Cover to Cover

Imagine an incredibly long book, with tons and tons of main characters. The book itself starts as an illustrated children's book, following the lives of several of those main characters as children the same age as the reader, and several adult minor characters. Throughout the book, most of the characters interact with each other, but still live their own lives.
As the narrative goes on, the illustrations drop off and the writing style grows more complex, till it reaches your standard "young adult" fiction level, in which the characters are now in their early teens, and the nature of their lives changes accordingly. Each character has their own perspectives, upbringings, and view of each other character, and these mature and develop with the story.
Later, it transitions slowly to standard fiction, to deal with each of the characters' adult years, though I'm not sure how much longer it would go on from here.
I suppose it would work better practically, but not thematically, if it were a series of books. Quite a long one, with the idea being that a kid would read the series, maybe a book or two a year, for a lot of their life, with the end goal of it being to nurture a love of reading, a sense of empathy, and all that. All in all, the idea seems a little beyond me in scope. Kind of like the work of Henry Darger, but hopefully less crazy.

Feels Super, Man

I'm a big fan of the big blue boy scout, though perhaps not as much or in quite the same way as that last post may have implied. So, I'm glad I set that record (very) straight.

But in any case, Superman's a big inspiration of mine, as incredibly trite and cliche as that may sound. I'd like to pretend I've liked him since I was a boy, but that just isn't so. I never cared for him as a child (I much preferred Batman), and as a teen, I honestly hated him (I still much preferred Batman). He seemed a cliche, representing and fighting for dated concepts, completely over powered and something of a Mary Sue. But then I grew up a little, stopped being so bitter, and actually read some of his comics. Namely Birthright, All Star, Red Son, For the Man Who Has Everything, and so on. I found it to be incredibly powerful stuff.

Here was this larger than life figure, who had the power of a demi-god (or a full-blown god, depending on the writers), and all he wanted to do was to help, more than anything. And he didn't always succeed, but he never let that stop him. And he didn't always know what to do, but he didn't let that stop him either. And he also never asked for anything in return. Hell, on occasion, he'd earn the ire, or even the hatred of the people he saved, but he'd keep at it nonetheless. And this figure has endured 70+ years of popularity, burned into the public consciousness, and all for a very good reason. While alien, he embodies the best elements of humanity, but is not without our struggles and pitfalls.

And how could that not be inspiring? There's so much more, but it's difficult to properly convey. But it was inspiring, and frankly, it made me want to help, too. It's a bit embarrassing to admit, but a big part of why I'm planning to go into the career I want to go into is because of Superman, because I want to lend a hand every day as he does.

I Use the Term "Legendary" Loosely

Some of you may have noticed the humorous, if a little crappy and temporary header I put together using someone else's work. This "someone else" is none other than legendary cartoonist Jack Chick.
This is the part where I'd crack some jokes at the man's expense, but I'm sure you'll be sufficiently amused just reading the article. Or if not, this site more thoroughly roasts him and his works more than I could ever hope to.

The picture in question comes from the "Chick tract" (the term used to describe his hateful little comic pamphlet things) titled "Dark Dungeons", which demonized the players of TSR's world famous tabletop role playing game Dungeons & Dragons. As you can tell from the image, I chose the term "demonized" for a pretty good reason.

My first experience with Jack Chick came as a boy, when at a rest stop in California during a road trip, I was given a Chick tract to read. The tract in question was the widely distributed "THIS WAS YOUR LIFE!", a tale about a man who is a colossal dick in his lifetime and cast into the lake of fire after being judged a sinner and rejecting Jesus Christ as his savior. Pretty straightforward and inoffensive for Jack Chick. As a pretty spiritually confused child, I remember this little comic freaking me out something fierce, though I eventually forgot about the whole thing and moved on.

The whole experience was one of those odd cases where you assume that something that appeared in your childhood belonged only there. I thought the comic was a local thing, not an international phenomenon as I was absolutely shocked to find out later in life.

I'll get around to making a better header one of these days.