Cuckoos lay their eggs in other birds’ nests. Referring to someone as a cuckoo, it refers to the bird being a brood parasite. The Pigeon uses the host bird to unwittingly raise its young
I remember picking up this issue when it came out; made up for #8, fer sure! It was a brave step forward for the medium as a whole. A good setup for what is to come! Thanks again for looking at this masterpiece! More Moore! 🖖
Think 'cuckoo' in this context is being used by Moore in a similar fashion to John Wyndham's 'The Midwich Cuckoos', (filmed as Village of the Damned) ie, an alien version of the cuckoo bird's tendency to sneak their eggs into another birds nest and use them as surrogate parents, as it were...
I remember the Marvelman reprint package issue 8 was explained a result of the flood at Eclipse and there was a long delay to get this issue out. They used that same framing device of Gargunza looking into the dreams of the Miracleman family to push Marvelman reprints for the 3D special too. It seemed like the first 7 issues wrapped up the story and this childbirth issue was a tough jumping on point for the next arc. Veitch still had original art pages for this issue for sale when he was a guest at a mid 90's, early Alternative Press Expo in San Jose, CA. I loved Miracleman, but had no interest in getting this art.
What I like about the childbirth scene is that we have the Moore "transitions" on every two panels as he jumps between the recapitulation and the present time. The broken UFO vessel juxtaposed with the truck, the words "work" and "effort" juxtaposed with Liz delivering the child and so on. It's genius.
Veitch's reference was a photo book by Lennart Nilsson called A Child is Born, which had been around since the 60's. I remember Eclipse going into great detail about the pedigree and circulation of this book in libraries to slap back at the outraged criticism.
I think someone on the eclipse team, perhaps Veitch himself or an editor commented that the photo references for the childbirth scene were taken from the book "a child is Born". Apparently it was a kind of standard medical/educational text, found on many highschool/university shelves in the 70s.
An early displays of nudity in American films is in a show called "Maniac" or sometimes called "Sex Maniac", and it follows the exact medical film scenario you guys were talking about. They had to pan it off in the film as a "medical education" film, complete with brief pauses to show dictionary definitions of various mental diseases, even though it is really just a show about a crazy actor who pretends to be a doctor and accidentally kills people. It's a great watch and in the public domain. I'm sure it is here on youtube.
Hi guys, the US comics publishing industry here. Miracleman has contained scenes of graphic violence, including a man being melted down to his pelvis not two issues ago, but my word, this clinical depiction of childbirth is going too far.
Grant Morrison's Midwich Cuckoos are a nod to the hive-mind psychic children from John Wyndham's The Midwich Cuckoos, which was famously adapted to the screen as Village of the Damned. In the context of that story, "cuckoo" refers to the bird's famous tendency to push the eggs out of other birds' nests and leave their own there to be raised by the other unsuspecting birds instead, which is sort of what happens when an unexplained alien presence impregnates all of the fertile females in the British town of Midwich (as well as a number of other locations around the globe), even the virgins, leading to unnatural/strange offspring. Within the Miracleman context, Mike, Bates, and Winter count as "cuckoos" because they are the strage offsprig of huma biology and alien technology/engineering.
Cuckoos lay their eggs in other birds’ nests. Referring to someone as a cuckoo, it refers to the bird being a brood parasite. The Pigeon uses the host bird to unwittingly raise its young
St Crispin's Hospital was a large psychiatric facility in Alan Moore's birthplace of Northampton. Established in 1876 and closed in 1995.
St Crispin might be a reference to the St. Crispin's day speech from Shakespeare's Henry V: "we few, we happy few, we band of brothers"
I remember picking up this issue when it came out; made up for #8, fer sure! It was a brave step forward for the medium as a whole. A good setup for what is to come! Thanks again for looking at this masterpiece! More Moore! 🖖
Think 'cuckoo' in this context is being used by Moore in a similar fashion to John Wyndham's 'The Midwich Cuckoos', (filmed as Village of the Damned) ie, an alien version of the cuckoo bird's tendency to sneak their eggs into another birds nest and use them as surrogate parents, as it were...
I remember the Marvelman reprint package issue 8 was explained a result of the flood at Eclipse and there was a long delay to get this issue out. They used that same framing device of Gargunza looking into the dreams of the Miracleman family to push Marvelman reprints for the 3D special too. It seemed like the first 7 issues wrapped up the story and this childbirth issue was a tough jumping on point for the next arc. Veitch still had original art pages for this issue for sale when he was a guest at a mid 90's, early Alternative Press Expo in San Jose, CA. I loved Miracleman, but had no interest in getting this art.
What I like about the childbirth scene is that we have the Moore "transitions" on every two panels as he jumps between the recapitulation and the present time. The broken UFO vessel juxtaposed with the truck, the words "work" and "effort" juxtaposed with Liz delivering the child and so on. It's genius.
Hilarious that you brought up the white coasters. Exactly what I was thinking while you were doing the lead up.
Keep going, Loving this!
I literally have a tattoo of the very Kirby Darius Drumm panel Mr. Scioli is talking about!
Veitch's reference was a photo book by Lennart Nilsson called A Child is Born, which had been around since the 60's. I remember Eclipse going into great detail about the pedigree and circulation of this book in libraries to slap back at the outraged criticism.
I think someone on the eclipse team, perhaps Veitch himself or an editor commented that the photo references for the childbirth scene were taken from the book "a child is Born".
Apparently it was a kind of standard medical/educational text, found on many highschool/university shelves in the 70s.
Lol you guys are just teasing youtube's algorithm with this title 😂
An early displays of nudity in American films is in a show called "Maniac" or sometimes called "Sex Maniac", and it follows the exact medical film scenario you guys were talking about. They had to pan it off in the film as a "medical education" film, complete with brief pauses to show dictionary definitions of various mental diseases, even though it is really just a show about a crazy actor who pretends to be a doctor and accidentally kills people. It's a great watch and in the public domain. I'm sure it is here on youtube.
What happened to issue 8 you guys didn't make a video for that ?
Listen to the end of #8 overview. They said there wasn't enough new content. It had a reprint story with a new framing sequence.
Hi guys, the US comics publishing industry here. Miracleman has contained scenes of graphic violence, including a man being melted down to his pelvis not two issues ago, but my word, this clinical depiction of childbirth is going too far.
Lorcan Nagle Haha
Cool talk.I don't think the art is great but it's the story that matters.
14:37 I mean Jesus and God are technically parts of the same being, so...
"Squirt out", really?
Hello
Regarding Saint Crispin: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crispin_and_Crispinian
Grant Morrison's Midwich Cuckoos are a nod to the hive-mind psychic children from John Wyndham's The Midwich Cuckoos, which was famously adapted to the screen as Village of the Damned. In the context of that story, "cuckoo" refers to the bird's famous tendency to push the eggs out of other birds' nests and leave their own there to be raised by the other unsuspecting birds instead, which is sort of what happens when an unexplained alien presence impregnates all of the fertile females in the British town of Midwich (as well as a number of other locations around the globe), even the virgins, leading to unnatural/strange offspring. Within the Miracleman context, Mike, Bates, and Winter count as "cuckoos" because they are the strage offsprig of huma biology and alien technology/engineering.