fi genre, is a big dirty rip-off! I hereby renounce all the good things I once said about it! Attica! Attica! No peace in our time! KILL ALL THAT LIVES!!!

Whew! I feel better for getting that off my chest. Maybe I should explain myself. I’ll be brief: the first time I saw The Matrix, I thought it was great. But that Kyle wasn’t a Grant Morrison fan. By the time The Matrix was available for rent I had become a big Morrison fan and owned most of the comic books he has written in his career, including all three volumes of his cult series The Invisibles. So what, you may ask? Well, The Invisibles has so many similarities to The Matrix it isn’t funny. Both revolve around a cell of ultra-violent freedom fighters that crusade against an enemy that is pulling the wool over peoples’ eyes and keeps humans in containers. Both deal with a race between the good guys and the enemy to see who will first get their hands on a young man who has the potential to be the most powerful individual in their battle for human freedom. Both feature a training session for the young recruit where he learns to fight, learns not to trust reality around him as it seems because looks can be deceiving, and eventually jumps off a building as part of his training. Both feature bad guys who always wear sunglasses and a main veteran good guy leader with superior fighting skills and a bald head. And all these similarities are just the tip of the iceberg.

Basically I just wanted it known that there is a touch of shenanigan in all the parallels between The Invisibles and The Matrix. Some people think it’s just coincidence, others admit The Matrix might have ripped off quite a bit but that it doesn’t matter, all stories rip off their predecessors a little bit. Personally I’m more loyal to Morrison than the Wachowski brothers, because Morrison writes brilliant stories that fill up my top right bookshelf whereas the Wachowski brothers haven’t done anything for me lately. I can condone a little borrowing but The Matrix for all its glamour and effects seems to have crossed the line a bit. But I don’t go overboard condemning them or anything, in fact this is the most I’ve ever said on the subject and I’m looking forward to seeing how the Matrix sequels turn out. But out of allegiance to one of my favorite authors I wanted to bring it up, and let you know a bit more about The Matrix than you probably cared to know! By the way, don’t argue that maybe the script for The Matrix was ripped off by Grant Morrison because the first issue of The Invisibles was published way back in September 1994, when Keanu Reeves was only that “whoa, dude!” dude from “that movie with the Napoleon dude” and “the matrix” was the big Gallifreyan computer the Doctor got lost in during an old episode of Doctor Who. Thanks for reading, and please direct all hate mail to Justin and Poolman!


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From: http://www.mutantreviewers.com/rmatr...

What if every conspiracy theory you ever heard was true?

No, wait, what if every crackpot idea you ever heard, conspiracy or not, was true?

No, no, wait! What if every idea, period, you ever heard was true?

If you can stretch your brain around that concept, you would probably enjoy comic book auteur Grant Morrison's epic series, "The Invisibles."

The Invisibles is a mind-blowing mix of drugs, occultism, UFOs, voodoo, sexual excess, Witchcraft, sadomasochism, body modification, movies, government conspiracies, Lovecraftian horror, numerology, Gnostic cosmologies, anarchy, Mad Science, time travel, superheroes, Freemasonry, the Apocalypse, plus some stuff that's just plain weird.

Characters appearing in the story include (among others):

* A foul-mouthed messiah from Liverpool.
* A heavily pierced assassin, who moonlights as a horror novelist and ontological terrorist.
* A Brazilian transvestite Shaman.
* John Lennon.
* A clown-faced, red-haired sex goddess.
* A billionaire playboy who may or may not be Bruce Wayne.
* The Marquis de Sade.
* William Butler Yeats.
* Percy and Mary Shelley (author of Frankenstein).
* Jesus Christ (sort of).
* Robert Oppenheimer.
* The Roswell aliens.
* A lesbian with an eye patch.
* A rap-star voodoo houngan.
* Princess Di.

The Invisibles is named for the secret society to which our heroes, such as they are, belong. The comic series was published from 1994 to 2000, with collected editions coming after. Issues of The Invisibles were kept on the set of The Matrix during filming, a fact which would be apparent to anyone who's familiar with both.

The story... well, the story is better experienced than summarized, but it has to do with the nature of the universe and the meaning of life. There's kind of a substructure that deals with the whole "good vs. evil" dilemma, but not in the usual way. Religion is deconstructed, reality is warped, and it's difficult to tell the good guys from the bad guys. The Apocalypse also makes an appearance.

The Invisibles is also designed to change the reader, so be forewarned. If you stick with it, by the end you might find that it's less fiction than it is biography... Your biography.

Morrison (who has moved on to do mainstream comics like the X-Men and the Justice League) drew on an extremely diverse set of sources for his epic, including the Gnostic writings of early Christianity, the drug-fueled speculations of Terence McKenna, Mayan and Aztec religions, the Roswell crash, the Holy Grail, the Cathars, legends of the Knights Templar, the rituals of Freemasonry, Maya Deren's writings on Voudoun, the mad science of Wilhelm Reich and Jack Parsons, the cool '60s spy stylings of The Prisoner, the metaphysical posturings of Aleister Crowley... well, the list goes on.

One highlight of the series is a restaging of the Marquis de Sade's "120 Days of Sodom" as "120 Days of Sod All," which includes Pederasty, Rape, Bestiality, and references to Necrophilia, Incest, Castration, hermaphrotisim... Anyway, it's quite a read, and does not resemble those comic books you used to buy at the corner store for 25 cents when you were a kid.

Morrison's current comic project, "The Filth," revisits on many of the above themes and goes a few steps further, with tales of a porn star shooting black semen that is magically transformed into giant disemboweling search-and-destroy sperms, graphic depictions of nose-picking, loss of identity, compulsive consumption of pornography, a talking chimp, dolphin commandos, and other fun for the whole family (if your family happens to be the Manson family).

I know what you're thinking at this stage, but I swear to God the whole thing is intellectually complex and philosophically profound (well, The Invisibles anyway, I'm not so sure about The Filth). There's a reason for everything, and the experience of being overwhelmed and repulsed helps prime the

Demon: Your mother fucks Hitler in Hell.
Dane "Jack Frost" MacGowan: Yeah? My mother'd fuck Hitler in fucking Harrogate if she thought she'd get a McDonald's Happy Meal and a packet of fags out of it.
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Sir Miles Delacourt: Middle-class parents are terrified of non-existant child killers; soon we'll have them so terrified they'll gladly allow us to electronically tag all newborn infants. We are engineering sick, obese, passive consumers. Even they video games they obsessvely play contain demoralising subliminals. A weak-willed child is easy to manipulate using product hypnosis. Look at their clothing, for instance. The new breed are simply mobile hoardings, advertising the multi-national corporations which control their minds.

Colonel Friday: Children are the hope of the future, Sir Miles. Our future.
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Colonel Friday: You wonder why the children of America are so obsessed with death? You wonder why rock groups that look like corpses and zombie comic-book heroes are so goddamn popular here? It's just the same way your Victorians loved their tombs and seances and murders. The American Empire is dead and does not know it. Like your empire before it, it's only aware of it in its sleep.
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Lord Fanny: Put the drinks over there, Jack! His nam's Bleuurwah something. He's not only gorgeous, darling... he's an idiot. My tits are bigger than his IQ.
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Gideon Stargrave: All things considered, there's absolutely no escape from this hellish situation. I'm prepared to take the coward's way out if you are. It's reincarnation or nothing.
Doctor Gupta: What? But what about my bloody karma, you crazy colonial oppressive bastard? What if I'm reborn as a white man?
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Boy: That's the thing about conspiracy nuts; you start off laughing at them and then a strange thing happens... you wind up seeing them in the mirror.
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Boy: The beast is still out there. I can't smell it too well but I can hear its breathing now and I can see its tracks. Making me disappear was its big mistake. See, I'm invisible now. I leave no traces, no footprints. I'm invisible now. I'm a hunter with nothing left to lose. And that bastard, that smug and self-satisfied beast, can't see me coming.
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Billy-Bob: Which one of you sick fucks thought that was funny? Goddamn fucking she-male standing there, looking at me like I'm the faggot.
Mason Lang: Hey, come on. It's too early in the morning for this, and we're leaving anyway. Why don't I buy you and your friends a drink?
Billy-Bob: Why don't you just shut the fuck up, Yankee? I'll get to you just as soon as I get done with the she-male and the bald cock-sucker here.
King Mob: Well, is that you, John Wayne? Is this me?
Billy-Bob: Fuck you trynna-- *ikk*

(King Mob has grabbed hold of Billy-Bob's testicles)

King Mob: I'm telling you that you're in the wrong film, fatboy. You're not in the cowboy film you thought you were in. This is a different kind of movie. And you're in the scene where the redneck shitkicker picks on the stranger in town, only it turns out to be big Arnie or a gang of vampires. I'll bet you've seen that a million times, cowboy.
Billy-Bob: Sure.
King Mob: So here's the deal: you've just made the mistake of your life but you can wash away your sins by apologizing to the lady. Otherwise I squeeze, you pop and guess who's singing castrato in church on Sunday?
Billy-Bob: I... ah... I called you a faggot and... ah... well, I'm sorry. Fuck.
Lord Fanny: That's all right, darling. I am a faggot. And you do have a lovely dick.