The Invisibles

DC/Vertigo. All written by Grant Morrison.
Volume 1
1 Say You Want a Revolution (1-8; a Steve Yeowell, Jill Thompson). [From DC Comics: Throughout history, a secret society called the Invisibles, who count among their number Lord Byron and Percy Shelley, work against the forces of order that seek to repress humanity's growth. In this first collection, the Invisibles latest recruit, a teenage lout from the streets of London, must survive a bizarre, mind-altering training course before being projected into the past to help enlist the Marquis de Sade.] ArtBomb review Old Book of the Week 4/20/05: [Ditko would probably hate the idea, but in many ways Grant Morrison is his spiritual heir, taking “trippy, other-worldly style” to a whole ’nother level. Invisibles is his masterpiece, and while I think the wheels fell off later in the series the first few trades are a wonder of tripped-out weirdness with a purpose. If you’ve never experienced The Invisibles and don’t mind trying something a little different, you owe it to yourself to check out Revolution.]
2 Apocalipstick (9-16; a Jill Thompson et al.). [From DC Comics: In the second volume of this series of action and intrigue, the Invisibles, including new recruit Dane McGowan, try to prepare as the Conspiracy's shock troops launch their greatest direct attack on them ever. And as this hidden war between authority and anarchy continues, the origin of Lord Fanny, the transvestite shaman who can call down the Earth's most ancient and terrifying magic, is finally revealed. But as conspiracies and hidden truths create a labyrinth of deception and distrust, even the power of this she-man shaman may not be enough to keep the Invisibles alive to fight another day.] ArtBomb review
3 Entropy in the UK (17-25; a Phil Jiminez, Steve Yeowell, et al.). [From DC Comics: The time has come when we'll all have to choose: either the crushing, soul-rending orthodoxy of the Conspiracy, or the anarchic, radical freedom of The Invisibles. One makes the world what it is, while the other shows the world what it might be. Right now, things don't look very good for the other. With their two most powerful members captured and their newest member in hiding, King Mob's Invisibles cell seems on the brink of annihilation. Under the torturer's knife, he must wage an all-out psychic war against his captors - spinning a lifetime's worth of fictional adventures for his cloaking persona of psychedelic spy Gideon Stargrave, while outside his team regroups and prepares to break him free. But the one key to their survival is still missing: newcomer Jack Frost, whose abilities may outstrip all of his teammates put together. Will he be found in time? and will he be up to the challenge? The answer to these and many other questions can be found in The Invisibles: Entropy in the U.K.] ArtBomb review
Volume 2
4 Bloody Hell in America (1-4; a Phil Jiminez). [From DC Comics: Imagine... every paranoid fantasy, every conspiracy theory, every alleged cover-up and government deception, every crank story you've ever heard... It's all true. A fashion-conscious group of occultist subversives travel stateside and encounter ultradimensional dwarves, lust, guns, secret underground military bases, fringe science and apocalypse culture in this avant garde adventure created by Grant Morrison (named Entertainment Weekly's "Comic Book Savant" in the magazine's salute to the Top 100 Creative People in Entertainment).] ArtBomb review
5 Counting to None (5-13; a Phil Jiminez et al.). [From DC Comics: For sale: Anarchy for the masses: Follow the apocalyptic exploits of The Invisibles: the most fashionable group of occultist subversives this side of the 21st century. Time machine go Cut to the year 2012. Ragged Robin, a telepathic witch from the future, travels home via time machine while her cool as f*** paramour, King Mob, takes on a pair of Japanese gangsters and visits the invisible college. Sensitive criminals Learn how and why King Mob was alive in 1924, the golden age of anarchy, and whether he can activate the Hand of Glory, a mysterious artifact with the power to hasten the apocalypse. American death camp The Invisible known as Boy sets off to locate her dead brother, last seen in a secret detention camp in the heart of America. But will the ex-Harlem cop race right into a trap set up by The Invisibles' ultraterrestrial archnemesis?] ArtBomb review
6 Kissing Mr. Quimper (14-22; a Chris Weston). [From DC Comics: It's all lies. And it's all true. No one knows this better than the Invisibles - time-tossed freedom fighters in the secret worldwide struggle between the forces of liberation and anarchy on one hand, and authoritarianism and order on the order. Whose side are you on? This volume opens with the Invisibles enjoying some long-overdue rest time in New Orleans. But their leader, Ragged Robin, holds many dangerous secrets in her mind - and her lover, the superbly trained assassin King Mob, knows only some of them. Together they must lead their team through time distortions, secret government installations, and their own twisted pasts. And only then will they learn the truth about the mind-controlling dwarf called Quimper and come one step closer to the ultimate secrets of the millenium. The Invisibles: Kissing Mister Quimper offers the most tantalizing peek yet into the secret conspiracies that rule our world. Award-winning creator/writer Grant Morrison ("comic book savant" - Entertainment Weekly) has created a modern epic in comics form, a fast-moving, mind-expanding metanovel in the best tradition of Philip K. Dick and Robert Anton Wilson.]
Volume 3
7 The Invisible Kingdom (12-1 [the books are numbered backwards]; a Philip Bond, Warren Pleece, Sean Philips, et al.). [From DC Comics: This is how the world ends. Will it be a nightmare of control and repression? Or will it be the beginning of a higher stage of existence? All this and more is revealed in this stunning final volume of Grant Morrison's psychoactive comic-book epic The Invisibles. Collecting all twelve issues of The Invisible Volume Three, The Invisible Kingdom marks the end of one of the most revolutionary narratives in comics history. Together with some of the medium's finest artists, Morrison weaves together a tapestry of characters and ideas unlike anything ever seen before, and provides a glimpse of the possible that lies behind the everyday.]
Misc.

Anarchy for the Masses: The Disinformation Guide to the Invisibles (Disinformation Company/Mad Yak Press; guide to the series; originally published by Mad Yak, revised edition published by Disinformation). [From Mad Yak: The sold-out debut offering from Mad Yak Press is back in a stunning new edition from Richard Metzger's Disinformation, including additional interviews and all-new INVISIBLES artwork! A complete guide to every issue of THE INVISIBLES, featuring exclusive interviews with Grant Morrison and major behind-the-scenes players including Philip Bond, Phil Jimenez, Stuart Moore, Sean Phillips, Warren Pleece, Frank Quitely, Cameron Stewart, Jill Thompson, Chris Weston and Steve Yeowell. Plus comprehensive annotations, critical analyses, previously unpublished artwork and more!

"THE INVISIBLES represents the first scrawled draft of a self-aware manifesto from the future in the form of a madcap spy-fi hypersigil comic book. The text was written in states of trance, exhaustion, sickness, fever, intoxication, clarity and joy. Disguised as the seven volumes of THE INVISIBLES series, 'It' lives and breathes our air and looks out at us through the many eyes of those pages. It is alive, willingly captive and demands to be played with, to be stroked and petted and tormented with sticks. It brings power, taboo and strange knowledge.

ANARCHY FOR THE MASSES dares to romp with the living, knob-encrusted monster that is the six-year-long INVISIBLES experiment. If, as intended, the series is a stained paper section through the body of some vast, soft intricate entity made of time, then ANARCHY is an historic first probe, a plucky Voyager bringing back and making sense of the many dripping, weird-angled splinters and fully authorized facets found deep in the hide and guts of my captive mega-terrestrial."

– Grant Morrison

From Disinformation: Grant Morrison's prophetic, epoch-making graphic novel The Invisibles made as important a contribution to the counterculture of the 1990s and 2000s as Naked Lunch and On the Road did for the 1950s and 60s. Like those works, The Invisibles has a dedicated cult following and is now beginning to be recognized in the mainstream.

Just as The Invisibles is a comprehensive guide to life in the 21st century, Patrick Neighly and Kereth Cowe-Spigai's Anarchy For The Masses is a comprehensive guide to The Invisibles (similar to The Sandman Companion by Hy Bender): it includes not only full annotation to every issue, and critical analyses, but also exclusive, extensive interviews with:

  • Series creator and writer Grant Morrison
  • Artists Philip Bond, Phil Jiminez, Sean Phillips, Warren Pleece, Frank Quitely, Cameron Stewart, Jill Thompson, Chris Weston, and Steve Yeowell: virtually all of the artists who molded Morrison's scripts into the breathtaking reality of The Invisibles
  • Series editor Stuart Moore

Freshly updated in a new Disinformation® edition, Anarchy For The Masses includes extensive amounts of new material, including:

  • A brand new cover by mega-popular comic book artist Frank Quietly (The Invisibles, New X-Men, Flex Mentallo, The Authority).
  • New interior illustrations by series artists Chris Weston (The Invisibles, Lucifer, The Filth) and Steve Yeowell (The Invisibles, Sebastian O, Zenith).

Designed in traditional graphic novel format, the book will fit perfectly on a shelf with the collected editions of The Invisibles.

The Invisibles is a direct dialogue with, and would appeal to fans of, The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson and Bob Shea, The Matrix, the novels of Philip K. Dick, Aleister Crowley, Ecstasy Club by Douglas Rushkoff, the speculative works of William S. Burroughs and H.P. Lovecraft, the cult British TV show The Prisoner, the Jerry Cornelius stories of Michael Moorcock, The Beatles, and the world as we know it.]
For more information, see The Continuity Pages.