Saturday, December 20, 2008

Back at last Doom Patrol 14 page 11


I am finally back online. Our hard drive was bad, as it turns out, and no matter how much we waited patiently, cajoled, or administered microsoft meds, the poor beast just couldn't handle the stress of keeping all our information in order. Finally now we have a new hard drive, which seems to be working, though there are a couple of bugs left over from the mess that the last one made.
It's like a child; as a parent you do everything as well as you know how, and still he or she doesn't do as you taught. You just adjust your expectations.
I have been thinking about Seth a lot lately. He knew more about storytelling than meets the eye. He had learned not to do what is obvious or easy, either in his art or in his writing, or, indeed, in his life. He looked to get across his points in such a way that they sink in, in a natural way. I think he wanted the reader to feel the story more than think about it.
The following is from a letter he wrote to an aspiring artist in 2002:

If you want to write about darkness, you will hit the mark most directly by telling a light story and letting the reader find the darkness. You must trick people into understanding themselves. You work is obvious now. It is hoping to channel its message through the outer layer of conciousness, but this is the easyiest layer for the reader to discard too. The most direct method is into the subconcious. this takes practice and and a great amount of trust in yourself and your ablities. It will come but you must think about it.

I think this whole Doom Patrol story is a good example of this. I am going to leave it at that right now, and go to bed, but I will think more about it and write some more soon.

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