Alan Moore/Kevin O'Neill: "What Ho, Gods of the Abyss!"

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

My favorite bit from the Black Dossier. Jeeves. Wooster. Cthulhu. Hijinx ensue.

(c)2007 Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neill.

Comments

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

Probably my favourite part of the DOssier (apart from one Gerry Anderson joke), the only problem I had with it was that it wrecked my plans for a fanfic based around the notion of "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen's Gentlemen" composed of the likes of Jeeves, Alfred, Jarvis, Parker from Thunderbirds, Lugg (from Campion) and others!

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

You did notice the bit that should explain a lot of the Chamberlain government.

"Rt. Hon." Bertram Wooster.

Words I imagine would send chills of despair through Britons everywhere.

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

IIRC Bertie was distantly in line for a baroncy anyway, so the House of Lords was more or less inevitable.

I also think that he'd have been quite a decent cove in that situation, he certainly didn't approve of unfairness, and had no time for bullies so would have regarded that nasty Mr Hitler in the same light.

Plus, considering the shower we currently have in post, at least we know Bertie was never particularly dishonest. And with Jeeves at his side, it'll be like "Yes, Minister" with Hacker and a slightly more supportive Sir Humphrey.

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

>>I also think that he'd have been quite a decent cove in that situation, he certainly didn't approve of unfairness, and had no time for bullies so would have regarded that nasty Mr Hitler in the same light.

Unlike, allegedly, Mr. Wodehouse himself...

"I say, Jeeves! This German fellow who wants to be master of the world!"
"Yes, sir. A former corporal, I believe."
"Well! I may be just a little old-fashioned but it seems to me you should at least make lieutenant before being master of the world."
"Indeed, sir. Your biscuits?"

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

No longer a generally held view. Wodehouse is usually credited with being naive and foolish rather than anything approaching fascistic or even just treasonous.

The Nazi's interned him after all, and if one accepts he was conned into making the broadcasts he did for the Germans (as seems likely), then he'd have little love to lose for Herr Hitler. And one note that he added the incredibly Oswald Moseley-esque Roderick Spode (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roderick_Spode) and his Black Shorts to the cast in 1938.

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

Conceded. Especially with a line like this:

The trouble with you, Spode, is that just because you have succeeded in inducing a handful of half-wits to disfigure the London scene by going about in black shorts, you think you're someone. You hear them shouting "Heil, Spode!" and you imagine it is the Voice of the People. That is where you make your bloomer. What the Voice of the People is saying is: "Look at that frightful ass Spode swanking about in footer bags! Did you ever in your puff see such a perfect perisher?"
— P. G. Wodehouse (Bertie Wooster speaking to Spode), in The Code of the Woosters (1938)

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

Although, as I speak American, I guess, I have no idea of the meaning of "puff" or "perisher."

I would add that something about this is reminiscent of this later, though much meaner, speech:

The thing I hate about you, Rountree, is the way you give Coca-Cola to your scum, and your best teddy to Oxfam, and expect us to lick your frigid fingers. For the rest of your frigid life."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If....)

[darklorelei.insanejournal.com]

Hah! Brilliant!

[rab62.insanejournal.com]

"..the only problem I had with it was that it wrecked my plans for a fanfic..."

Really, if Alan Moore let "someone else had this idea before" stop him, we wouldn't have very much Alan Moore, now would we? ;-)

Chronologically, I can't see how that team could work when decades separate Jeeves and Lugg from Pennyworth and Jarvis, and then decades more before we reach Parker's era? (Unless perhaps you used an East End ancestor of Parker...) But I'd like to see it!

Agreed on "What Ho" and the pre-Fireball XL-5 stuff being the best parts of the Dossier.

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

Because my League, like Moores', covers more than one time period. They would always be in the background of Moore's assorted Leagues doing the "tidying up", all the unglamorous bits after the hoo-hah is over, as well as some missions of their own. You think Sir Percy Blakeney did his own laundry? Good Lord, he'd have been known as "The Grubby Pimpernel" if THAT were the case.