The Invisibles, Vol. 1: Say You Want a Revolution

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The Invisibles, Vol. 1: Say You Want a Revolution (The Invisibles #1)

by Grant Morrison, Steve Yeowell (Illustrator), Jill Thompson (Illustrator), Dennis Cramer (Illustrator)

4.0 of 5 stars 4.00 · rating details · 4,848 ratings · 231 reviews

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...more

Paperback, 224 pages

Published June 1st 1996 by DC Comics

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Apr 29, 2013 StoryTellerShannon rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: my-very-best-reads, action, graphic-novels

This is the first volume of what many consider to be a classic series. The first half focuses on a young Jack Frost, a problem teenager, who is initiated into the Invisibles and thus gives the reader a look into this fantastic world. Jack goes to a boarding school that turns out to be a lot more and picks up a homeless mentor who teaches him about other worlds and the possibility of visiting them. The second part is about the Invisibles using a time travel ritual to visit and hire the Marquis de...more

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Nov 16, 2007 Keely rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: comics, science-fiction, fantasy, reviewed, contemporary-fantasy, urban-fantasy

As a child, I collected comics, but I could hardly be bothered to read them. I would just sit and stare at the art. Even when I did read them, it was rarely very satisfying, since I never had two issues of the same story. I would get snippets of some grand arc the inception and conclusion of which I would never see.

But I liked to draw, and so I'd try to make my own comics, and my own characters. When adults asked what I wanted to be when I 'grew up', I would say 'a comic artist'. Such childhood...more

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mark monday just reread this review (thanks, Updates) and forgot to say in my original comment: as far as Peake & Moorcock's Gloriana... there is a difference...more
Jan 03, 2012 08:03pm

Keely It's true, and I won't say his homage erases the plagiarism accusation, just that it makes it a bit less strong, since Moorcock is clearly familiar wi...more
Jan 04, 2012 11:57am

Sep 22, 2010 Patrick added it

It's funny, but everything I liked and didn't like about the Doom Patrol book I read is everything I don't like and like about this book. Whereas I reveled in the "dada" aspect of the Doom Patrol, and was disappointed when all the nonsense began to have a pat logic to it, this book's nonsense struck me as too much free posturing, and I wanted desperately for some semblance of plot to exist to grab my attention on.

There is something to be said about Aristotle's old bit about a story needing a be...more

4 likes · like · see review

Sep 07, 2008 Zane rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to Zane by: John DiGiovanni

I picked these first 8 issues up on ebay for a measly $4.00. Best 4 dollars I've spent in a long time. The cast of characters is weird: the Marquis de Sade, Mary Shelley, The head of John the Baptist, a Mexican tranny witch, Lord Byron, etc.

Immediately, the work and art is really 90's, which is a bit offsetting, because it seems to need a futuristic feel for the story to function. The invisibles are unveiling the present as it is to fight for a future that should have been here by now. By the t...more

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Apr 08, 2008 Steve rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone with heart and brain connected

This graphic novel is a spicy gumbo of astounding influences. Listing just a few: Illuminatus!, brain machines, psychedelics, chaos magick, conspiracy theory, mind control, The Prisoner, Michael Moorcock's The Cornelius Chronicles, material gnosticism, Dada, Situationism, violence/ ahimsa, time travel, secret societies... Author Grant Morrison never disappoints and serves as a reminder that much of the most advanced fiction of our times is turning up in comic books. Like Robert Anton Wilson befo...more

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Feb 23, 2007 MIke rated it 5 of 5 stars

I'll write this review for all volumes.

"The Invisibles" is 1960's psychedelia wrapped in modern clothing and wrung through every magickal wringer Grant Morrison could reach. Aliens that may or may not be, conspiracies that loop around themselves and the New Buddha in the body of a foul-mouthed Liverpudian boy named Dane. It's a tale of Us vs. Them that eats itself like orobouros.

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Aug 16, 2011 Lindsay rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: graphic-novels, superheroes, 90s, read-for-fun, read-postcollege, time-travel-and-alternate-dimension, science-fiction, esoterica

I've only read this first volume so far, but for now The Invisibles is rivaling Alan Moore's Promethea as the weirdest comic-book series I've ever read.

The two series have more than weirdness in common: the protagonists of both are young people who quickly learn there's a lot more to the world than meets the eye when they are attacked by mysterious, shadowy creatures that are clearly not of this world. There's magic in both series, particularly astral projection: going to other planes of being i...more I've only read this first volume so far, but for now The Invisibles is rivaling Alan Moore's Promethea as the weirdest comic-book series I've ever read.

The two series have more than weirdness in common: the protagonists of both are young people who quickly learn there's a lot more to the world than meets the eye when they are attacked by mysterious, shadowy creatures that are clearly not of this world. There's magic in both series, particularly astral projection: going to other planes of being in your mind while your body is sleeping or meditating. And both series see a relationship between sexuality --- especially male sexuality --- and creativity: in Promethea, there's the whole wand/chalice rigmarole, while here, the mysterious extraterrestrial Enemy, whom our protagonist, Dane, first encounters in a bleak, Orwellian reform school and whose goal is to enslave all of humankind, mutilates those people who join them by removing their genitals. "We will make you smooth between the legs and between the ears," they say.

Other than that, The Invisibles is a very different kind of story, set in an entirely different moral universe. The main protagonist of this first volume is a teenage boy named Dane, whom we first meet as he's throwing a Molotov cocktail into a library. That ought to tell you right now that this book's central conflict isn't really about Good and Evil, it's about Freedom and Slavery. As Dane's (and another character's, the actual, honest-to-~~goodness~~evilness Marquis de Sade) inclusion on the side of the freedom fighters implies, the freedom being defended includes the freedom to do evil.

It's a compelling story, but told in kind of a confusing way. I suspect some of these mysteries will clear up as I get further in the series, but there are a lot of jarring transitions, especially at the beginning. (Examples: we see John Lennon on the streets of Liverpool where Dane is also hanging around. What does one make of this? Is Lennon really there? Is he a spirit? A little later the Invisibles' leader, King Mob, mentions having evoked Lennon magically, calling on him for guidance; this also probably explains a bizarre interlude of panels showing Lennon's silhouette amid psychedelic patterns and word salad; there's also a long interval where Dane wanders through London with a mysterious beggar calling himself Tom o'Bedlam, who teaches Dane about magic and gives him a hallucinogenic "blue mold" to eat. It is unclear how much of this stuff has really happened).

Anyway, the Invisibles rescue Dane from the sinister boarding school, and after his stint of on-the-job training with Tom, Dane joins them. Their adventures include being menaced by various other agents of the enemy, and going back in time to commune with past Invisibles and gather information about who the bad guys are and what they're trying to do. This is clearly the start of a long, very strange trip, and it looks like one I'd like to go on. (less)

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Mar 01, 2009 Daniel rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to Daniel by: Quentin Lewis

Shelves: graphic-novels, fantasy, science-fiction, urban-fantasy

An interesting work, filled with dark and mystical themes. It's a little hard to get into, there's a unique rhythm to the narrative that the reader needs to find before they can really flow with it. The world is being controlled by an alien (extra-dimensional) conspiracy that forces people into soul-less compliant behavior, and the Invisibles are a secret society of guerrilla cells that practice both physical and psychic warfare against said conspiracy.

It's an ambitious plot, and this first volu...more

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Jan 25, 2009 Andrew rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: alien abductees

Shelves: visual, religious, fantastic, scientific, genre

Review for the entire run of The Invisibles:
If you're looking for an well-executed occult-thriller comic that goes a little off the rails in its third act, I can't recommend The Invisibles highly enough. Magical terrorists fighting the (British) man! Sweet gunfights! A tantric-sex expert/psychic assassin (And not the way you think! He assassinates psyches! I'm pretty sure!)! Foul-mouthed future buddha! The 62 letters of the true alphabet! Time travel! The Marquis de Sade! A Brazilian transvestit...more Review for the entire run of The Invisibles:
If you're looking for an well-executed occult-thriller comic that goes a little off the rails in its third act, I can't recommend The Invisibles highly enough. Magical terrorists fighting the (British) man! Sweet gunfights! A tantric-sex expert/psychic assassin (And not the way you think! He assassinates psyches! I'm pretty sure!)! Foul-mouthed future buddha! The 62 letters of the true alphabet! Time travel! The Marquis de Sade! A Brazilian transvestite witch who whores him/herself as part of his/her pact with Aztec(?) gods! Awesome pseudonyms- King Mob, Jack Frost, Tom o' Bedlam, Jolly Roger, Mister Six! I could keep this up for hours.

There are enough crazy gonzo elements, and enough spy-style double-/triple-crosses, to keep this a constantly interesting read. Morrison is good at setting up plot threads early in the run that seem insignificant but become integral parts of the later story, and I was always pleased when some puzzling thread from an earlier issue got tied off. Fun stuff.

I found the third volume a little disappointing. The art gets worse (and the artist changes from page-to-page, sometimes), the plot gets a little inscrutable, and shit gets too mystical. But even it has its moments, and the final editorial, where Morrison tells the readers to go try magic--because if they don't they're PUSSIES--is especially fun.

I don't know about you or your chaos magic, Grant Morrison, but this Wikipedia excerpt is something we can all strive for: "At DisinfoCon in 1999, Morrison said that much of the content in The Invisibles was information given to him by aliens that abducted him in Kathmandu, who told him to spread this information to the world via a comic book. He later clarified that the experience he labeled as the 'Alien Abduction Experience in Kathmandu' had nothing to do with aliens or abduction, but that there was an experience that he had in Kathmandu that The Invisibles is an attempt to explain. The title was not a huge commercial hit to start with (Morrison actually asked his readers to participate in a "wankathon" while concentrating on a magical symbol, or sigil, in an effort to boost sales)."

Superb.

(References to volumes, in this case, are not to the graphic novel volumes, but instead to the published volumes. Also, I think the reviews saying the Matrix ripped this off are silly- it's not like this is the first "reality is not as it APPEARS!" book ever written, guys.)(less)

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Oct 23, 2012 Jon Ursenbach rated it 1 of 5 stars

Boy am I glad I finished reading this, because I don't know if I could have taken it any longer.

The base story line is okay and I can't help but wonder how much of this inspired The Matrix, but jesus christ, everything surrounding the story is just god awful. I get that Morrison has to spend time building the world, but he does it to a point where I dread that the page I'm flipping to be another 5 pages devoted to some character that doesn't matter, like most of everyone in the Arcadia run.

Ever...more

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Dec 25, 2011 Marc Kozak rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-comic-novel-books

When I was young, I read an absolutely enormous quantity of comic books. I got older, they went up into the attic at my parent's house, and I went on with my life. At some point this year, I read an article about Grant Morrison, and remembered how much I loved almost everything he's ever written. Since then, I've been reading his Batman epic (holy crap), All-Star Superman (double holy crap) and going back to his other stuff. I thought about this series, and how much I didn't understand it whatso...more When I was young, I read an absolutely enormous quantity of comic books. I got older, they went up into the attic at my parent's house, and I went on with my life. At some point this year, I read an article about Grant Morrison, and remembered how much I loved almost everything he's ever written. Since then, I've been reading his Batman epic (holy crap), All-Star Superman (double holy crap) and going back to his other stuff. I thought about this series, and how much I didn't understand it whatsoever as a 12 year old, and figured I'd give it another shot. Now I can't sleep at night.

This is, without a doubt, one of the most original, unique, and batshit crazy things I have ever read. Alien conspiracies, secret organizations, hidden truths about language and religion, crazy idea after crazy idea. That is what Grant Morrison has always had in abundance - ideas. It may not be the most cohesive story, there may not be the most developed characters, and the artwork is beyond inconsistent, but this series gets 5 stars for the sheer volume of insane ideas alone. Every time I've read it, I've come away with something different - thoughts on the nature of the universe, the limitations and possibilities of text and language, conspiracies and secrets in everyday things - it's right up my alley. I finished the last volume last night and sat up for a long time being mad that this is fiction. I guess the best part of it all is that maybe it isn't, and no one can prove otherwise.

The basic plot is simple - you have a group of people who are trying to enslave the world, and a band of people trying to stop it. There are the good guys and the bad guys as they're presented, but you're not really sure which is which all of the time. What is the nature of being free? Can we get there? Is freedom really control? Are there powers and concepts so far beyond our understanding that we don't have a say in anything anyway?

I just love the ending quote: "There's no difference between fate and free will. Here I am; put here, come here. No difference. Same thing. Nothing ends that isn't something else starting. So which side are you on? Do you know yet? We made gods and jailers because we felt small and alone. We let them try us and judge us and, like lambs to the slaughter, we allowed ourselves to be... sentenced. See! Now! Our sentence is up." Fuck yeah, Grant Morrison.

Yes, this is a comic book. Yes, this is what inspried the Matrix series of movies. If you were ever curious in checking out the much more complicated source material, I implore you to give this a try. You may not get it all (I sure don't), but the intelligence and treasure trove of ideas is an imagination fire starter.(less)

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Apr 12, 2011 Drew Barth rated it 5 of 5 stars

Fried My Little Brains, I believe, is appropriate for this.
This is the first of Morrison's Eighties work that I read, Seaguy was the first thing by him I ever saw and still have no idea what to do with that.
Anyway, The Invisibles, according to Grant, who, at the time was feeling the effects of some very strong hash twinkies come on, is about a man, King Mob, and the loss of his girlfriend. But this isn't a normal man, and somewhere along the line he isn't much of a human either but that's later...more

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Feb 18, 2011 29alabs rated it 5 of 5 stars

Creo que nunca olvidaré la frase con la que empieza esta saga. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK y desde allí se vuelve un viaje psicodélico. Es dificil describir el contenido del libro pero Grant Morrison explora conceptos que son dificiles de ligar, el hecho de que John Lennon sea un dios, drogas que llevan a otras dimensiones, empieza el misterio de Barbelith, abducciones extraterrestres que no son más que un despertar de conciencia y las famosas batallas del bien contra el mal donde en este volumen al men...more

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Jul 31, 2010 Ryan Mishap rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novel

The first two thirds of this were arresting, but then it quickly irked me once time travel and the Marqui de Sade were involved.

A teenage trouble-making thug is sent to a reform school where parts of their brains and their testicles are removed, but he's saved by an Invisible and inducted into their cell after a long education on the streets with Tom Bedlam. See, there's a war on between the beings who want to rule the earth, the Invisibles, and the earth itself who wants humanity to move onto t...more

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Jun 18, 2010 Tim Pendry rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: dark-fantasy, graphic-novels, horror, popular-culture, twentieth-century

This was a little disappointing as the first volume in a series widely touted as innovative. Of course, looking at something in 2010 is not going to be the same as looking at in 1994 when it was first published but it does not stand the test of time in the way that the Sandman series of Neil Gaiman or the work of Alan Moore has done.

Morrison is not stupid. He plays well with the tropes of Chaos Magick (never mentioned but central to the thinking behind the book) and with the psychogeography of L...more This was a little disappointing as the first volume in a series widely touted as innovative. Of course, looking at something in 2010 is not going to be the same as looking at in 1994 when it was first published but it does not stand the test of time in the way that the Sandman series of Neil Gaiman or the work of Alan Moore has done.

Morrison is not stupid. He plays well with the tropes of Chaos Magick (never mentioned but central to the thinking behind the book) and with the psychogeography of London.

He is well within an English tradition of mixing magic and public culture, one that has been a highly fertile source for American popular culture and whose literary output comprises such luminaries as Ackroyd, Sinclair and, most recently, with 'Kraken', China Mieville.

But the graphics are conventional and Morrison himself can be wordy. He stretches things out a bit on occasions so that you end up asking 'where's the beef?'. No graphic novel should ever permit the stifling of a yawn as one does while listening to the self-indulgent wittering of 'Old Tom'. It also leaps around too much with an odd rhythm - too much meandering in one part and too much jump-cutting in another.

I would like to think that this was some deliberate strategy to mimic Chaos Magick theory but, if so, it fails. Chaos Magick does not work through external but through internal narrative. Here, you never get the chance to sustain an engagement that will shift your mental gear into new paradigms - you are, too often, being preached at, the exact antithesis of the Chaos mentality.

So much good work has been done around the idea of a second magical and sinister London under the skin of the one that we see (if we are resident) every day that this one seems pale in retrospect. This first volume is a violent and post-modern concoction that owes a great deal to the spirit of Foucault - a sort of creative version of those near-contemporaneous graphic accounts of philosophy provided as cribs by Icon Books and others.

The unfairness of this review is the unfairness of over fifteen years of shelf life. There are striking images and ideas but there is something adolescent and gratuitous about it ... a text to show how Vertigo managed to open up new themes and ideas for the generation born in the 1970s, much different from Alan Moore's own embedment in that same dystopian decade, but not one that truly 'enlightens'.

(less)

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Mar 16, 2010 Michael rated it 5 of 5 stars

This 3 volume series is equal parts genius, acid trip and WTF, and more often than not, it's all three at the same time. In the very first issue, a character named Elfayed says the following, which I think sums up Morrison's style of storytelling perfectly: "Truth speaks best in the language of poetry and symbolism". Admittedly, the poetry and symbolism often left me baffled, but really, I think it was meant to.

Here's just some of the crazy, bizzaro, freaked out stuff I loved about this comic: c...more

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Dec 03, 2009 Michael Moreci rated it 4 of 5 stars

I don't know if The Invisibles is insane, brilliant, or both. Morrison is just throwing everything and anything out there, from Marquis de Sade to The Prisoner to Templar conspiracies. The book is difficult to get into, for two reasons. The first, and most basic, is the central character, Jack Frost, is a bit flat and somewhat tiresome--with so many complex and, let's face it, bat-shit nutty ideas flying around, he's a character who isn't equipped to carry the book. There's also the book's caden...more

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Sep 07, 2009 Holly rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009

This comic is, to put it bluntly, a complete mind-f**k. It is truly weird, and truly groundbreaking. After reading this comic I had to decompress with cute pictures of fluffy kittens before bed so that I could try to avoid having nightmares. The kittens didn't really help much. Now, this is not to say I won't be continuing to read this, as I really want to see where it goes, but it's a tough one for me to read.

The Invisibles refers to a "super hero" team fighting the good fight against a shady a...more

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Jul 27, 2009 micha cardenas rated it 5 of 5 stars

i just finished this book this weekend. its so amazing. one of the best comics, maybe the best, i've ever read. the second half really picks up. the first is more introductory. i ran out and bought book 2 cuz it just keeps getting better the more you read it! i was concerned that it was just some pro-drug story, drugs as a way to mental liberation, but its so, so much more than that. this book really looks at the complications of the very idea of revolution, and then surveys a handful of differe...more

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Jul 03, 2009 Joe rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: esoteric, existential, graphic, postmodern

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Oct 17, 2010 James Park rated it 2 of 5 stars

I went in to The Invisibles with an open mind. I didn't really know anything about the series or about Grant Morrison. I left this volume with a lot of mixed feelings. There's a relatively straightforward story hidden in there somewhere but I'm not sure what it is. At best, you come away knowing that The Invisibles are a group of "freedom fighters" fighting against a spiritual/pyschaedelic fascist regime of some kind. What this plot is hidden under is a heavy does of attributions, nods and allit...more

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Sep 20, 2012 Phillip Goodman added it · review of another edition

I can only really properly review the first half of this book, as the second half has a printing error that caused pages 161 to 176 to be reprinted where pages 177 to 192 should be, which is a great shame because the first very much introductory half of the book is full of such fire and magic, reminding me of neil gaiman's original 'books of magic' mini series, but with in many ways a greater sense of the real, and an anarchic questioning the nature of things, rather than simply being taught the...more I can only really properly review the first half of this book, as the second half has a printing error that caused pages 161 to 176 to be reprinted where pages 177 to 192 should be, which is a great shame because the first very much introductory half of the book is full of such fire and magic, reminding me of neil gaiman's original 'books of magic' mini series, but with in many ways a greater sense of the real, and an anarchic questioning the nature of things, rather than simply being taught the rules of the world, being taught in fact to break the rules of the world, and it also causes the reader to question their perceptions, not perhaps of the nature of the world, but of who can be a hero, what actions can be those of a hero, and if you are like myself an anarchist what actions can be a legitimate form of anarchy, or to put it another way, what actions can be justified through anarchist discourse, in the opening, the books angry young (highly antagonistic) protagonist does among other things set fire to his schools library, he is told later that "only Nazi's burn books" can these be the actions of a hero, or at the very least a positive protagonist, rather than simply an anti-hero (of the villain that you're standing with sort) as a lover of books i can't see the actions as anything other than disturbing, and disgusting even, but is my love of books rational and a simple extension of a love of truth and knowledge, is it something that actually stands in the way of a love of knowledge, love the form but ignoring the nature of the contents, if they are used to lie, why not burn them, if they are part of a system of control, why not..., if they are part of the sort of state sponsored brainwashing that does still exist in our schools, then is it really an act of disruption too far? in their (state) wars they justify far worse things, and make no mistake though elements of this book are (most likely) fantastical, the war against the individual, that it portrays is very much real, a war waged for all of human history, for control not just of culture and society, but for all those who dwell within it, notice how recently, last years summer riots in the uk, how quickly they were blamed on too much individuality, not enough caring for society, all the while the government plotted to do as much as they could to not help society, or the individuals within it, the whole 'big society' scheme, a phrase that as they harass disabled people and throw those least able to cope with it off benefits, becomes more and more sinister, and appropriately enough they're also closing libraries, for not being cost effective enough, as if the purpose of a library should be to make money, and i suppose that brings me full circle really, but which is the greater crime against the individual, the closing of a library or the burning of a book? i have no answers, and i'm rambling, but i feel the need to say that this was written under a conservative government and now 18 years later i'm reading it under one, full circle again, and i'll stop more before i get lost in further rambling. (less)

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Apr 01, 2011 Julian rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novels

Okay, let's be honest and up-front about this. The first volume of 'Invisibles' is not exactly brilliant. Oh, it has some nice ideas, like the windmill time-machine, and the recurrent use of the image of gas-masked figures. But, but, but the problem is that this volume is basically about establishing the character of Jack Frost, and as a person Jack sucks.

I think he's probably meant to be the ultimate free spirit, but what he actually is is the ultimate in selfishness, someone who will take anyt...more

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Apr 18, 2013 Eleanor rated it 3 of 5 stars

I’ve left it a few days after finishing this one and I’m still not quite sure if I like it or not. There are parts of it, certain ideas, which I love. Some sentences completely blew me away. But some of it left me feeling just uncomfortable This isn’t the first time I have read Morrison’s work. I LOVE We3! And I knew what I was letting myself in for with this book but still. I feel I may have found my limit for some things in this book, which is saying some thing.

Thinking about it, it was mainl...more

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Nov 27, 2012 Derrick rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012-comics, 2012read, comics-vertigo, comics, vertigo

Picked this one up at the LCS because of all the discussion surrounding the Omnibus release. I figured it was time to sample it.

I don't think I like it. I really struggled at first because Dane is so unlikable -- I just don't identify with that kind of rebellion. (I can see where he would speak to a lot of kids, though, especially back in the 90's.) Then I liked it with Mad Tom playing the Merlin/Wart, Way of the Peaceful Warrior Socrates, etc character for Dane. And then Arcadia felt pretentio...more

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Jul 21, 2012 Michelle Cristiani rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novel

The intro to this book compares the story of the invisibles to a fax machine sound: at first it's jarring and makes no sense, and then when you actually listen to it, it has beauty and even meaning. That's pretty much spot-on. I figured if it's Morrison writing, there would be time travel - check - and it would be very hard to follow - check. I liked the group of heroes, but the main character didn't appeal to me. He is a n'er-do-well who treats others badly - why does HE get to be part of the g...more

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Sep 26, 2011 Dan rated it 3 of 5 stars

I'm pretty sad to say that I had never read The Invisibles before, and picking up this trade paperback collection of the first twelve issues I was expecting a complete and utter mind-f*ck. Well, what I got was a complete and utter mind-f*ck and then some. It is Grant Morrison's trademark, in his non-superhero stories, to push the envelope of graphic narrative stories and expand the storytelling capabilities of the medium. The Invisibles is surreal, chaotic, and outrageous; audacious in ways that...more

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Dec 13, 2012 Britt Wisenbaker rated it 2 of 5 stars

I usually rave about comics series that combine a suspenseful storyline with diverse esoteric sources and influences. This series is nothing if not that. However, rereading this first volume ten years on, I find that personal wear and hardship have left me far less interested in doing the hard work of making this subversive stew make sense. I guess at heart i am not really a revolutionary; just as I find Fight Club pretentious in the wake of 9/11, this book makes me realize that I am a proponent...more

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Oct 15, 2008 Joseph R. rated it 4 of 5 stars

It is hard to say anything about The Invisibles that accurately summarizes what it is. It is a graphic to be experienced, most likely two or three times just to get in tune with what the hell is going on within its pages. The characters are phenomenal and the imagery will seep into your subconscious and you will find yourself trying to say street signs backwards if only to get closer to knowing the "truth".

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Aug 31, 2010 Hugh rated it 5 of 5 stars

"We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future." Marshall McLuhan

Morrison is miming the hallucinatory experience of the chip landscape that is the internet.

Okay, that sounds a little pretentous...but the book is hard to describe in conventional terms. If you are like me and found the early internet fascinating with it’s exotic conspiracy theories, Ufo stories, esoteric, and occult topics that you just don’t get through other media. And you certainly can’t...more

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About Grant Morrison

Scottish comic book author Grant Morrison is known for culture-jamming and the constant reinvention of his work. His often controversial books also rate amongst some of the most popular and critically-acclaimed. He is also active in screenwriting.

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Trivia About The Invisibles, V...

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Quotes from The Invisibles, Vol. 1...

“Your head's like mine, like all our heads; big enough to contain every god and devil there ever was. Big enough to hold the weight of oceans and the turning stars. Whole universes fit in there! But what do we choose to keep in this miraculous cabinet? Little broken things, sad trinkets that we play with over and over. The world turns our key and we play the same little tune again and again and we think that tune's all we are.” — 83 people liked it

“There's a palace in your head, boy. Learn to live in it always.” — 19 people liked it

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title link	preview: The Invisibles, Vol. 1: Say You Want a Revolution
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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22347.The_Invisibles_Vol_1?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1352030626l/22347.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22347.The_Invisibles_Vol_1?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]The Invisibles, Vol. 1: Say You Want a Revolution by Grant Morrison[/url]

The Invisibles, Vol. 1: Say You Want a Revolution (The Invisibles #1)

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