From: sherman@oak.math.ucla.edu (The Ahkond of Swat)
Subject: DC: Doom Patrol Annotations (long)
Organization: UCLA Mathematics Department
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 92 03:45:24 GMT

Ta - daaa!
You knew it had to happen!  Here are two "rough draft" files of 
annotations to Grant Morrison's "Doom Patrol", covering up to a
couple of issues ago.  See below for details.

------------------------------------

Some annotations to Doom Patrol 19 - 38
By Bill Sherman (sherman@math.ucla.edu)
Comments, suggestions and corrections are more than welcome.

Ground Rules (please read before mailing me additions):  there are many
places in the pages of Doom Patrol where characters will discuss or 
mention some historical (or current) celebrity, such as Coleridge or Bessie
Smith.  To save space, I'm not going to put entries in this list for
such references, because you can look them up just as easily as reading
them here.  Considering the large amount of such references in DP, 
I hope that omitting such annotations will keep the list trim.  If there
is much wailing and gnashing of teeth among those concerned, I may relent.

My motivation for these annotations is to point out things that many
people may not notice -- the "uncredited" references, so to speak.  It
does no good to point out who John Kennedy and Shakespeare are when they
are mentioned by name.  When Shakespeare's plays are quoted without
being acknowledged, however, I'll include a note (there are four
examples so far).

Another type of entry which I will not make is typified by the Dadaists.
Knowledge of the basic history and ideas of the Dada movement is crucial
to understanding Mr. Nobody and the Brotherhood of Dada, but this is not
the place for exposition on such a topic.  Since the book makes it obvious
that Dada is being alluded to, the industrious reader may take the time
to find some books about it.  Another example of this is the Painting
that ate Paris, which contains many levels corresponding to various 
artistic schools and traditions: Futurism, Structuralism, Surrealism,
Photorealism, Symbolism, Cubism, Fauvism, Impressionism...  it would
be counterproductive to attempt any coherent exposition on the history
of painting.  I have limited myself to identifying the one level of the
painting (Cubist) which is not identified by name in the comic, and left
the discussion to the experts.

Bottom line: if Morrison has pointed your nose toward something, I won't
be redundant about it.  When he slips something in quietly, I'll try to
point it out.  Some of them are pretty far afield, such as the source
of the names Kiss, Cuddle and Torture; I hope other readers can find
me some more of these items out of left field.

There are many places where, for example, characters sing little tidbits
of songs, and I have recognized only a couple of these.  The sources of
these musical snippets would be greatly appreciated.

Here's what I've got so far:

#19, "Crawling From the Wreckage"

p. 12: note the "Miranda" graffito.  Miranda was one of Jane's 
personalities, as we discover in #30.

We are assured in #30 that Crazy Jane took her name from the Yeats
poems about a character by that name.

#20  "Cautionary Tales"

p. 11: "Driver 8" is a song by R.E.M., from the album _Fables of the
Reconstruction_.

p. 22: The cartoony panels at the bottom of the page are in the style 
of English limericist and illustrator Edward Lear.  Lear's most famous
poem is "The Owl and the Pussycat", and he wrote some immensely popular
books of limericks and nonsense.  The reference to Lear is supported by
the doctor on p. 11, because one of Lear's limericks goes as follows:

There was an old man of the Nile
Who sharpened his nails with a file
 Till he cut off his thumbs
 And said calmly, "This comes -
Of sharpening one's nails with a file."

(from Lear's _A Book of Nonsense_, the restored 1870 edition)

For those interested, Lear also wrote "The Ahkond of Swat".  8^)

#21  "Worlds in Collision"

About Orqwith: an encyclopedia about a fictional place is not a new idea.  
I suspect that Morrison is largely thinking about such books as the 
_Codex Seraphinianus_ by "Luigi Seraphini" (probably a pseudonym), a 
famous work of this type.  

Another recent book of this type is an "encyclopedic novel" by Milorad
Pavic, entitled _The Dictionary of the Khazars_.

The creation of a fictional world by self-referential literature is also
hinted at in Jose Luis Borges' "Tlo:n, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius", from the
_Ficciones_ collection, but this has more of a lit-crit feel.

#22 "The Ossuary"

#23  "The Butterfly Collector"
Jane uses the cut-up technique to discover the identity of 
Rhea's kidnapper.  This is an old method for creating "random" poetry
and prose, started by the Dadaists.  Tristan Tzara wrote many 
poems in this way, and William S. Burroughs has been known to use
this method.

p. 20: Jane is listing the names of the known victims of the historical 
Jack the Ripper.  All of them were London prostitutes.

#24 "The House that Jack Built"

pp. 9-10: Jack is quoting the Cole Porter song "Cheek to Cheek".

#25 "Imaginary Friends"

Dorothy talks about "The Wizard of Oz" and also a story about dancing
shoes; the latter is Hans Christian Andersen's "The Red Shoes".  

Dorothy Spinner's name is a double reference to Judy Garland's character 
in "The Wizard of Oz": both are named Dorothy, and in the film, Dorothy
Gale reached Oz via tornado -- that is, by spinning.  In fact, we first 
met Dorothy in the Great Plains, and she was wearing red shoes and a dress 
reminscent of Dorothy's costume from the film.

Fans of the DP summary files will recall that author Robert Kelly mentioned
(in the first file) that he had written a letter to the editor when he saw
issue 19.  That letter is printed in this issue.

#26 "Nowhere Man"

The title is a song by the Beatles.

p. 8: The Mercedez-Benz symbol is incorrectly shown instead of the
Peace symbol (a common error) on the groovy poster on the wall.

p. 24: "And the pants of the vicar" is a famous Dada line but I don't know
where it's from.

#27 "The Painting That Ate Paris"

p. 8: Push, pop and stack are terms from computing, not mathematics.

p. 22: The policeman being turned into a toilet is surely a reference to
Marcel Duchamp's sculpture "Fountain", which is simply a urinal signed by
Duchamp.  The fact that it's a policeman may refer to a similar incident in
the "newspaper" which accompanies Jethro Tull's album _Aqualung_.  That 
newspaper relates a story about a riot at an art exhibit, during which one
of the rioting artists squirts a tube of cadmium yellow paint on a policeman's
helmet and then signs it.  The policeman is then tied up and included in the
exhibit, and no-one helps him.  It's probably too far a stretch to notice
that a policeman in Dylan Thomas' "Under Milk Wood" uses his helmet as a 
bedpan, but it's a fun fact.

#28 "Labyrinths"

p. 16 - 17: 
The floppy clocks and the weird crutches are visual references to Salvador
Dali's paintings, especially "The Persistence of Memory".
Notice that one of the clocks says "Magritte".

p. 21: Rain Brain says "riverrun".  "riverrun" is the first word in James
Joyce's masterpiece _Finnegans Wake_, with which I am sure Morrison is at
least vaguely familiar.  "riverrun" is a multi-leveled word (as are most
words in _FW_), but one level is a pun on the French "reverrons" (sp?), 
"let us dream".

#29 "The Kingdom of No"

p. 4  The Cubist level, I presume.

p. 8  The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, of course, are from Revelations,
Chapter 6.

p. 14  "The Banana Splits" was a real children's show in the US, during the 
70's.  I remember them clearly.  Fans may be interested to know that a cover 
version of their theme song is available on the Dickies' compilation album 
_Great Dictations_.

p. 22:  "Like pigs from a gun" is a line from the Beatles song "I Am the
Walrus", by John Lennon.  A very Dada song, on _Magical Mystery Tour_.

The hobbyhorse at the end is a devious pun.  The word Dada was chosen at
random from a book to be the name of the nonsense-first art movement.
The word is a French children's word for "hobbyhorse".  It seems that there
was meaning there after all!

#30 "Going Underground"

p. 4: The Weird Sisters are the three witches from Shakespeare's "MacBeth".
They are referred to there by that title, at IV.i.153.

p. 4: "The Snow Queen" is a story by Hans Christian Andersen.

Note that Driver 8's symbol, an 8 on its side, is the mathematical symbol
for infinity.

p. 10: Remember the "Miranda" graffito from 19.

p. 17: We are shown many of Jane's personalities.  Some recognizable ones
are Jill in Irons, Kit W'the Canstick, Mama Pentecost (in the dress covered
with letters), Flaming Katy, Flit, the Weird Sisters, the Secretary, Scarlet
Harlot, Jack Straw, Hammerhead, Merry Andrew, Snow Queen, Lady Purple and
Rain Brain.  Is the lady with the crucifix Sin-Eater?  Or could that be the
nun with the chainsaw?

p. 19: Very Clive-Barkeresque.  Machinery and endless torture.

p. 20: Daddy is quoting Cole Porter's song "Let's Do It".  What does 
Morrison have against Porter?

#31 "The Word made Flesh"

The title is a reference to Christ.  Anybody have chapter and 
verse?  Is it biblical?  Liturgical?

p. 5: the Unwritten Book.  There are literary precedents for people
with books written on their bodies.  In Joyce's _Finnegans Wake_, the
book itself is written on the body of the character Shem the Penman,
who is also its author.  In Kafka's "The Penal Colony", people
are executed by having books carved into their bodies.  

P. 5: "Downtown".  Petula Clarke?

p. 7: Cliff can smell now, but told Rebis in issue 27 that s/he was 
beginning to "smell funny".  Oops!

p. 11: Baphomet is quoting the opening theme song of the television 
show "Mr. Ed", but Kipling doesn't recognize it, being a Brit.  Where
is Baphomet's name from?

#32 "Decreator"

p. 3: Kipling is quoting Shakespeare's _Henry V_: "Once more into the
breach", III.i.1.

Pale Police anagrams, courtesy of Col. Sicherman, r.a.c:
	p. 8 "Happening?" "You are the gateway." "Nowhere to run!"
		"Nowhere to run."
	p. 13 "Stop!  Do not attempt to move!"
	p. 16 "You cannot escape!" "Stay where you are!"
		"We've waited a long time for you"  "Look!"

#33 "The Puppet Theatre"

p. 1: That's a page of T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" being blotted out.

p. 6: St. Vitus' Dance is another name for chorea, a neurological disorder
characterized by uncontrollable muscle movements.  It is related to 
Huntington's disease, which is also called Huntington's chorea.
 
p. 6: Danse Macabre: this is an important allegorical form in medieval 
arts (painting, literature...).  It expresses the obsession with death
by depicting people being interrupted by a skeletal Death, and dancing
along after it in single file on the way to the afterlife.  Its popularity
is not surprising, considering the Black Plague and other facts of 
medieval life.  The Danse was a central image in Ingmar Bergman's film
"The Seventh Seal", as well as Woody Allen's "Love and Death".  The Danse
often reinforced notions of social structure by having Popes and Kings 
precede the common people in the line, but they all follow Death in the end.

As noted in the summary files, the Archons speak through Punch and Judy
puppets.

Note that "Nu:rnberg" is another name for the real city of Nuremburg, 
where the War Crimes trials were held after WWII.

#34 "The Soul of a New Machine"

p. 7: "faulty responsometers" is a reference to the unpredictable 
behavior of Magnus' Metal Men.  An in-joke.

When Cliff's body tells Cliff that it wants to experience life to the 
fullest, it quotes Gene Wilder's character Leo Bloom in Mel Brooks' 
"The Producers": "I want everything I've ever seen in the movies!"
Note that Leo's name is a reference in itself; Leopold Bloom is the 
protagonist of Joyce's _Ulysses_ (I know, I know, cool it with the
extraneous Joyce references...).

#35, "Down Paradise Way"

p. 3 The Juvenal quotation is translated "Prayer is necessary for a healthy
mind in a healthy body", according to my sources.  Comics fans will note
that Juvenal is also the source of the famous "Who watches the watchmen?".

p. 23: Token suckers are for real (NYC).

#36, "Box of Delights"

The man with the monocle is quoting from Mel Brooks' "The Producers".
All of his lines duplicate those of the "Carmen Ghia" character.

#37, "Persephone"

The title refers to a character from Greek mythology.  Persephone was
kidnapped by Hades for a bride, as was Rhea (by Red Jack).

p. 10: Rhea vaguely recalls Red Jack.

the Circus: recall that Rhea travelled with a circus before joining
the Doom Patrol.

p. 17: "Cesarina" is a reference to the film "The Cabinet of Dr. 
Caligari".  One of its characters is a pale somnambulist named "Cesar".

#38, "Lost in Space"

The title is that of an American children's science-fiction television
show from the sixties and seventies (?).  Warning, Will Robinson!

p. 1: Flight 19 is the most famous "Bermuda Triangle" story.  I read
in a recent newspaper that the planes had been found, at the bottom
of the ocean.

p. 2: Panel 4 is an obvious reference to the ads for the film "The
Exorcist"

p. 16: "Bell, book and candle" seems to be an old phrase for summoning.  
Gaiman and Pratchett used it in _Good Omens_.  Where is it from?

------------------
--
 Bill Sherman     S^1 `--> S^(2n+1) -->> CP^n      sherman@math.ucla.edu
            Righteous, mighteous and out-of-sighteous!
                    - Easy Reader, "The Electric Company"