TITLE:
The full title reads Promethea in Misty Magic Land which of course refers to Little Margie in Misty Magic Land which to quote from the Promethea Puzzle is
a sometimes saccharine but, more often, genuinely charming and inventive fantasy about a little girl called Margie and her strange adventures in the daydream world of the imagination [where she] encounters fairies, centaurs, ancient gods and characters from folklore.
SYNOPSIS
At the
hospital Promethea checks out how Barbara is doing and Barbara helps her to
follow Stacia into the Immateria using the power of her imagination. She
encounters Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf before finding Stacia
overcome by the sadness of The Weeping Gorilla. Almost succumbing to the effects
of the Weeping Gorilla they manage to escape but are nearly caught by the Big
Bad Wolf before managing to return to New York where Promethea changes back into Sophie
QUOTES
A real smorgasbord of quotes for fans of the Simpering Simian. Instead of looking for them here you can find all of them at my Weeping Gorrila Quotes Page.
Other non-Weeping Gorilla Quotes in this issue are:
"Let's go to grandmas" - Promethea
"She threw a piece of paper away, maybe. Ideas ain't that easy to get rid of" - Little Red Riding Hood, pg. 13
"You draw guns like a girl" - Little Red Riding Hood, pg. 13
"I better go haul the old bat out of his digestive tract" - Little Red Riding Hood, pg. 15
"The story about the wolf probably goes back to the stone age. I think he's stronger and older than Promethea" - Promethea, pg. 20
NOTES & ANNOTATIONS
Page 1:
Note the three birds at the top which seem to recurr throughout this issues
Claire Jordan thinks that
they seem to be an ironic reference to the
three
flying ducks - an archetypally naff, kitsch china ornament beloved of
British boarding-houses of the 1950s
There's even a song called Ducks on the Wall on Ray Davies Kinks album Soap Opera
Does anybody understand the PLUCK sign on the left hand side?
Page 2, Panels 1-2: Note Bob's toupee starting to come loose. How vain is he?
3 birds repeated on this and next page as they will also be on pages 22-23
Ankhs at either end of the circular Promethea panel
Page 3 Panels 2 and 4: Note the spider like mechanical creatures scrambling upwards along the walls
Page 3, Panel 6: Floor 54. Does the number 54 signify anything? Studio 54 maybe?
Single solitary golden ankh under last panel
Irv Pinsky notes that the ankh matches the one on Promethea's loin cloth
Pages 4-5: Single solitary bird at centre of both pages
Irv Pinsky notes that the layout of the pages is the same except that one is upside down
Page 4 Panel 1: Presumably Barbara has been moved from her original podbed. This one reads I15 while the original one Sophie left her in (Issue 2 Page 3 Panel 2) was 17A
Panel 2: Clonemeat presumably cloning is more advanced in Sophie's reality than it is in ours
Page 5 Panel 4: Nice pink hand with circles in its' palm. The youths below it look like they're up to no good as the police spotlight hits them
Pages 6-7: Nice effect of the real world of the hospital room gradually being overtaken by the Immateria. Just use your imagination.
Page 7 Panel 2: Clever effect of the dialogue bubbles from Barbara becoming smaller and more indecipherable as she disappears. Blue grass and a purple sky. Nice color scheme.
Panel 3: The actual frame of this panel is finally affected after everything inside already has been
Page 9: Nice touch of disembodied mouths and eyes floating in the sky. Hand pointing directly upwards
Also birds emerging from the flowers.
Page 10: Although she isn't named this is obviously none other than Little Red Riding Hood.
A Multimedia edition of Little Red Riding Hood can be found here
Red Riding Hood also made an appearance in Neil Gaimans The Sandman: A Doll's house part five, Sandman # 14 (1989, pages 6/7).
Thanks to TL for that information
Note that her hood is being held on by a safety pin.
Page 10, Panel 2: Ms. Hood is smoking Marloe cigarettes. Last issue we saw a packet of Marlons
Page 10, Panel 3: Note the wolf's head on the cigarette lighter
Page 11: Irv Pinsky notes that the layout reminds him of the rings you see when you take a cross cut of a tree and asks if Promethea and Little Red Riding Hood are getting smaller or the trees are getting bigger. My guess is just that they are getting closer to the forest
Page 12, Panel 2: first instance of swearing in Promethea. £$%& presumably stands for fuck.
Page 13, Panel 2: Reservoir Dogs is Quentin Tarantino's first film. Does anyone know what the title refers to because I don't?
Page 14, Panel 2: Is that a vole being blown away alongside Ms Hood and Promethea?
Claire Jordan informs me that
That's definitely *not* a vole - voles are usually
tiny
and all have short-nosed, rounded heads and fairly short tails. This
looks
like some sort of opossum, or perhaps a very odd lemur
Lemurs are one of John Cleeses' favorite animals.
Page 15, Panel 4: Nice pterodactyl type creature flying along here.
Page 16, Panel 1: Disembodied mouth pursues the flying fish.
Fairy amongst the flowers looking a bit warily at the spider with a yellow smiley face on its' back.
Pages 18-19: Fish turn into dragonflies, playing cards into butterflies and toadstools/mushrooms into a pig.
Note the eyeball in the leaves.
Page 20, Panel 4: 'There's no place like home'
quoted from the Wizard of Oz
Nice clocks with wings
Page 21, panel 7: Klein Pizza (partially obscured) from Todd Klein who does the letters for Promethea
Page 22, panel 1: Beefcake sign.
Beefcake means
"(slang) display of sturdy masculine physique" (Concise Oxford Dictionnary)
which makes it the male equivalent of cheesecake photos
Here is a History of Beefcake
Pages 22-23: Back to 3 birds once again
Page 23 Panel 5: This time Stacia mispronounces Promethea's name as Propanea
No doubt from propane - a colourless gas used as fuel
Page 24: Note Promethea's face in the evaporating cloud
Notebook has Sophie's first sentence when she finally managed to transform into Promethea
