Nevada
I recently read Rachel Pollack's The Kabbalah Tree, and she referenced the Promethea series a lot.
Nevada
Nevada
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Alan Moore's PROMETHEA
BrightEye
Read vol 2. It's fantastic!!! Now I need to get my little paws on the other 4 volumes. It is definitely Crolweyesque, it even has his deck in it, and a comment or two on whether the man is 'evil' or not. I think it's really well done (the answer is no), and so much better for getting my head around the Kabbalah.
minrice
Very interesting, I hadn't heard about this series not that I follow Alan Moore that closely. I did read his The Watchmen though and fell in love with it!
Greg Stanton
He's gotten increasingly mystical over the years -- not only with Promethea, but Lost Girls as well. He chooses his artists very carefully, and the graphics in Promethea far exceed that of most comic books. This is a real work of art; not just the writing, but the whole package.
Watchmen is, of course a masterpiece. I've also read the following, and have been impressed and entertained by everything on the list:
League of Extraordinary Gentleman (Vol 1 & 2, Black Dossier)
V for Vendetta (and the film is excellent too)
From Hell (Jack the Ripper)
Lost Girls (Erotic stories about Alice, Dorothy and Wendy -- naughty, naughty!)
I haven't read Tom Strong or Swamp Thing. It's hard for me to decide between Watchmen and Promethea, seriously. I know most of his readers will not agree.
Watchmen is, of course a masterpiece. I've also read the following, and have been impressed and entertained by everything on the list:
League of Extraordinary Gentleman (Vol 1 & 2, Black Dossier)
V for Vendetta (and the film is excellent too)
From Hell (Jack the Ripper)
Lost Girls (Erotic stories about Alice, Dorothy and Wendy -- naughty, naughty!)
I haven't read Tom Strong or Swamp Thing. It's hard for me to decide between Watchmen and Promethea, seriously. I know most of his readers will not agree.
brujaja
Generally I'm not an Alan Moore fan (...I know, I know), but I definitely enjoyed Promethea vol. 1. I loved the digging up and exploring and multiplicating of the heroine...way interesting. And volume 2 is better, someone says! I gotta find me a copy...
Lleminawc
Greg Stanton said:Real people who appear in Promethea include Aleister Crowley, John Dee, Austin Osman Spare, and John Kendrick Bangs (who in the comic is distantly related to Sophie Bangs)."
How's this for synchronicity - I've been dipping into Arthur Conan Doyle's autobiography lately, and came across a passing reference to "my friend Kendrick Bangs".
As for Promethea vs Watchmen - if my house was on fire and I could only save one of them, it would be Promethea.
Greg Stanton
From a long article found here:
http://dir.salon.com/story/books/review/2005/07/01/promethea/index.html
"Apparently emboldened by the fact that his collaborators hadn't run away screaming, Moore threw the plot out the window for most of Books 3 and 4, and devoted them to an extended explanation of the Kabbala's Tree of Life, the map connecting the sephirot or spheres representing God's attributes (or states of mind) in the Jewish mystical tradition. (The links Moore suggests between the Kabbala and the Tarot are that the 22 major arcana correspond to the 22 paths between sephirot on the Tree of Life, and that, more important, both systems are useful as allegorical representations of the range of human experience.) The conceit of "Promethea's" middle act is that Sophie and her spirit guide, the previous incarnation of Promethea, spend a chapter apiece traveling through metaphorical representations of each of the 10 Kabbalistic sephirot (plus an extra "invisible sphere" Moore sneaks in between the third and fourth).
There's a lot of ungainly expository dialogue in those two books ("This is the fourth sphere, right? 'Chesed,' there on the arch above the Jupiter symbol. I think it means mercy"). Their ratio of profundity to claptrap varies with the reader's openness to semi-digested Crowley, and occasionally Moore threatens to sprain an eyelid from winking so hard. (Sophie meets Hermes, who tells her that gods, as "abstract essences," can only be perceived through linguistic constructs like "picture-stories." Picture-stories? she asks. "Oh, you know. Hieroglyphics. Vase paintings. Whatever did you think I meant?") Some readers complained at the time these installments first appeared that they felt like Moore was lecturing at them, and that's absolutely true. But complaining about "Promethea's" transformation from a graphic novel to a graphic textbook is missing the point: The idea of it isn't to tell a story so much as to present a gigantic mass of arcane philosophy as entertainingly and memorably as possible.
In fact, the Kabbala volumes of "Promethea" are thrilling, partly because they're total eye candy. Williams and Gray draw each chapter in a style of its own, with a color palette dominated by the part of the spectrum associated with that chapter's sphere. The panel backgrounds for the "Chesed" sphere are painted with blotchy, van Gogh-inspired brush strokes, suffused with blue; Binah, the realm of the whore Babalon, is drenched in blacks and dark, tinted grays, with outlines that crinkle like woodcut prints. The colors of the highest sphere, Kether, are traditionally white and gold, and its chapter is illustrated almost entirely in shimmering, pointillist golden yellow. When the story gets back to earth a few pages later, it's hard to readjust, although Williams keeps up the delirious compositional tricks from the Kabbala section."
"As entertaining as it is, most of Book 5 is an exercise in clearing the decks for the final chapter, and by then it's clear that hardcore formalist Moore has arranged the series into 32 chapters for a reason. The final one is 32 pages long, each page corresponding to one of the tarot's 22 major arcana or one of the 10 spheres of the Kabbala. (They can be read in the order printed in the book, or they can be assembled into two four-page-by-four-page arrays -- which form gigantic images of Promethea's face -- and read in that order instead.)"
http://dir.salon.com/story/books/review/2005/07/01/promethea/index.html
"Apparently emboldened by the fact that his collaborators hadn't run away screaming, Moore threw the plot out the window for most of Books 3 and 4, and devoted them to an extended explanation of the Kabbala's Tree of Life, the map connecting the sephirot or spheres representing God's attributes (or states of mind) in the Jewish mystical tradition. (The links Moore suggests between the Kabbala and the Tarot are that the 22 major arcana correspond to the 22 paths between sephirot on the Tree of Life, and that, more important, both systems are useful as allegorical representations of the range of human experience.) The conceit of "Promethea's" middle act is that Sophie and her spirit guide, the previous incarnation of Promethea, spend a chapter apiece traveling through metaphorical representations of each of the 10 Kabbalistic sephirot (plus an extra "invisible sphere" Moore sneaks in between the third and fourth).
There's a lot of ungainly expository dialogue in those two books ("This is the fourth sphere, right? 'Chesed,' there on the arch above the Jupiter symbol. I think it means mercy"). Their ratio of profundity to claptrap varies with the reader's openness to semi-digested Crowley, and occasionally Moore threatens to sprain an eyelid from winking so hard. (Sophie meets Hermes, who tells her that gods, as "abstract essences," can only be perceived through linguistic constructs like "picture-stories." Picture-stories? she asks. "Oh, you know. Hieroglyphics. Vase paintings. Whatever did you think I meant?") Some readers complained at the time these installments first appeared that they felt like Moore was lecturing at them, and that's absolutely true. But complaining about "Promethea's" transformation from a graphic novel to a graphic textbook is missing the point: The idea of it isn't to tell a story so much as to present a gigantic mass of arcane philosophy as entertainingly and memorably as possible.
In fact, the Kabbala volumes of "Promethea" are thrilling, partly because they're total eye candy. Williams and Gray draw each chapter in a style of its own, with a color palette dominated by the part of the spectrum associated with that chapter's sphere. The panel backgrounds for the "Chesed" sphere are painted with blotchy, van Gogh-inspired brush strokes, suffused with blue; Binah, the realm of the whore Babalon, is drenched in blacks and dark, tinted grays, with outlines that crinkle like woodcut prints. The colors of the highest sphere, Kether, are traditionally white and gold, and its chapter is illustrated almost entirely in shimmering, pointillist golden yellow. When the story gets back to earth a few pages later, it's hard to readjust, although Williams keeps up the delirious compositional tricks from the Kabbala section."
"As entertaining as it is, most of Book 5 is an exercise in clearing the decks for the final chapter, and by then it's clear that hardcore formalist Moore has arranged the series into 32 chapters for a reason. The final one is 32 pages long, each page corresponding to one of the tarot's 22 major arcana or one of the 10 spheres of the Kabbala. (They can be read in the order printed in the book, or they can be assembled into two four-page-by-four-page arrays -- which form gigantic images of Promethea's face -- and read in that order instead.)"
rota
Greg -- thanks for that lengthy exploration! It may bring a few tarot fans into the comic book shop! I hope so.
I loved Promethea while it was a monthly comic, never missed an issue, and re-read them many times. I got it not because Alan Moore wrote it (good writer!), but because of the main character. I felt she was everything that Wonder Woman could have been, ought to have been, but wasn't.
I was sorry that whole America's Best comics line came to an end. Such a short lifetime, and such great comics! They were, essentially, comics-about-comics. Such a focus on metacomics could hardly be sustained over many years, and it's amazing it existed at all, really. And Promethea was near the top of that heap.
I loved Promethea while it was a monthly comic, never missed an issue, and re-read them many times. I got it not because Alan Moore wrote it (good writer!), but because of the main character. I felt she was everything that Wonder Woman could have been, ought to have been, but wasn't.
I was sorry that whole America's Best comics line came to an end. Such a short lifetime, and such great comics! They were, essentially, comics-about-comics. Such a focus on metacomics could hardly be sustained over many years, and it's amazing it existed at all, really. And Promethea was near the top of that heap.
Lleminawc
Even in V for Vendetta, Moore smuggles in Crowley's motto Vi Veri Vniversum Vivus Vici, though he has V attribute it to Faust - a factoid which has now taken on a life of its own on the Internet.
minrice
Huh. I will have to check this out. Cool thread.
I read his V for Vendetta (my other favorite), From hell, and The League too. All very good.
I read his V for Vendetta (my other favorite), From hell, and The League too. All very good.
