or Oh My Sweet, Sweet God
This essay started out as something completely different. Something shorter. It will be a rambling, free wheeling thing and it will stretch for several days worth of writing. With luck, will come together at the end.
I was surfing the web, trying not to think about the novel, about the short story ideas that popped up here and there doing the week, about the essays I want to write for this site, and about how the seconds are crawling across my skin, leading me closer and closer to the grave. Too much, too much, the thoughts clutter around, and, instead of doing something I do NOTHING.
So I'm surfing, thinking of nothing so that I might think of something, when I hit The Shrew Review, a comic book review site. There I find a review of "Fables", which will change how my day tastes.
Now I had heard of "Fables" before, mostly through reviews like the one the Shrew (writer Rose Vess) presents. The milieu it presents (Story book characters living in the modern day) both intrigues me and depresses me. Intrigues because I think its a great concept. Depresses because I wish like hell I thought of it.
However, I have never actually read any of the series. I don't recall ever seeing it in the Borders or Waldenbooks selection of comic books and I haven't visited a House of Long Boxes in a while. Not that that matters, mind you. When I look at comics, I tend to look for the Old Familiar Faces. The Spider-men, the Hulks, and the other Marvels, the Batmen, the Supermen, and the other Distinguished Characters. Occasionally I might look at something else, but it is the exception rather than the rule.
The review is of an abbreviated nature. Vess also writes for
Buzzscope and I, genuinely curious if not invested in the series, followed the link from one site to the next.
Now you might well suspect, with all this blathering on my part and the title of this essay, that the review had something wonderful it. Well, almost.
The review at Buzzscope was located beneath a link to
a five page preview of the comic. As it was a positive review (one in a long line for the series), I clicked up there to see what all the fuss was about. I was greeted with good art (a fair bit of nudity on one page, to warn those who need warning), good writing, and a page which caused the aforementioned taste change.
It comes on the last page, but there are hints of it on the preceding pages, where various characters are preparing for what is to come. The Winter Queen is coming through the city and warm clothes are a must. Her presence takes all trace of summer away, it seems.
The final page show the Queen walking down the street. She has this small smile on her face. Already snow is gathering in her wake. The next panel has her gone. Several inches of snow covers the ground.
Now anyone else might look at that and not have the same experience I had. They might even be able to point to a moment in another Fantasy and say how it was better than this.
And this is all right. This is fine.
But I saw that page, and I wanted to be a writer all over again. I wanted to write something like that scene, have a moment in a novel, in a story, in a movie or play that had that power for someone else. Something that had that sense of wonder and have it be mine all mine.
Inspiration comes. It comes in many shapes, sizes, and colors. But when it comes...
This has led to other thoughts, but I've wasted enough of your day. I'll pick up on this tomorrow, God willing and the creek don't rise.
So I'm surfing, thinking of nothing so that I might think of something, when I hit The Shrew Review, a comic book review site. There I find a review of "Fables", which will change how my day tastes.
Now I had heard of "Fables" before, mostly through reviews like the one the Shrew (writer Rose Vess) presents. The milieu it presents (Story book characters living in the modern day) both intrigues me and depresses me. Intrigues because I think its a great concept. Depresses because I wish like hell I thought of it.
However, I have never actually read any of the series. I don't recall ever seeing it in the Borders or Waldenbooks selection of comic books and I haven't visited a House of Long Boxes in a while. Not that that matters, mind you. When I look at comics, I tend to look for the Old Familiar Faces. The Spider-men, the Hulks, and the other Marvels, the Batmen, the Supermen, and the other Distinguished Characters. Occasionally I might look at something else, but it is the exception rather than the rule.
The review is of an abbreviated nature. Vess also writes for
Buzzscope and I, genuinely curious if not invested in the series, followed the link from one site to the next.
Now you might well suspect, with all this blathering on my part and the title of this essay, that the review had something wonderful it. Well, almost.
The review at Buzzscope was located beneath a link to
a five page preview of the comic. As it was a positive review (one in a long line for the series), I clicked up there to see what all the fuss was about. I was greeted with good art (a fair bit of nudity on one page, to warn those who need warning), good writing, and a page which caused the aforementioned taste change.
It comes on the last page, but there are hints of it on the preceding pages, where various characters are preparing for what is to come. The Winter Queen is coming through the city and warm clothes are a must. Her presence takes all trace of summer away, it seems.
The final page show the Queen walking down the street. She has this small smile on her face. Already snow is gathering in her wake. The next panel has her gone. Several inches of snow covers the ground.
Now anyone else might look at that and not have the same experience I had. They might even be able to point to a moment in another Fantasy and say how it was better than this.
And this is all right. This is fine.
But I saw that page, and I wanted to be a writer all over again. I wanted to write something like that scene, have a moment in a novel, in a story, in a movie or play that had that power for someone else. Something that had that sense of wonder and have it be mine all mine.
Inspiration comes. It comes in many shapes, sizes, and colors. But when it comes...
This has led to other thoughts, but I've wasted enough of your day. I'll pick up on this tomorrow, God willing and the creek don't rise.
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