A Moment of Comics

Something else pride related for this week. This moment is from the infamous Marquis de Sade storyline from Grant Morrison's first volume of The Invisibles (which also features ,Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley). The last pages show a young gay prostitute (likely a runaway, rejected by his family) hoping and trying for a better world. Not having read Stuck Rubber Baby yet, this might have been the first comics-related depiction of gay youth I ever read. This and other aspects of the book (including main character Lord Fanny, a transwoman witch) makes Grant Morrison's recent "coming out" not so surprising. The page also holds a clue to one of my choices for this week's Friday music.

A Moment of Comics

From issue 5 of The Invisibles by Grant Morrison and Jill Thompson. It the first comic I ever read that integrated poetry into its story in such an in-depth way. 

The second page shows the beginning handwritten lines of a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Julian and Maddalo," a poem based on a conversation between fictionalized versions of Shelly and Lord Byron. The following page shows Byron and Shelly having the conversation that would make its way into the rest of the poem. Clever trick by Morrison.

Byron and Shelly's debate over the importance of their work (particularly Byron's pessimism) has stayed with me all these years since I read the comic as a junior in college.

More from Morrison and friends next week to finish off National Poetry Month.