Eureka!

I had an epiphany today. I figured out what I want to do. I want to be a comic editor.

One of my morning reads linked to this post over at Kung Fu Monkey. From there, I perused its predecessor. Later on, I found this article elsewhere.

I love comics and graphic novels and, without having to serve as a pivotal basis of original content generation (e.g., the literal art or story), it seems like a comic editor fits an interesting role. Part management, part creator, part overseer.

I also feel like some of the skills I've learned from my past 3 years as a patent agent could come to bear. Often times I need to coordinate with inventors in order to discuss their thoughts on my interpretation of their work. There's quite a bit of organization and juggling required, not to mention deadlines and the like. Plus a fair amount of writing, editing and reviewing. I'm not sure yet what the pitch will sound like but I think I could make it work.

It intrigues me. I'll have to look into it more, learn what I can, see what I see. For the moment, it's an idea, a possible direction, something to explore. So we shall see.

Stories

Stories bring things to life. My favorite purchases, my favorite pictures, my favorite memories - all are intertwined with a story.

I went to NY Comic Con yesterday with a friend/co-worker. I purchased quite a few things including: an original sketch by Ben Templesmith (sketch is of Medusa from Wormwood and, I believe, was a random sketch not used for anything in particular), also some signed comics from Mr. Templesmith (he drew a heart on each cover - kind of neat to see a little personalization with the signature), a limited edition signed print from Greg Horn (it's the '09 NY Comic Con Lithograph of Phoenix, limited to 100 pcs), and a limited edition set of Dawn prints by Joseph Michael Linsner (Dawn and the seven deadly sins, celebrating 20 years of Dawn, limited to 2000 sets, Linsner signed each of the eights prints for me).

I love the art that I bought, truly, but I was also purchasing stories. This is art that, in an ideal world, will eventually be framed and hanging on my walls. And each of these pieces will have a little story to go with it about how I met the artist. Oh the stories aren't very moving or even interesting, but I met them. I saw them sign them. I was there. And these are the evidence, the centerpieces.

It's a concept Hugh MacLeod is fond of espousing - marketing as story-telling. If you make your product the centerpiece of an experience, something upon which the purchaser can build a story and relation, then you have achieved good marketing and you should prosper. Sell the story and the rest will follow.

Or something like that. (I am hardly a marketing guru like Hugh or Seth Godin. I just admire them from afar.) But I know of the concept, I recognize it as valid, and I believe in its power. I know it to be true. And so it is for these purchases.

Twenty or thirty years from now, when I am far removed from this place and time, there is an excellent chance that I will have that original Templesmith sketch on the wall and I will look at it with fondness. Someone standing next to me may turn and ask what it is. And I, in turn, will briefly relate how I met the artist at a comic convention in NYC oh so many moons ago and how pleasant he seemed to be. He's from Australia and he draws incredibly weird things. Tentacles and worms and mad hatters and vampires and, as the picture shows, a stripper named Medusa who guards a rift/portal/thing using tattoo snakes that she controls. Templesmith.

Logic & Illogic

So much of my life is ruled by logic. Income and expenses. The clock. A+B=C. Most events are assumed to prescribe by this ill-conceived notion of cause-effect, sequence and consequence, before and after. It is when events fail to abide by these concepts that we decry the lack of logic.

I like to think that I inject a certain amount of illogic into my life and the lives of those around me. While I generally subscribe to logical notions like cause-effect, I also believe in chaos and its unceasing swirl of illogic. Sometimes there is no explanation, no reason, no rationale for rational explanation. Sometimes there just is.

I am often prone to irony if not sarcasm. What better way is there to mock logic? If the fated, logical answer is A, what more can one do than pointedly, and sarcastically, announce not-A? It is with this attitude that I often approach things. If something is clearly difficult or onerous, you are wont to hear me quip: "I'm sure that will be fun." If there is a best move or answer and I think it obvious, I will likely advocate another, incorrect option.

Sarcasm is proverbially said to be the lowest form of wit. I disagree. While perhaps not the highest (said tier being reserved for knock-knock jokes involving fruit), sarcasm certainly can be wielded as an art form whose usage decries even its own existence with a singular retort.

But I digress. I am a slave and a supplicant to the logical fallacies of this world, and yet I bask in the chaos and illogic that infuses us all. For example, I absolutely adore the underpinnings of chaos theory, wherein a deterministic system devolves into chaos.

I swear this post had more cohesion before I was waylaid by contemplations of the meaning of sarcasm and irony. And now? Now it is a half-formed jumble of incoherency. I would attempt to revive its direction only now my head is directionless and I am clueless. (Tends to happen as the day goes on.) Notwithstanding this failure, it is posted in the vain hope that there yet remains some hint of truth amidst the chaos.

Perhaps that is the tale -- amidst the chaos there may yet remain a nugget of truth and definition and order. Or perhaps the world is lost at a sea of chaos, much as this post is lost to inane ramblings and half-formed conceptions. Does the indeterminacy of it yet drive like a needle through your mind?