FACETS

“The characters were all parts of me mixed with people I knew : 

• Dane McGowan, the Liverpool street punk destined to be a bodhisattva, was the working-class cynic who still kept me in check. 

• King Mob was the art school fashion-conscious chaos magician. 

• Ragged Robin was my sensible anima; 

• Lord Fanny, my indomitable tranny witch disguise; and 

• Boy, the practical, pragmatic voice of reason that made sure I always paid my bills and taxes and fed the cats. 

Even the villains, blind Gnostic forces of repression, tyranny, and cruelty, were my own self-hate and fear given form, named and tamed like demons. 

King Mob was the action lead. He was shaven headed, my age, and he’d made his money as a writer. As an anarchist activist, he borrowed some of his praxis from my dad. He was a Tantric sex adept, a kung fu master, and wore slick leather coats, PVC pants, and mirror shades. King Mob was the punk James Bond, the archetypal Matrix dude five years before the release of that movie, and like Neo, like Morpheus, he had come to understand that his entire universe was embedded in something bigger and stranger. I intended to blend my life, my appearance, my world with his until I could no longer tell us apart. 

I had NO idea what I was letting myself in for.”

— GM, SuperGods