Grant Morrison, Chas Truog, Tom Grummett, et al — Animal Man - Page 10

In issue #25 (page 12), the mysterious typing figure who proves to be Morrison thinks (in response to Merryman's question: "Let's face it, who cares about the space canine patrol agents in this day and age?") "I care. It's stupid, I know, but I care. All the things that meant so much when we were young. Under the blankets late at night, listening to long-distance radio. All those things: lost now or broken. Can you remember? Can you remember that feeling?" Shades of the Ramones! (and very apt, I would say!) The monkey cannot unilaterally write these characters out of limbo. That's the Psycho-Pirate's way. Cyclopean visionaries cry out for a corroborating eye--when that transcendental ball rolls back in its' socket, you don't get a "poetry of insight", you get distorted bogeymen with nukes! (or perhaps these two things are synonymous?) The author-figure is right to bring in the names of specific letter-writers on page 17 of issue #26, because, ultimately, it is they, as a community of wellwishers, who agree, for old time's sake, to waive their right to a sacrificial lamb, thus empowering Morrison to restore Ellen, Maxine, and Cliff to Buddy's world... Strangely enough, comedy--which is generated by a recognition of the Other, and the limits of the imperial self--makes anything possible (and everything meaningful), narratively speaking...

Which brings us to:
Ontology & Paranoia

In a comment-thread from a couple of days ago, Rose asked:

I'm really interested in your argument about ontology, now that I can go back and really read what you said. There was a scene when Buddy and Grant are talking in which Grant, for no apparent reason, kicks a stone into the water, which gave me two impressions:

1. He's being motivated by an external agent to do things. This action is a mimetic support to his argument, not that he needs to make a good argument when he literally 'controls the discourse' anyway.

or

2. He's secretly saying, "I refute you thus!" I think it would be a good allusion under the circumstances, but in some sense Grant is contra Samuel Johnson, because he's not kicking a real stone and so his action doesn't prove anything at all. It proves, by loose analogy, that the world is not real at all.

Thoughts?

How can I resist an invitation like that?

The incident in question occurs on page 9 of Animal Man #26... "Grant" doesn't kick the rock, he throws it--but that doesn't mean we can't think about who made him do it! Unfortunately, this way, we don't get as perfect a segue to Doctor Johnson, but since we've got the interpretive conch at the moment, what say we just pretend he kicked it, hunh Rose?

Article Author: David Fiore

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