Notes on The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume 2 #1 by Jess Nevins and divers hands Editor's note: Jess Nevins has been writing and compiling annotations of some of the most hailed comics in recent years, from Kingdom Come to Kurt Busiek's Astro City. This is a followup to his detailed and entertaining notes on the first League Extraordinary Gentlemen limited series. For more information about these annotations and Jess Nevins, see the bottom of this page. (Images are © copyright 2002 Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neill. The text here, except where otherwise credited, is © copyright 2002 Jess Nevins, and may not be duplicated, in part or in whole, without permission.) Page 1 The individual on the carpet here is Gullivar Jones (he’s named on Page 6, Panel 3). Gullivar Jones was created by the British author Edwin L. Arnold and appeared in Lieutenant Gullivar Jones: His Vacation (1905). (Jones is referred to as "Gullivar" in League; varying editions of the book had his name as "Gullivar" or "Gulliver.") Lieutenant Gullivar is about an American Naval officer who is transported to Mars via a flying carpet; once on Mars he has adventures with a group of friendly Martians and finds love with the Martian woman Heru before returning to Earth. Lieutenant Gullivar predates the first John Carter of Mars story by seven years; no one knows for sure whether Edgar Rice Burroughs read Lieutenant Gullivar before writing "Under the Moons of Mars," but the similarities are striking. The carpet, in Lieutenant Gullivar, is described this way: ...the strangest thing about that carpet was its pattern. It was threadbare enough to all conscience in places, yet the design still lived in solemn, age-wasted hues, and, as I dragged it to my stove-front and spread it out, it seemed to me that it was as much like a star map done by a scribe who had lately recovered from delirium tremens as anything else. In the centre appeared a round such as might be taken for the sun, while here and there, "in the field," as heralds say, were lesser orbs which from their size and position could represent smaller worlds circling about it. Between these orbs were dotted lines and arrow-heads of the oldest form pointing in all directions, while all the intervening spaces were filled up with woven characters half-way in appearance between Runes and Cryptic-Sanskrit. Round the borders these characters ran into a wild maze, a perfect jungle of an alphabet through which none but a wizard could have forced a way in search of meaning. Page 2 Deimos, of the story title, is one of the moons of Mars. This is one of the many canyons of Mars, and is perhaps part of the Valles Marineris. Page 4 Panel 1: In Lieutenant Gullivar, Gullivar Jones learns Martian by telepathic transferral from one of the friendly Martians. That giant four-armed thing who spoke to Jones on page 3, panel 7, and to whom Jones is speaking here, is one of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Martians. Burroughs wrote 11 novels about the adventures of John Carter on Mars; the first Carter story, "Under the Moons of Mars," appeared in All-Story Magazine from February to July 1912. Burroughs’s Martians, as adults, are 15 feet tall, carry long spears (some 40 feet long), and their faces... well, I’ll let Burroughs tell it: There was no hair on their bodies, which were of a very light yellowish-green color. In the adults, as I was to learn quite soon, this color deepens to an olive green and is darker in the male than in the female. Further, the heads of the adults are not so out of proportion to their bodies as in the case of the young. The iris of the eyes is blood red, as in Albinos, while the pupil is dark. The eyeball itself is very white, as are the teeth. These latter add a most ferocious appearance to an otherwise fearsome and terrible countenance, as the lower tusks curve upward to sharp points which end about where the eyes of earthly human beings are located. The whiteness of the teeth is not that of ivory, but of the snowiest and most gleaming of china. Against the dark background of their olive skins their tusks stand out in a most striking manner, making these weapons present a singularly formidable appearance. Moore’s stated goal with this series is to bring together various fictional Mars and portray them as all co-existing. Arnold’s Mars and Burroughs’S Mars are the first two. Page 6 Panel 3: Gulliver Jones is greeting John Carter. Carter, as mentioned, was created by Edgar Rice Burroughs and debuted in "Under the Moons of Mars" in 1912. Carter was a Virginian (note his manner of speaking here) and a Civil War veteran who was transported to Mars in 1866 through a zeta beam. (Well, okay, through astral projection.) Once on Mars, John Carter had various adventures, rising to become a Prince of Mars and marrying Dejah Thoris, a Martian Princess. Page 7 Panel 1: The "Hither People" are the friendly Martians who Gulliver Jones joins in Lieutenant Gullivar. They are human-looking, as can be seen on page 17, panel 2, among other places. "Varnal, the Green City" comes from the Michael Moorcock’s Mars series; see Panel 2 below. Panel 2: Michael Moorcock, under the pseudonym of Edward P. Bradbury, published Warriors of Mars (1965), Blades of Mars (1965) and Barbarians of Mars (1965), a trilogy of stories about Michael Kane, a physics professor at the Chicago Special Research Institute who transports himself to Mars, or "Vashu," during the Cretaceous period on Earth, somewhere between 65 million and 110 million years ago. "Varnal, the Green City," mentioned in panel 1 above, is the capital of Vashu, and the home of Shizala, Kane’s lady love. The trilogy is Moorcock’s homage to Edgar Rice Burroughs, and the similarities between Kane and John Carter and Shizala and Dejah Thoris are deliberate. In the Kane series Kane was from "Negalu, the third planet of the solar system." Panel 4: The "Sorns" are from from C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy; see my notes on page 16, panel 1 below. Carter, using the word "molluscs," is presumably describing the Martians of H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds (1898). For more on this, see page 14 below. Panel 5: The use of the term "alien leeches" implies that Wells’s Martians are not really native to Mars; see page 21, panel 3 below. In the original Burroughs novels, nothing really bad ever happened to Dejah Thoris. Gulliver Jones’s words imply that something did, though. The internal chronology of the Burroughs novels was never completely resolved, but as best can be figured, Thuvia, Maid of Mars (1916) took place between 1888 and 1898, and The Chessmen of Mars (1922) took place between 1898 and 1917. (I’m indebted to Win Eckert’s ERBurroughs Chronology for this information.) Dejah Thoris does not appear in Thuvia, which is about Carthoris, the son of Dejah Thoris and John Carter, and Thuvia, a Martian Princess. Dejah Thoris does appear in Chessmen, but seems in perfect health. This is a case where Moore is deviating from the original texts. Panel 6: Carter is a self-proclaimed worshiper of Mars/Ares, the Roman/Greek war god, which is why he bids farewell to Gullivar in this manner. Page 9 Panels 2-4: The monsters that Carter and the other Martians are riding are thoats, part of the Burroughs Mars books. Burroughs describes them this way: It towered ten feet at the shoulder; had four legs on either side; a broad flat tail, larger at the tip than at the root, and which it held straight out behind while running; a gaping mouth which split its head from its snout to its long, massive neck. Like its master, it was entirely devoid of hair, but was of a dark slate color and exceeding smooth and glossy. Its belly was white, and its legs shaded from the slate of its shoulders and hips to a vivid yellow at the feet. The feet themselves were heavily padded and nailless, which fact had also contributed to the noiselessness of their approach, and, in common with a multiplicity of legs, is a characteristic feature of the fauna of Mars. The highest type of man and one other animal, the only mammal existing on Mars, alone have well-formed nails, and there are absolutely no hoofed animals in existence there. Pages 10-11 The canyons on Mars can be miles deep, which is why the Martians and the thoats are climbing up them, rather than around them. Page 14 The thing rising from the ground is one of H.G. Wells’s Martians, from The War of the Worlds. John Carter, on page 7, panel 4, described them as molluscs. This is how Wells describes the Martians: But, looking, I presently saw something stirring within the shadow: greyish billowy movements, one above another, and then two luminous disks--like eyes. Then something resembling a little grey snake, about the thickness of a walking stick, coiled up out of the writhing middle, and wriggled in the air towards me--and then another. A sudden chill came over me. There was a loud shriek from a woman behind. I half turned, keeping my eyes fixed upon the cylinder still, from which other tentacles were now projecting, and began pushing my way back from the edge of the pit. I saw astonishment giving place to horror on the faces of the people about me. I heard inarticulate exclamations on all sides. There was a general movement backwards. I saw the shopman struggling still on the edge of the pit. I found myself alone, and saw the people on the other side of the pit running off, Stent among them. I looked again at the cylinder, and ungovernable terror gripped me. I stood petrified and staring. A big greyish rounded bulk, the size, perhaps, of a bear, was rising slowly and painfully out of the cylinder. As it bulged up and caught the light, it glistened like wet leather. Two large dark-coloured eyes were regarding me steadfastly. The mass that framed them, the head of the thing, was rounded, and had, one might say, a face. There was a mouth under the eyes, the lipless brim of which quivered and panted, and dropped saliva. The whole creature heaved and pulsated convulsively. A lank tentacular appendage gripped the edge of the cylinder, another swayed in the air. Those who have never seen a living Martian can scarcely imagine the strange horror of its appearance. The peculiar V-shaped mouth with its pointed upper lip, the absence of brow ridges, the absence of a chin beneath the wedgelike lower lip, the incessant quivering of this mouth, the Gorgon groups of tentacles, the tumultuous breathing of the lungs in a strange atmosphere, the evident heaviness and painfulness of movement due to the greater gravitational energy of the earth--above all, the extraordinary intensity of the immense eyes--were at once vital, intense, inhuman, crippled and monstrous. There was something fungoid in the oily brown skin, something in the clumsy deliberation of the tedious movements unspeakably nasty. Carter’s use of the term mollusc seems apposite. The Martian walker itself is described by Wells in this way: And this Thing I saw! How can I describe it? A monstrous tripod, higher than many houses, striding over the young pine trees, and smashing them aside in its career; a walking engine of glittering metal, striding now across the heather; articulate ropes of steel dangling from it, and the clattering tumult of its passage mingling with the riot of the thunder. A flash, and it came out vividly, heeling over one way with two feet in the air, to vanish and reappear almost instantly as it seemed, with the next flash, a hundred yards nearer. Can you imagine a milking stool tilted and bowled violently along the ground? That was the impression those instant flashes gave. But instead of a milking stool imagine it a great body of machinery on a tripod stand.... Seen nearer, the Thing was incredibly strange, for it was no mere insensate machine driving on its way. Machine it was, with a ringing metallic pace, and long, flexible, glittering tentacles (one of which gripped a young pine tree) swinging and rattling about its strange body. It picked its road as it went striding along, and the brazen hood that surmounted it moved to and fro with the inevitable suggestion of a head looking about. Behind the main body was a huge mass of white metal like a gigantic fisherman's basket, and puffs of green smoke squirted out from the joints of the limbs as the monster swept by me. Page 15 Panels 1-4: In The War of the Worlds, the Martians used the "black smoke" Carter refers to in panel 4 to wipe out great numbers of humans. Page 16 Panel 1: The tall, spindly creatures are the Sorns. The Sorns were created by C.S. Lewis and appeared in Out of the Silent Planet (1939), the first book in Lewis’s Space Trilogy; the other two were Perelandra (1943) and That Hideous Strength (1945). The Space Trilogy is about Dr. Elwin Ransom, a human who is kidnapped by an evil scientist and taken to Malacandra, AKA Mars. On Mars, Ransom befriends the Malacandrans and helps capture the evil scientist. In Perelandra, Ransom goes to Perelandra, or Venus, and helps prevent a second Fall of Eve. In the third book, evil is fought on Earth. The Sorns are one of three species of Malacandrans. There are the Hrossa, poet-farmers; the Pfiltriggi, the artisans; and the Sorns, the scholar-philosophers. Lewis describes the Sorns as "spindly and flimsy things, twice or three times the height of a man...so crazily thin and elongated in the leg, so top-heavily pouted in the chest, such stalky, flexible-looking distortions of earthly bipeds." Page 19 Panel 2: The image of Gullivar Jones is, I think, from that moment in Lieutenant Gullivar Jones when he first wishes to go to Mars. The image of John Carter and Dejah Thoris is not from one specific moment in any of the Burroughs books. Page 21 Panel 3: In League, Wells’s Martians are not native to Mars; they are actually invaders. Moore said, in an interview, that "H.G. Wells's Martians, they are not from Mars. They are from some other galaxy. And they tried to take over Mars but have been driven out by the combined Martian resistance. You know, And that's when they come to Earth." Win Eckert says that there's precedence for this view, in Manly Wellman's pastiche Sherlock Holmes' War of the Worlds (1975) and in George Alec Effinger's "Mars: The Home Front," in War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches (1996). Page 24 What we see here is the moment, in War of the Worlds, when the Martians have first landed but not emerged from their impact crater. "The New Traveller's Alamanac" AKA Alan Moore's attempt to kill me Page 25 "About the earliest such gathering of unique individuals in service to the Crown, little is known save that they were reputedly convened during the seventeenth century and were referred to unofficially as ‘Prospero’s Men.’ " This of course refers to the earlier Leagues which were hinted at in League v1 #2, page 23, panel 2. "Prospero" refers to Prospero, the Duke of Milan, from Shakespeare’s The Tempest (1611). In The Tempest, Prospero is set adrift by his brother and washes ashore on an island of various exotic animals and spirits. At the end of the story, Prospero promises to return to Milan and rule it as is his right. Apparently, he later left Milan and entered the service of the Crown. "...a Duke of Milan with interests in the occult sciences..." Prospero has various sorcerous powers, including the ability to conjure up storms. "Two of the group were rumored to be conjurings of sorcery rather than mortal beings..." My guess is that this is a reference to the sprite Ariel and the brute Caliban, both from The Tempest. "...the wide-eyed traveller called only ‘Christian,’ claimed that he had wandered into our world from some neighbouring etheric territory...." Christian is from John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim's Progress from this World to that Which is to Come (1678-1684). In Progress, Christian, an Everyman, travels from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City, visiting the Slough of Despond, the House of the Interpreter, and various other locales on the way. "...the marvellous archipelago known as The Blazing World..." The Blazing World is from Observations upon Experimental Philosophy. To which is added the Description of a New Blazing World. Written by the Thrice Noble, Illustrious and Excellent Princess, The Duchess of Newcastle (1666), by Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle. The Blazing World is an archipelago of island which extends from the North Pole through the Greenland and Norwegian Seas almost to the British Islands. On the islands of The Blazing World are men of various colors and races, from blue to orange and from bear-men to parrot-men, with each type of person belonging to a different profession. "...the fated and disastrous Bellman Expedition into the interior of a puzzling well or pit near Oxford in the 1870s." The Bellman Expedition is from Lewis Carroll’s "The Hunting of the Snark" (1876). In the poem, the Bellman Expedition goes hunting for snarks, only to find that the gentle snark is in fact the dreaded boojum. The "puzzling well or pit near Oxford" is a reference to the hole down which Alice L. fell in Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland; the Expedition is gone into more detail on page 28. "Other members of this new fraternity would seem to have eventually included a mild-mannered clergyman from Kent, a Mr. Bumppo from America, a married English couple called the Blakeneys and a Mistress Hill...." This is a reference to the 18th century League, seen in a portrait in League v1 #2, page 23, panel 2: The Reverend Dr. Syn, from Russell Thorndike’s Doctor Syn (1915); Natty Bumppo, from James Fennimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking novels; Sir Percy and Marguerite Blakeney, from Baroness Emmuska Orczy’s The Scarlet Pimpernel (1905); and Fanny Hill from John Cleland’s Fanny Hill (1749). Page 26 "The Streaming Kingdom..." The Streaming Kingdom is from Jules Superville’s L'Enfant de la Haute Mer (1931). The Streaming Kingdom is an aquatic kingdom under the English Channel, near the mouth of the Seine. It is inhabited by water-breathing humans who must drown before they can enter the Kingdom. "The notorious 18th century pirate, Captain Clegg..." Captain Clegg, in Doctor Syn, was a ferocious smuggler and pirate. He was also the alter ego of the kindly Reverend Dr. Syn. "...something not unlike ‘His Royal Wetness’..." The Streaming Kingdom is ruled by a creature called His Royal Wetness. "...the four-inch aquatic infants found within the submarine caves of St. Brendan’s Isle..." St. Brendan’s Isle, and the "aquatic infants," are a reference to Charles Kingsley’s The Water-Babies (1863). The Water-Babies is about Tom, a chimney sweep, who is found in the room of a girl and is chased from the room, then from the house, and then across the English countryside. Tom is being hounded to his death when he falls in a river. His body dies, but his soul goes is changed into a "water baby" by a group of faeries. "Most famous are the ruins from the Arthurian period...." Since Moore does a good job of explaining the Arthurian myth behind the individual landmarks, I’m not going to mention them unless there’s more to the reference than the Arthurian myth. "Most well-known is Victoria...." Victoria is from James Buckingham’s National Evils and Practical Remedies, with a Plan of a Model Town (1849). Victoria is in fact a model town, built to be a kind of urban utopia under the rules Moore describes here. "...it may be useful to compare Victoria with the model town established further north as recently as 1899, in Avondale...." Avondale is from Grant Allen’s "The Child of the Phalanstery" (1899). A "phalanstery" is a self-sustaining commune; the Avondale Phalanstery was a well-managed commune with the unfortunate habit of killing all crippled or deformed children. "...the delightful village known as Commutaria...." Commutaria is from Elspeth Ann Macey’s "Awayday" (1955). Commutaria is an Avalon of sorts for the weary commuter; whatever she or he wishes for can be found in the village. It was founded by a descendant of Merlin as a way to reward tired commuters, especially on Monday mornings. "an enthralling tome by Donford-Yates..." "Dornford Yates" was the pseudonym of Cecil William Mercer (1885-1960), an English author of mystery/adventure books with series characters Berry Pleydell, Jonah Mansel and Richard Chandos. "...more sinister evasive sites, like Abaton in Scotland...." Abaton is from Sir Thomas Bulfinch’s My Heart's In the Highlands (1892). Abaton is a Scots town of varying location, somewhere between Glasgow and Troon. It’s never where it is sought for, and only a few rare men and women manage to catch a glimpse of it, always at sunset and sunrise; those who see Abaton are always affected strongly by it, either with great joy or great sorrow. No one ever makes it to Abaton, however; they only ever see it from a distance. "...the mind-warping horrors of ‘Snark Island’...." Snark Island is from "The Hunting of the Snark." Snark Island is the home of various deadly animals -- the jub-jub, the bandersnatch and the boojum, as well as the snark. The Island is filled with "dismal and desolate" valleys and jaggy crags, and is generally unpleasant. Page 27 "...bleak, magnificent Baskerville Hall..." Baskerville Hall is a reference to the A. Conan Doyle novel The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902). In the story, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson visit Baskerville Hall to solve the mystery of a giant, ghostly hound. "...to Crotchet Castle there in the Thames Valley..." Crotchet Castle is from Thomas Love Peacock's Crotchet Castle (1881). In the novel, Ebenezer MacCrotchet, Esq., one of the rare Scots Jews, read that London magistrates had ordered that all statues of Venus must appear in the streets wearing petticoats. MacCrotchet's response is to bring all of the offending statues of Venus to his home. "At Yalding Towers..." Yalding Towers are from E. Nesbit's The Enchanted Castle (1907). Yalding Towers was built decades ago by a man who owned a magic ring. The ring, when worn, makes the ring-bearer invisible. It also grants the ring-bearer the power to make the Towers' dinosaur statues come to life. "...at Ravenal's Tower outside Ivybridge in Kent..." Ravenal's Tower is from E. Nesbit's The Wouldbegoods (1901). In the novel, Richard Ravenal suffers from the curse as Moore describes it. "...an isolated cottage called 'The White House,' bordering a gravel pit where there have been reported sightings of a stalk-eyed monster known to the locals as a Psammead..." The "White House" and the Psammead are from E. Nesbit's Five Children and It (1902). The White House was a holiday cottage in Kent where five children discovered the Psammead, an extremely cranky fairy. "...Wilhelmina Murray, in 1904, visited (for reasons best known to herself) an elderly bee-keeper who resided near the seaside cove of Fulworth..." This is a reference to A. Conan Doyle's "The Adventure of the Lion's Mane" (1927), in which Sherlock Holmes is described as having retired to Fulworth to pursue his interest in bee-keeping. "...folklore surrounding the 'Wish House' at 14 Wadloes Road in Smalldene..." The "Wish House" and Smalldene are from Rudyard Kipling's "The Wish House" (1926). The Wish House is a small basement-kitchen house in which visitors, by wishing aloud into the house's letter-box slot, can take upon themselves the ills of their loved ones. "...Murray was referred to the Starkadder family farm..." The Starkadder family farm, and Miss Ada Doom, are from Stella Gibbons's Cold Comfort Farm (1932). Miss Ada Doom of the Starkadder family saw "something nasty in the woodshed" when she was a child, and rarely left her room after that. "...the so-called 'Witch House' to be found on Pickman Street in Arkham, Massachusetts..." The Witch House is from H.P. Lovecraft's "Dreams in the Witch House" (1932). "...the castle known as Yspaddaden Penkawr..." Yspaddaden Penkawr is from The Mabinogion, the 14th century C.E. collection of Welsh legends and myths. Yspaddaden Penkawr is as described, a castle which seems to recede the closer one draws to it. "...the gloomy but imposing sight of Exham Priory, with its dismal history of ineffectual pest-control..." Exham Priory is from H.P. Lovecraft's "The Rats in the Walls" (1939). The accursed Priory did in fact have a rat problem, one which eventually overwhelmed the inheritor of the Priory. "...the small but friendly railway station found in Llaregyb..." Llaregyb is from Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood, a Play for Voices (1954). Llaregyb is a small, sleepy Welsh village. "...the great national embarassment, since its discovery in 1673 by Captain Robert Owemuch, of the floating island Scoti Moria, alternatively known as Summer Island..." Captain Robert Owemuch and the Floating Island (aka Scoti Moria aka Summer Island) are from "Frank Careless"'s The Floating Island or a new Discovery Relating the Strange Adventure on a late Voyage from Lambethana to Villa Franca, Alias Ramallia, to the Eastward of Terra Del Templo: By three Ships, viz., the 'Pay-naught,' the 'Excuse,' and the 'Least-in-Sight' under the Conduct of Captain Robert Owe-much: Describing the Nature of the Inhabitants, their Religion, Laws and Customs (1673). Floating Island is a small island located in the middle of the Thames-Isis Gulf, off the coast of England. The island floats away in winter and hides until the summer, hence its names. Floating Islands' inhabitants are as described. "...the picturesque and world-famed English university town of Camford, which ost recently achieved some notoriety due to the efforts of Professor Presbury..." Camford and Professor Presbury are from A. Conan Doyle's "The Adventure of the Creeping Man" (1927). In that story Professor Presbury, through experiments on monkeys, had discovered that men could be transformed into apes by injecting monkey serum into their veins. "...It was here, on the River Thames's banks somewhere between Godstow and Folly Bridge in 1865 that the presumed abduction of a little girl took place...the girl in question, sensitively known as 'Miss A.L.'..." The little girl, "Miss A.L.," and the text following is from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865). "A.L." stands for Alice Liddell, the little girl for whom the Reverend Charles Luttwidge Dodgson, aka "Lewis Carroll," wrote Alice. The twist which Moore puts on the events of Alice is quite...Moore-esque. Page 28 "...there were two less happily-concluded sequels to her exploits, the first taking place in 1871..." The Reverend Dodgson published Through the Looking Glass, the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, in 1871. "An Oxford clergyman named Dr. Eric Bellman led the group..." As mentioned in the notes to page 25, Dr. Bellman is from "The Hunting of the Snark." Page 29 "...the mention of a form of local fauna called a 'jub-jub'..." The "jub-jub" or "jubjub" bird is mention in both "The Hunting of the Snark" and in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. "Asked how one might find this place, Bellman grew agitated and snatched up a page out of my notebook, claiming that it was a perfect map of how the island might be reached. The page in question, I should note, was yet unused and thus entirely blank...." From "The Hunting of the Snark:" He had bought a large map representing the sea,      Without the least vestige of land: And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be      A map they could all understand. "What's the good of Mercator's North Poles and Equators,      Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?" So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply      "They are merely conventional signs! "Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!      But we've got our brave Captain to thank: (So the crew would protest) "that he's bought us the best--      A perfect and absolute blank!" "He would only say, 'The last word that he spoke was `boo.''" In "The Hunting of the Snark" the last words of the Baker are "It's a Boo-" (For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.) "...and certain tunnels found beneath an island in East Anglia, at Winton Pond..." Winton Pond is from Graham Greene's "Under the Garden" (1963). In the middle of Winton Pond is a small island underneath which are a web of tunnels, complete with a strange pair of inhabitants and a great trove of treasure, of all the valuable rubbish people have ever lost. One of the subterranean inhabitants refers to certain characters from Wonderland. "...Coal City..." Coal City is from Jules Verne's Les Indes Noires (1877). Coal City, a subterranean city located beneath central Scotland, is a very productive mine and tourist attraction. "...Vril-ya Country..." Vril-ya Country is from Edward Bulwer-Lytton's The Coming Race (1871). The Vril-ya are a race which has constructed a utopia in a ravine deep beneath Newcastle. "...the Roman State..." The Roman State is from Joseph O'Neill's Land Under England (1935). The Roman State is a fascistic subterranean nation underneath England, reachable via a trapdoor at the base of Hadrian's Wall. Although the Roman State's origin is unknown, its clothes, language and ships are at the very least influenced by the Romans. "...Harthover Place in Yorkshire..." Harthover Place is from The Water Babies. "...Nightmare Abbey on the edge of Lincolnshire, a place so cursed that its afflictions almost seem amusing..." Nightmare Abbey is from Thomas Love Peacock's Nightmare Abbey (1818). Nightmare Abbey is a dilapidated family mansion haunted by a gloom of melancholy which eventually overwhelms its guests. "...Alderly Edge, a windswept and remote location in the hills of Cheshire..." Alderly Edge is from Alan Garner's The Weirdstone of Brisingamen (1960). Underneath Alderly Edge is the cave Fundinelve, in which 140 knights in silver armor lie in enchanted sleep, waiting for the chance to fight the evil Spirit of Darkness. "...the ancient ruins of Diana's Grove in Staffordshire, not far from Mercy Farm and the nearby ancestral pile of Castra Regis, home to the illustrious Caswell family until the sad events of their annus horribilus in 1911..." Diana's Grove, Mercy Farm, the Castra Regis, and the Caswell family are all from Bram Stoker's Lair of the White Worm (1911). In the novel, an ancient and evil white worm, which had survived since prehistoric times in the tunnels beneath England, plagued several good stout Englishmen and woman, all the while in the form of a beautiful woman, before finally being killed through the suitable application of dynamite. "...Thus 'Nania' is a Vril-ya word denoting sin, or evil..." Neat though it would be to tie The Coming Race to C.S. Lewis's Narnia stories, 'Nania' is an invention of Moore's and does not appear in The Coming Race. "...a hand-written note refers the reader to an apple-tree currently being grown as a government project at Kew Gardens..." This one I'm not sure about. I think it refers to the events of C.S. Lewis's The Magician's Nephew (1955), in which the boy Diggory goes into the Garden of Hesperides and retrieves a golden apple, which grows into a tree; Diggory then takes an apple from the tree back to Earth and uses it to cure his ailing mother. Diggory then plants the apple in his backyard, where it grows into a large apple tree (and eventually is used to make the wardrobe of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe). Perhaps it is this apple tree Moore is referring to? "...Narnia?..." Narnia is a reference to C.S. Lewis's seven Narnia books, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (1950), Prince Caspian (1951), The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952), The Silver Chair (1953), The Horse and his Boy (1954), The Magician's Nephew (1955), and The Last Battle (1956). In this series, children from Earth venture to the world of fantasy world of Narnia and have various adventures there. Page 30 "...we had another beastly row..." Apparently the course of true love doth ne'er run true when it comes to Mina's relationship with Allan. "...phenomena of a more whimsical, fantastic nature, such as Gort Na Cloca Mora..." Gort Na Cloca Mora is from James Stephens's The Crock of Gold (1912). Gort Na Cloca Mora is the home of the leprechauns in The Crock of Gold, which is about two philosophers arguing with each other and encountering the leprechauns. "..the nearby glen, Glyn Cagny..." Glyn Cagny is from The Crock of Gold. Glyn Cagny is a glen associated with the two philosophers of The Crock of Gold. The salmon mentioned here live in a pond in the glen. "...the domain of The Sleepers of Erinn, where Irish god-king Angus Og and his bride Caitlin are believed to now reside..." The Sleepers of Erinn, Angus Og, and Caitlin are all from The Crock of Gold. Angus Og is one of the ancient gods of Ireland; his other name is "Infinite Love and Joy." Caitlin is the daughter of one of the two philosophers of Crock of Gold. The Cave of the Sleepers of Erinn is Angus Og's home. "...the Lake of the Cauldron..." The Lake of the Cauldron is from The Mabinogion, in which it functions as described here. "...the peculiarly modern-seeming 'Giant's Garden' that surrounds an outsized tower near Camford. Unbelievably, these ruins were not discovered until 1888..." The Giant's Garden is from the Oscar Wilde story "The Selfish Giant" (1888). This charming story is about a giant, his garden, and the children who visit the garden. "...Nearer to Dublin, we find Leixlip Castle..." Leixlip Castle, Redmond Blaney and Jane Blaney are from Charles Maturin's The Castle of Leixlip (1820). Leixlip Castle has, as the text here mentions, a dark history, with Redmond Blaney's daughters being murdered by their husbands or taken by faeries. "...the famous spectral seafood vendor, Miss Malone..." Miss Malone is actually sweet Molly Malone, from James Yorkston's "Cockles and Mussels" (1884). After dying of a fever Molly Malone still walks the streets of Dublin, crying "Cockles and mussels alive, alive o!" "...a demolished eighteenth century building in the centre of the city, once known as 'The Red House'..." The Red House is from J. Sheridan Le Fanu's The Siege of the Red House (1863). The hand which haunted Mr. Harper's red house was the ghost of an ancestor's hand, which had been mutilated. "Forty miles east of Galway stands a house that presently belongs to a middle-aged gentleman, one Mr. Mathers. Local legends or tall tales suggest that Mathers' house may somehow form a gateway to a strangely different Ireland..." Michael Norwitz identified this reference. It's to The Third Policeman (1940) by "Flann O'Brien," aka Brian O'Nolan, aka Briain ÓNuallàin. Mr. Mathers house is the home of the quite dangerous Police Inspector Fox as well as a gateway to a hellish Ireland. (The Third Policeman is really quite good, and although it's not available online you should all go out and read it.) "...the unearthly ruins we discover on the windswept western coast of Ireland. These apparently once formed a house built on a wild crag jutting out above a chasm..." This house is from W.H. Hodgson's The House on the Borderlands (1908). The House on the Borderlands, inhabited by the old man and his sister mentioned in the text, is the gateway to a world of very evil swine monsters. "...the island known as that of Saint Brendan the Blessed." This is from The Water Babies, mentioned above on page 26. "...we should first comment on Coal City..." This is from Les Indes Noires, mentioned above on page 29. "...the cave-world of the Roman State..." This is from Land Under England, mentioned above on page 29. Page 31 "...equally-elusive Brigadoon..." Brigadoon is from Alan Jay Lerner's Brigadoon (1947). Brigadoon is a Scots village whose inhabitants awake only one day every century. "...Airfowlness, on Scotland's western coast where what seem to be courts or parliaments of sea birds are held annually..." Airfowlness is from The Water Babies. Airfowlness is the location where thousands of hooded crows hold their yearly parliament, to boast of what they had done the previous year and to bring one of their own to trial. "...or Coradine, the fascinating matriarchal settlement up to the north of Scotland..." Coradine is from W.H. Hudson's A Crystal Age (1887). Coradine is a kind of utopia set in northern Scotland. "...the more evasive settlements, such as the place known as the Glittering Plain, which also has a second, secret name, the speaking of which is forbidden, but which is, reputedly, 'The Acre of the Undying.'" The Glittering Plain, aka The Acre of the Undying, is from William Morris's The Story of the Glittering Plain which has also been called the Land of Living Men or the Acre of the Undying (1891). The Glittering Plain is a kingdom on the coast of norther Scotland. Those who enter the valley are granted immortality, but after this they may never leave. "...the City of Ayesha..." Ayesha and her city, Kor, are from H. Rider Haggard's She (1887). Ayesha is She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, the wife of Horace Rumpole and the immortal goddess of Kor. "...a remote isle to the North of Scotland, famous for its wreckers and its pirates, called the Isle of Ransom." The Isle of Ransom is from The Story of the Glittering Plain. "...the fateful expedition to The Blazing World..." The Blazing World is from Observations upon Experimental Philosophy. To which is added the Description of a New Blazing World. Written by the Thrice Noble, Illustrious and Excellent Princess, The Duchess of Newcastle (1666), mentioned above on page 25. Jess nevins would like to thank: Alicia, now and always. Mike Chary, for loaning me the advance copy. Michael Norwitz, for the Third Policeman reference. Scott Dunbier, for faxing a copy of this to Alan Moore (!), and relating Moore's praise (!!!). Win Eckert for the Martians references. To contact Jess Nevins, either with additional insight, annotations or general correspondance, email him at jjnevins@ix.netcom.com. To see these annotations with links to even more resource material, click HERE. And for more comics annotations, Jess Nevins maintains an archive of those documents on his personal website, which you can reach by clicking HERE. Feel free to discuss this feature on the Fourth Rail message board.