Grant Morrison & John J. Muth The Mystery Play (1994)
I'm pretty sure I had this at the time but it didn't leave much of an impression due to an ongoing bout of comic book indigestion. Anyway, I'm better now, so here we are again. Muth's photorealist watercolours are at the most breathtaking I've seen, and Morrison reigns in his usual excesses to tell a proper grown-up story with allegories and everything. Comic book mythology being what it is, I can't help feeling this may have been written in the spirit of showing that silly Alan Moore once and for all, which may even inform the final scene wherein the gruesome reality of the tale we've just read is sold for presumably underwhelming development to some television dude coincidentally named Alan; and yet, for the sake of argument, show him it does in so much as that I can't really imagine himself achieving such lightness of touch without all the component parts having been nailed to some labyrinthine flow chart, somewhat spoiling the effect.
The narrative spins around the contemporary setting of a mystery play in which someone murders the bloke playing God, so God is dead, and without so much as a nudge, a wink, or anyone screaming do you see what I'm saying? in your face. The detective who seeks the truth of the murder is himself revealed to be hardly lacking in sin for which he's literally crucified, thus ultimately bringing salvation to the town, although there's a question mark hanging over whether the salvation provided has actually made anything better. As for what any of this might be saying, I guess it's saying quite a lot of things, and none of them so regulated or clearly defined as to be ticked off on an imaginary list as job done. The potential for ambiguity is why it works, and why it feels crafted rather than merely assembled - as with a piece of music, you simply have to read the thing, because descriptions - including this one - will be something else entirely; and neither a Mason nor a Lovecraftian space octopus to be seen.
I'm pretty sure I had this at the time but it didn't leave much of an impression due to an ongoing bout of comic book indigestion. Anyway, I'm better now, so here we are again. Muth's photorealist watercolours are at the most breathtaking I've seen, and Morrison reigns in his usual excesses to tell a proper grown-up story with allegories and everything. Comic book mythology being what it is, I can't help feeling this may have been written in the spirit of showing that silly Alan Moore once and for all, which may even inform the final scene wherein the gruesome reality of the tale we've just read is sold for presumably underwhelming development to some television dude coincidentally named Alan; and yet, for the sake of argument, show him it does in so much as that I can't really imagine himself achieving such lightness of touch without all the component parts having been nailed to some labyrinthine flow chart, somewhat spoiling the effect.
The narrative spins around the contemporary setting of a mystery play in which someone murders the bloke playing God, so God is dead, and without so much as a nudge, a wink, or anyone screaming do you see what I'm saying? in your face. The detective who seeks the truth of the murder is himself revealed to be hardly lacking in sin for which he's literally crucified, thus ultimately bringing salvation to the town, although there's a question mark hanging over whether the salvation provided has actually made anything better. As for what any of this might be saying, I guess it's saying quite a lot of things, and none of them so regulated or clearly defined as to be ticked off on an imaginary list as job done. The potential for ambiguity is why it works, and why it feels crafted rather than merely assembled - as with a piece of music, you simply have to read the thing, because descriptions - including this one - will be something else entirely; and neither a Mason nor a Lovecraftian space octopus to be seen.
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