Of Comic Books, Writing and a Pack of Cards

Just a quick post 'coz its a busy week for me.

Here's an interesting keynote speech by Michael Chabon for the 2004 Will Eisner Awards wherein he makes some interesting points in trying to get children back into reading comic books again.

However, his general principles, I think, can be applied to good story writing, so I'm posting them here (with some editing):

1) We should tell stories that we would have liked as kids.

2) Let’s tell stories that, over time, build up an intricate, involved, involving mythology that is also accessible, comprehensible, at any point of entry.

3) Let’s cultivate an unflagging readiness as storytellers to retell the same stories with endless embellishment.

4) Let’s blow their little minds... a mind is blown when something you always feared but knew to be impossible turns out to be true; when the world turns out to be far vaster, far more marvelous or malevolent than you ever dreamed; when you get proof that everything is connected to everything else, that everything you know is wrong, that you are both the center of the universe and a tiny speck sailing off its nethermost edge.

Good points, no?

And here's something in the irony/ serendipity department: 52 injured in Montana casino deck collapse.

Get it? 52 cards? 52 people? Plus the collapse of the deck? Anyway...

(All courtesy of the Dave Golbitz blog found in a link from the journal of Neil Gaiman. Especially the irony on the people/ cards thing. Hey, I found it funny in a weird kind of way.)

Wala lang.