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Slump Day
It was one of those rare days when my wife and I had nothing better to do than sleep until we’d slept. Glorious. Absolutely glorious.
Was Busy Before
The first part of the week was sort of busy. I updated my Pioneer Skill Set guidebook to include some more information about survival shelter considerations. I had some important tweaks to include in the guidebook and in the related email sequence.
I have some other related projects to complete this week, but not today. Hump day is my slump day.
My Bed Is Warm. My Pillow’s Deep.
Yes, I really mean it! I’m not going to get up today!
Art As A Transformational Medium
Art, freedom and creativity will change society faster than politics. ~Victor Pinchuk
One of the things that attract me to the superhero genre is the role that comics have played in shaping society and its perception of itself.
“What If” is one of the most inviting and challenging springboards in artistic endeavor. Will you go fully into the realms of fantasy or will you take mundane reality and give it a little nudge?
Comics, in particular, started off with the mundane considerations of modern society and how it would be impacted by vigilantes with powers or even just skills beyond the ken of normal men.
What if a personal tragedy so transformed an individual that they would go to extraordinary lengths to fight crime on their own? This is a question that has been answered by novelists and cinematographers for years. Cowboy gunslingers cleaning up dusty western towns. Tough loners taking on local ruffians. Aggrieved victims taking on the mob. Private detectives getting in over their heads on what seemed like a cut and dried case. This is the stuff that action cinema thrives on.
Now, add a little panache and you’re creeping into comics territory. Take that detective and give him a schtick. Bat costume? Bow and arrow? A big skull on his chest and a whole lot of ammo? Now you’re in the superhero genre. Now you’re into a whole new category of tropes.
Is the hero bulletproof? Can he toss cars like nerf balls? Does he have a secret identity to protect loved ones? Does he have a weakness to some exotic element or a particular school of magic? Is he legally deputized to assist the police or does he operate in spite of them?
The choices you make in superhero tropes say a lot about how you want to reshape the world.
In my world, one of the main characters isn’t a superhero at all. He’s the guy who wants to help superheroes be a beacon of hope for the world at large. His vision for the future steers the world away from the mess that you and I know as everyday life and creates an entirely different mess in its place. We’ll see how it all turns out once my characters start playing ball and letting me get on with the story.
As humps go, this week’s is necessarily anticlimactic. I got some stuff done on Monday and Tuesday. I ran a bunch of errands, too. I have things to accomplish the rest of the week, but not today. Today’s my day for woozy-snoozy, zizz, zizz, zizz, zazz, zuzz!