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Valley of the Dolls

(10 March 2004...May 2004)
(24 pgs.)

COVER:

with aDmiration for Warhol

The cover is obviously directly based on Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup I (Tomato) 1968

Note that the lettering on Promethea is almost identical to the Campbell's on the can, the red on top and white on the bottom,the ABC logo, the red line and the golden sun symbol all duplicate identical colors and similar images in Warhol's original.
Also note that one of the Painted Doll images has yellow smiley faces behind him and that in the image above Promethea smoke from the guns is similar to the shape of the caduceus snakes.

The numerous Painted Dolls in different colors must be inspired by Warhol's portraits of celebrities such as 16 Jackies
A quote from this site
Andy Warhol first used the silkscreen method of transferring black-and-white photographs to canvas in 1962; his explorations of the famous began in August with his first Marilyn Monroe painting. He quickly moved on to depicting other Hollywood stars, socialites, and himself, transforming his subjects' ordinary features and gestures into aspects of mythical beings through simple outlines, shadings, highlights, and bold color overlays.
Although Warhol's technique eventually removed the artist's brushstroke from the process, the use of large, inexact colored areas and an off-register grid created a painterly image. The grid also recalled the slight variations of frames of a film, a medium Warhol had used since the early 1960s.
In Warhol's portraits, including his self-portraits, he avoided exploring psychological states, emotions, age. He presented himself as myth and shadow, examined but not revealed, showing instead a blank or watchful face hidden in shadows, cropped to odd angles, even in close-up to reveal the pores of his skin.

Identical or near identical imagery that occurs in this issue includes
Page 3 Panel 2: the 3 Painted Dolls
Page 6 Panels 1-3: larger versions of same panel contrasted with Page 7 last 3 panels: smaller versions of same panel
Pages 6-7 Middle panel: Door, table and vase in background
Page 10: Top left hand panel and bottom right hand panel. Almost but not quite the same image as the Painted Doll on the cover (without the guns)
Pages 10 and 11 panel 1: Small section of top part of the 2 Dolls pointing guns at each other duplicated
Pages 14-15 top panels: Adapted Seal of the City of New York repeated 9 times
Page 20 panels 3-4: Duplicated except for color and dialogue.

Note the backgrounds used for the different sections
Painted Doll scenes always have chequerboard pattern
Scenes in Trish's apartment have clear white background
and there are 3 double page spreads on pgs 8-9, 12-13 and 18-19 with identical patterns: 5 horizontal panels on the left and right hand pages and a vertical panel in the middle: Ball visiting Breughel in hospital with city imagery in the middle panel and the Lovers and the Chariot bisecting scenes around Trish's apartment.

TITLE:
Valley of the Dolls is the title of a bestselling Jacqueline Sussan novel which was later made into a film.
Here it refers to all the Painted Dolls who emerge from the valley of New York harbour.

SYNOPSIS:
Multiple Painted Dolls end up killing one another until there are only two left. One is mobbed by fans who want to be killed before the world ends leaving the last one to locate the 4 Swell Guys and kill his creator. FBI agents Ball and Hansard are ordered to terminate Promethea. The group of people gathered in Trish's apartment start to seperate. Stacis is reunited with Grace Brannagh's Promethea and Dennis Drucker with Bill Woollcott's Promethea. Uvula Cascade meets up with Sonny Baskerville and America's Best gather around Jack B. Quick who is putting together a Doomsday Device. The last Painted Doll approaches Trish's apartment building.

QUOTES:
“Now everything is revealed” – Promethea , pg 1
“We’re machines, then? Artificial intelligences?” – a Painted Doll
“Apparently, following some simple program, killing based on utility and novelty, something like that.” – another Painted Doll, pg 3
“Maybe it’s always the End of the World.” – Jack Faust, pg 6
“What’s inside our heads and what’s outside…I think that’s the same place now. Perhaps it always was.” – Jack Faust, pg 7
“Space and time, ourselves, our whole world…These things only ever existed in our perceptions” – Promethea, pg 7
“It’s getting closer, the moment when everybody’s consciousness shifts from the earthly plane to the higher spheres above. We’re nearly there. The big thirty-two. The grand finale. The material world’s end. The opening of the thirty-second path is almost here, Sophie…and we’re all coming along on this one. Every single one of us.” – Jack Faust, pg 7
“Find her. Find her and terminate her, before this spreads.” – Director General, pg. 9
“You know, if I may venture a remark, after killing nearly fifty of myself, killing you doesn’t seem very novel.” – One Painted Doll to another, pg 11
“It’s the Angel of Death!” – a fan of the Painted Doll, pg 11
“Grant us a quick death, before demons and things turn up!” – another fan, pg 11
“Everyone’s coming through, Darling. Absolutely everyone.” – Grace Brannagh’s Promethea, pg 12
“Y’know, this city is going straight to anal. In a handcart.” – Uvula Cascade, pg 15
“Ms Cascade, please the people need reassuring…” – Bodyguard
“No they don’t. It’s too late for that stuff. They need to think about the four way with the neighbours they’ve never dared suggest.” – Uvula Cascade, pg 14
“I’m the squirt who’s alert. I’m the seep that doesn’t sleep.” – Splash Brannigan, pg17
“What is that boy doing? And where did he get all this ghastly machinery?” – Cobweb
“It’s mostly kitchen utensils and simple household ingredients, by cracky! Oh, and some nuclear bombs and smallpox. I call it my ‘Doomsday Device!’”- Jack B. Quick
“B-but weren’t we supposed to be preventing doomsday, you adorable little Dickens?” – Cobweb
“Exactly you poor unscientific fools! That is why I shall wait until my doomsday device has reached critical mass…and then use a big red-painted handle to throw it into reverse! Now, are there any other questions?”- Jack B. Quick, pg 17
“I think we all have to be alone for this. I think the end of the world is personal.” – Promethea, pg 18
“And I’m a magician. I’m supposed to be prepared for this and between you and me, lady, I’m not. Between you and me I’m terrified.” – Jack Faust, pg 19
“Oh come on! What was I going to do? Anyway he was never there for me when I needed advice about girls and baseball.” – Painted Doll, pg 21
“Oh, they said God was dead. All those beatniks and snooty-ass Frenchmen. Not me. I knew better. I said to them ‘Wait, boys!’Don’t break cover yet awhile. He might be faking. I mean they thought Saddam was dead. And the novel. And Glenn Close in that last scene of Fatal Attraction.’ That’s what I said, but did they listen? Ohh no. They went right ahead and organized God’s funeral. Well, don’t count your chickens before they come home to roost. That’s what I always say. And if you want a job done properly Do it yourself.” – Painted Doll, pgs 23-24.

NOTES & ANNOTATIONS:
Around the same time this issue came out Jose Carlo Neves conducted an interview with JH Williams which included some of Alan's script for page 14
There wasn't a lot of discussion about this issue at Barbelith Underground.
A little bit more discussion occured at the Comic Book Resources Forum

Page 1 Panel 2: “You put the wand into the grail”
A search for wand and grail revealed information about Symbols of the Grail Procession in Wagner’s Parzival as well as The Mass of the Grail: A Feast of Eros and Agape featuring our old friend Babalon
Panel 4: Chalice of Weewee (and no I'm not making the name up) informs me that
a gonk is a little plastic efigy that kids stick on the ends of their pencils. I'm sure you've seen them. They had myriad forms.
There is also a Gonk in Star Wars. It's a little droid that is usually seen with the Jawas (those little dwarf things with red eyes). The Gonk droid is basically a box with legs. It looks comical, top-heavy and quite cumbersome.

Pages 6-7: Note how the panels on these two pages mirror one another in reverse. The first 3 panels are the same image getting larger and the last 3 are the same image getting smaller. First and last panel have no dialogue.
Page 6 Panels 1-3: Not sure what those 3 shields(?) and the firelike illustration are supposed to be.
Page 7: Note how Promethea seems to be sparkling very brightly here
Panel 1: What’s inside our heads and what’s outside…I think that’s the same place now. Perhaps it always was."br Note the similarity to Christ preaching in the Aprocryphal Gospel of Thomas 3rd saying
the kingdom [of God] is within you, and it is outside of you. When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will know that you are the sons of the living Father. Panel 5:
Opening of the 32nd path.
The 32nd path is from Yesod to Malkuth on the Tree of Life. Information about the 32nd path can be found in The Holistic Qabalah
Page 9 Panel 2: Condalezza Rice is the National Security Advisor
Donald Rumsfeld is the Secretary of Defense
Pages 12-13 Center Panel: Waves or flames patterns above and below the Lovers same as on The Chariot (Pages 18-19)
The Lovers card looks like it is based on some famous image but I can’t place it. To me the couple looks vaguely Japanese.
Does anyone know who the little hindu figure riding the bird is?
Also note the statue of a cherub at top left, the bees and the flowers and leaves of various colours. The leaves will also occur later on pages 16-17 and 22-24.
Page 13 Panels 3-5: The photo image of Dennis Drucker shooting Bill Woollcott comes from Issue #7 Page 17 Top Panel And was originally done by Jose Villarubia
Pages 14-15 Top Panels:
Sigillum Civitatis Novi Eboraci is the Seal of the City of New York
Adapted from the seal shown below by having a lipstick kiss covering the main image

Panel 1:Note the phallic rocket hood ornament.
Page 14 Panel 2:

Jawgasm IV sounds like a combination of Jaws and Orgasm. There actually was a Jaws IV movie entitled Jaws: The Revenge. It was released in 1987 and as of April 2004 rates #32 in the bottom 100 films of all time at the Internet Movie Database.
Panel 3: Bedad, and you're a fine strapping colleen, now
translates as "By God and you're a fine (robust;tall; strong; lusty; large) Irish girl or maiden
Pages 16-17: Visible are Johnni Future, Jack B. Quick, Greyshirt, Cobwebs' assistant Clarice, Cobweb, Tom Strong, Miss Screensaver and Splash Brannigan
Pages 18-19 Center Panel: Waves or flames patterns above and below the Chariot same as on The Lovers (Pages 12-13)
The chariot show an image from the day John F Kennedy was assasinated in Dallas. His wife Jackie appears in her iconic pink dress but JFK is replaced by a cup or goblet with some liquid spilling out of it.
In one issue of Alan Moore's 1963 Tales of the Uncanny - Double Deal in Dallas Kennedy escapes being assasinated by having a double (the hero Ultimate Special Agent) take his place.
Note that Panels 2 show people who are frightened of the change
Page 18: The Brown family
Page 19: someone who's slashed his wrists in the bathtub
whilst panels 4 show people embracing it
Page 18: Mrs. O'Shea
Page 19: the baby
as well as a frightened cat and a frightened mother.
Panels 1,3 and 5 on both pages show Promethea.
Someone described Promethea as shows on
Page 19 Panel 5: as resembling Whistler's Mother
Page 20 Panel 1: Sign for Los Angeles visible
Pages 22-23: As he leaps through the air the Painted Doll passes over America’s Best, Ms. Cascade and Mr. Baskerville and Agents Ball and Hansard.
Panel 1: The first famous person to declare that God was dead was Friedrich Nietzsche in the prologue to Thus Spake Zarathustra (1891) (the last phrase in section 2) but as the Painted Doll says beatniks and snooty-ass Frenchmen took it up after World War II
Saddam Hussein missing presumed dead for a long time was finally found alive on 13 December 2003
Glenn Close
Fatal Attraction
Panel 3: the proper expression is
Don't count your chickens before they've hatched which means do not expect all plans to be successful, wait until you get the final results.
Chickens coming home to roost means
we cannot escape the consequences of our actions
Both meanings taken from English Idioms Sayings and Slang
Page 24: Note the