Another Kind Of Alternative History

Copied from Poul Anderson Appreciation:

I confess to not understanding everything that happens in the concluding chapter of SM Stirling's Under The Yoke - the text becomes cryptic. Some nuances have become clearer with rereading but what is Andrew's motivation?

Draka Volume III should be in the post. Meanwhile, Bryan Talbot presents a kind of alternative history that is not to be found in any work by Poul Anderson or SM Stirling: Britain lost the Napoleonic War (OK, so far) and the world is inhabited by anthropomorphic animals! (See image.)

Maybe funny animals histories make more sense in visual media? Alan Moore attributes familiar animal characters to Doctor Moreau. Talbot has Rupert Bear's father gardening in the background of a few panels.

Thus, I was mistaken to postulate that Anderson and Stirling had covered every aspect of the alternative timelines idea - but maybe writers and readers of prose sf do not want talking animals in their texts? Anderson and Gordon R Dickson came close to it with their Hoka.

The Nazz

I am rereading Tom Veitch's and Bryan Talbot's The Nazz, (scroll down) twenty five years after it was published. Bryan Talbot described The Nazz in conversation as "The best of the post-Watchmen comics." I agree with him. The Nazz has two premises:

a group of American law enforcers base themselves on comic book superheroes;

alleged yogic powers are akin to those of superheroes.

Thus, Indian religious art is one source. As with Watchmen, there is a "comic within the comic," as Nazz's artist friend bases a comic strip on Nazz.

Nazz makes the mistake of seeking not wisdom but power. We see him corrupted, emphasizing instead of transcending self. The concluding narration by his former girl friend states that he "...chose the Left Hand Path..." and that "Maybe next time he'll get it right." (The Nazz, Book 4, New York, 1991).

Smallville: Labyrinth

In "Mask" by Bryan Talbot, Bruce Wayne wakes up in a psychiatric ward where he is told that his costumed crime-fighting career is a delusion. In Smallville: Labyrinth, Clark Kent wakes up in a psychiatric ward where he is told that his Kal-El identity is a delusion.

A fellow patient whispers that he knows that Clark is extraterrestrial because he himself is from Mars. We think that the fellow patient is mad until we remember the Martian Manhunter. A Zoner mental parasite is responsible for Clark's illusion. Clark is relieved to see that his adversary Lex is not in a wheelchair with amputated legs at the end of the episode.

Alan Moore's Tom Strong has a similar experience. It seems that he is a drunk with delusions of super-heroism until the Tom we know sees through the illusion near the end of the story.

Is it possible for such stories to end instead with a hint of ambiguity? Or to be set in an alternative reality - Earth-Prime? - where it is the super-heroism that is the fiction?

The Manhunter shows more of himself but still does not stick around to explain himself. He will clearly be a major influence on Clark. Will he join the JLA or remain in the background?

This is the sort of episode where most of the action didn't really happen so the story-line has not advanced very much except that another Zoner has been eliminated and the Martian has come more into the open.

Alice: The Acrostic

Since the republic of letters, and of pictures, is one, let us discuss poetry on Comics Appreciation: "...the acrostic poem that concludes Through The Looking Glass" is beautifully reproduced on the graphically illustrated page 64 of Bryan Talbot's Alice In Sunderland: An Entertainment (London, 2007).

The poem is about nostalgia:

"A boat beneath a sunny sky,
"Lingering onward dreamily
"In an evening of July -"

and the passage of time:

"Long has paled that sunny sky:
"Echoes fade and memories die:
"Autumn frosts have slain July."

But something endures, in memory:

"Still she haunts me..."

- and in imagination:

                              "...phantomwise,
"Alice moving under skies
"Never seen by waking eyes."

- and in future generations:

"Children yet, the tale to hear..."

Each generation experiences the summer:

"Dreaming as the days go by..."

 - and successive summers:

"Dreaming as the summers die..."

- and always remembers:

"Ever drifting down the stream -
"Lingering in the golden gleam -"

In the third last line and despite the theme of transience, the word "Ever..." is used. Finally, life ends:

"Life, what is it but a dream?"

To Lewis Carroll, a clergyman, life was a dream from which we wake whereas many of us think that it is followed by a dreamless sleep. (Plato in the Phaedo: "Eternity is a single night.") Carroll reversed the metaphor in another Alice poem:

"We are but older children, dear,
"Who fret to find our bedtime near."

Alice In Sunderland And Voice Of The Fire: A Fourth Parallel

In Bryan Talbot's Alice In Sunderland, the author, dreaming, sits in the otherwise empty Sunderland Empire Theatre while the author not only speaks from the stage but also interacts with the author writing the script, drawing the strip and walking through the city's history, speaking the words in speech balloons and captions.

In the concluding chapter of Alan Moore's Voice Of The Fire, when the author comes on stage:

"...the Help menu [is] lettered up on the proscenium arch. The cursor winks, a visible slow handclap in the black, deserted auditorium."
-Alan Moore, Voice Of The Fire (London, 1996), p. 292.

Depiction, narration and action/acting are the three story-telling media. Talbot compares his sequential art with drama and Moore likewise compares his prose with it.

Alice In Sunderland And Voice Of The Fire

Three Parallels

(i) Alice In Sunderland, a graphic documentary by Bryan Talbot, surveys the history of the North East of England. Voice Of The Fire, a prose novel by Alan Moore, spans the history of the site of Northampton with chapters set in successive periods from 4000 BC to 1995 AD.

(ii) Both works incorporate the author writing the work.

In Alice... (London, 2007), p. 55, panel 5:

caption: ...right now I'm writing the script, typing these words.
picture: Talbot typing; the words on the screen.

In Voice... (London, 1996), p. 293:

"The author types the words 'the author types the words.'"

(iii) Both authors are best known for their works of graphic fiction.

One Autograph

My copy of Voice... is signed:

"To Paul,
"From the septic navel of the nation,
"With very best wishes -
"Alan Moore."

I will miss the Kendal Comics Art Festival (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here) this year but should try to get Mr Talbot's autograph on Alice... next year.

Some English History

Copied from Poul Anderson Appreciation today.

Rereading Poul Anderson's works has slowed down because I have:

worked my way through most of the Technic History;
been reading Peter O'Donnell's Modesty Blaise for the first time;
begun rereading Bryan Talbot's Alice In Sunderland.

Since I have met Bryan Talbot a few times and saw Poul Anderson at a couple of World SF Cons, that leaves Peter O'Donnell as the only one of these three writers with whom I have had no personal or visual contact.

Talbot's Alice... summarizes a lot of English history and thus covers some familiar Andersonian territory. Talbot mentions Romans, Vikings and Normans but, so far, has skipped over Harald Hardrada. He reminds us that it was the Venerable Bede, the father of English history, who invented the BC/AD calender.

Does anyone out there know which Poul Anderson book this cover illustration is for?

Alice in Sunderland

I have read this work and maybe ought to get a copy: a verbal and visual feast. Every possible format is used. You never know what you will see next when you turn the page. One page gives the definite impression of history spread out across the page and would be appropriate for time travel fiction.

The author/artist interviewed a local Community Artist and reproduces the interview as a comic strip. A lot of information is imparted about Carroll and Alice. The work could be studied in detail instead of just read through once.

Having surveyed a lot of history, the author concludes that North East England is rich precisely because of its many historical waves of invasion and immigration and suddenly presents an unexpected but powerful and welcome statement of anti-racism.

Lastly, this work is not fiction so it should be described as a "graphic documentary," not a "graphic novel."

Gaiman's Sandman

I used to visit a nearby household regularly. I lent them all my Sandman collected volumes. Those copies stayed there and I bought new copies to have at home. I could thus read The Sandman either when visiting or at home. I said on facebook that, because I had reread the volumes so often, I owed Neil Gaiman another set of royalties. That was ticked "like" by Neil Gaiman.

The single story that I have reread most often is "August" in Fables And Relections but my favourite entire volume is Worlds' End. (Bryan Talbot art in both.) When I told a fellow sf fan that characters are stranded in the Inn of the Worlds' End by a reality storm, he commented, "That sounds like something out of Star Trek," and I then told him that one of the characters says, "That sounds like something out of Star Trek."

Thus, his response to the text was already incorporated into the text because our reality was one of those represented in the Inn.

Superheroes III

(xxxv) Tom Veitch's and Bryan Talbot's The Nazz relates superpowers to yogic powers and superhero art to Indian religious art.

(xxxvi) Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross' Marvels reviews the history of Marvel superheroes from the point of view of a newspaper photographer.

(xxxvii) Frank Miller's run on Daredevil presents Marvel characters realistically.

(xxxviii) Paul Dini's and Alex Ross' Superman: Peace on Earth presents photographic-like painted art and prose without speech balloons. It shows the limits of Superman's powers in relation to world hunger and military dictatorship.

It seems impossible to finish this list as other works recur to memory. The list so far has less Marvel because I have read more DC. It would make sense to sort the list into Alan Moore works, Superman-related works, Marvel characters etc.