#made a rough draft for 2 of the sub-subjects (including statement!) so this means I have only 1 sub-subject for which I need to find a

[apricotluvr]

Update on my essay so far!

[phoenixrisesoncemore]

It’s true, I personally think the universe is really amazing yet also really stupid, but maybe it’s because I think of it as another rough in-process draft of an indefinite number, to use your metaphor. But anyway if going by the premise + logic of what you say at the end of your post, how would one theoretically know that this universe isn’t the result of someone else remaking a former, even shittier/less amazing universe into something less shitty/even more amazing.

Hi, Anon. Sorry this took me a bit. I think that’s a great question (like, I can’t quite express how great because it gets too close to some other writing I am doing for me to talk about it too much right now, but it’s a *really* great question)!

[Note this is in response to this post.]

In the real world, I’m not sure there’s anyway we *could* know if we are living in one of a series of universes and most especially whether the cause of the “Genesis” of any of said universes was the result of the action of a conscious being working to “improve” on its predecessor, but it’s fascinating to consider! It’s really a *series* of great questions:

Are we in one of a linear series of universes?

Can we know if and how the previous universe in the series differed from ours?

Can we know if our current universe was engineered by a consciousness in the previous universe in response to fundamental conditions in the previous universe?

Is the current universe in some way ethically superior to the previous one and how would we measure that?

According to Cosmology

If we take out the metaphysical/theological/moral aspect as well as the “intention of a conscious instigator” aspect (that is, stick to question 1) it’s basically cosmology’s “Big Bounce” hypothesis (Einstein’s cyclic model, for example) where the universe doesn’t begin or end, but simply collapses and then re-expands in a cycle forever—Crunch, Bang, Crunch, Bang, etc. Something I’ve wondered for a while: if this is true, could there be any evidence available to us that past cycles existed and, if so, what they were like? I don’t know what such evidence would be (not that I’m, like, an expert :D), but that’s just a small part of the question you’re asking.

I don’t remember if the underlying “laws” of the universe were conceived as capable of changing between cycles in this conception—is gravity still the same, is there still electromagnetism, is there still entropy?(1) If we want to do more than limit this question to the material/mechanical “is it possible?” by looking at the moral implications(2) then we’d need for some of the underlying laws to be able to change.

There is an alternative to the Big Bounce: each universe (a) may create new universes (b, c, d, ...) through some action(s) either within the universe (a) or outside of all universes. White holes are an example of the former: new, separate universes beginning from singularities inside white holes in our universe. Brane Theory postulates that this happens when meta structures outside the universe called “branes” bump into each other; this would be an example of the latter. And I’ve seen versions of hypotheses for both that suggest the fundamental laws of nature need not be the same among the universe (a) and the universes (b, c, d, ... ). But as far as I know (and that’s not necessarily saying a lot :) ), no one has found a way to make these hypotheses falsifiable.

Still none of that addresses the conscious intent question, to say nothing of the last question; the last is, of course, quite subjective.

According to Religion

I’m not very familiar with religious/philosophical(3) conceptions of Creation as cyclical, though I know they exist in Buddhist and Hindu models as well as in the ancient Mayan religion. I’m afraid I don’t know which, if any, view this process as one with a goal or direction. Is growth and improvement of the universe and its mechanisms from cycle to cycle important in the same way as it can be said to be important for living creatures within it in these models? Furthermore, do any suggest that any such improvement is, was, should be, or will be the result of conscious, intentional actions? Can anyone help me out on this one?

It’s a fascinating prospect though. I’d even say it’s a hopeful prospect (and maybe, just maybe, not entirely out of line within the context of Tolkien—see below)!

[Forgive me if I get a bit over-explicatory and didactic here—it helps me to write all this out, even if it might be common knowledge to readers, particularly in the Silm fandom.]

For the purpose of my previous post, I’m speaking (somewhat obtusely) about Tolkien’s cosmological/metaphysical belief system which, at least by the time of the writing of the contents of the published Silmarillion, is somewhat in line with his underlying Catholic faith. The issue at hand, of course—and the issue that Tolkien was trying to “solve” (or at least consider)—was The Problem of Evil.

How does someone working from a Christian perspective square the fact that the world is filled with horrific pain and suffering with belief in the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God? David Hume in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion expressed the problem thusly: "Is he [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?"(4)

One such answer to this question includes an appeal to Free Will—after all, if people are to be allowed Free Will, then they must be allowed to use that will to commit evil, even if an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God would prefer they did not, since that is the definition of Free Will. And this may be convincing for some—or even for me on good days so far as it goes—but it does not address the fact that the natural world, up to and including processes that are several steps removed from consciousness/will (or even life!), generates the conditions for suffering. Free Will may explain why God tolerates things as unconscionable as genocide, but it does not explain why most of Nature consists of suffering as an integral part of its mechanism: we can see the fear in the prey animal’s eyes when it hears the twig snap, but the predator has to eat, too. Suffering is required for the system to run. The story of The Fall as told in Genesis may explain why such suffering happens to human beings, but it does not explain why it happens to everything else, why The Whole Damn Thing Is Fallen.

Enter Melkor stage left.

Tolkien’s Felix Culpa

There’s a quote in one of Tolkien’s letters where he addresses The Problem of Evil almost directly. Tolkien is writing to his son, Christopher, during his RAF training during WWII. Christopher was the child closest in mind to Tolkien, himself, and I am sure his proximity to danger at this time was especially hard for Tolkien on a number of levels. In Letter #66 Tolkien writes the following:

“I think also that you are suffering from suppressed ‘writing’. That may be my fault. You have had rather too much of me and my peculiar mode of thought and reaction. And as we are so akin it has proved rather powerful. Possibly inhibited you. I think if you could begin to write, and find your own mode, or even (for a start) imitate mine, you would find it a great relief. I sense amongst all your pains (some merely physical) the desire to express your feeling about good, evil, fair, foul in some way: to rationalize it, and prevent it just festering. In my case it generated Morgoth and the History of the Gnomes(5).” —Letter #66, to Christopher Tolkien, 6 May, 1944

The cosmology and theodicy of Tolkien’s Secondary World (Middle-earth, Arda, Ea) is laid out in the first chapter of The Silmarillion (Ainulindale, aka “The Music of the Ainur”) and represents an attempt to “make sense” of a world that could generate the kind of evil he had experienced in his life. If I may postulate: the death, during his childhood, of first his father and then mother; what he perceived as his mother’s martyrdom for her Catholic faith; and the endless mechanized, brutal, and senseless horror of WWI.

The answer to this for Tolkien was Melkor/Morgoth, his own resident Satan. But unlike Christianity’s Satan, Morgoth/Melkor had both sub-creative capabilities(6) and was responsible for some aspect of the “Design” of the universe through his Marring of the Music.

In my post the “drafts” are the Two Themes that were sung before the Third Theme (most importantly The First Theme—the Perfect World). The Third Theme is the Theme that finalized the means by which Melkor’s Marring would be integrated into Eru’s greater purpose in such a way as to generate Good that is far greater than what could exist in The Perfect World. It is the Theme that describes our Fallen World.

As The Fall of Man is envisioned as a “Happy Fault” (Felix Culpa), a sinful act that nevertheless allowed the far better redemption of Man through Christ to happen, so too is Melkor’s Marring of the Music envisioned as the means by which greater things than could have been otherwise will arise in the world.

The Problem of Evil as it extends to suffering “baked in” to the system is thus “solved” by placing a conscious agent, allowed Free Will, between God and material reality, with sufficient privileges to affect the design of the universe (Laws of Nature) and sufficient power to enact those designs, however evil, in matter, itself. While that latter part is not unique to Tolkien (hello demonology), the former is not something I have really encountered in quite that form anywhere else.

Now, getting back to your question and tying it to Tolkien :).

At first glance it might appear that any kind of cyclic model of the universe, with the actions of finite, fallen, non-divine beings working to “improve” on the designs of their divine predecessors, would be antithetical to Tolkien’s increasingly Catholic metaphysic. And yet...

Pair up some statements he made regarding both the Primary and Secondary Worlds with the events of the short story Leaf by Niggle and things look rather different. Tolkien said in a few places that he hoped that the ultimate fate of humans, as fundamentally sub-creative beings, would be to have God grant reality to their ideas, in the same way Eru grants material being (reality) to the vision created by the Music of the Ainur. This is essentially what Niggle receives when he reaches the upper layers of “purgatory”: his Tree made REAL (“Ea! Let these things Be!”). Not only that, his experience of it and its reality is intimately tied to his neighbor, Parish, the man who in life was always getting in the way of Niggle finishing his Tree painting. And this is a supremely important point for Tolkien and its the point that Melkor rebels against: sharing in the work of creation. Melkor cannot abide it, to the point that he would rather make all of creation not exist if it can’t consist only of his own mind.

Indeed, even in the context of his Secondary World there are hints that after the end of the Universe, Men will Sing a new Music, supplying their own ideas for the Design of new Eas. What would these human ideas be, and might they include universes even better than Ea, Men having lived in it and having not originated outside it and having been granted a capacity for working outside The Music unlike any other beings in Ea?

Well...one does wonder....

Notes

I seem to remember that the Second Law of Thermodynamics is one of the reasons this hypothesis fell out of favor back in the late 20th century

And unless I can lay my ethical issues with Nature purely at the feet of the happenstance of evolution on our particular planet (maybe on other planets life evolves in such a way that suffering does not exist but all the good stuff does?).

There’s also Nietzsche’s question of Eternal Return (among other philosophical equivalents). However, I don’t think that required distinct universes, but rather merely infinite time in which matter might, by sheer probability, return to a copy of its previous arrangement.

I posted a quote from Candide not long ago. In Candide, Voltaire was directly mocking Gottfried Leibniz’s take on this issue—that our reality must represent The Best of all Possible Worlds because it is the reality that God chose to create. OK, sure, Gottfried.

“History of the Gnomes” refers to the tales of the Noldor (then called “Gnomes”) and the Silmarils that make up the bulk of The Silmarillion.

It wouldn’t, I think, be out of the question to view much of Tolkien’s divine cosmology as rather Gnostic in flavor: a supreme One delegates creative powers to subordinate divinities who enter into the world, much as some Gnostic thought perceived the demiurgic Yahweh as doing, against the will of the higher God. The (very important) differences being that the Ainur’s powers (at least by the time of the writing of the contents of the published Silmarillion) were only *sub-creative* (they could not create matter or material existence ex nihilo), that material existence is conceived of as fundamentally good (divine sparks/souls are not “trapped” in matter), and that the demiurgic entities are not themselves responsible for creating humans (who are positioned as their peers).

[jonathandavidlange]

Comic Theory Pt. 2

Just Because We Can Doesn't Mean We Should.

Three Panel Technique

On my third book, GRAVES, I employed a technique of almost always using three panels for each page. After my second book, I wanted a format that would bring to the comic medium a space that the characters could inhabit, along with an emotional continuity that comics rarely possess. After doing some experiments, I landed on a three-panel technique. While writing the rough draft and storyboards for GRAVES, I happened to read Osamu Tezuka's Lost World and The Mysterious Underground Men. Both books were written in the late 40s and utilized a three-panel technique on each page. This gave me the confidence to make all of GRAVES a three-panelled comic, and I had such a good experience making the comic that I've continued to utilize these techniques for the stories I have written since.

In working with the three-panel system, I have wondered if I am truly utilizing the comic medium to its fullest capability. My goal is to stabilize the perspective and approach to comic storytelling so that techniques used in film can be utilized in the comic medium. Frank Miller said that he went into comics to make them more cinematic, and that he stays in the industry to make them less so. With the production of his Sin City as a film, it is clear that any comic style can be translated to cinematic language, making Miller's statement a moot point.

So why use the three-panel method utilizing fewer comic techniques (less panels, less word balloons, less sound effects, duller colors, etc...) to make the comic language more like film? Because I believe the mediums are very related and share a lot of the same principles. They share visual narrative principles and techniques like being a visual medium, the use of cuts or edits (shown by panels and page turns in comics), and the use of texture and tertiary story devices (such as sound effects, set design, and sound design).

Emotional Integrity

Film consistently achieves a level of depth and drama that is very rare in comics. Every year there are multiple films that move me deeply and push the medium forward in daring and personal ways. In an average year there is rarely even one comic that moves me as much as five movies that have come out that year. From self-produced to indie to Marvel and DC--every year I am hard-pressed to find a comic that resonates with me to the same extent as current films. (Some examples of what came out the year I wrote this, 2016: Captain Fantastic, Moonlight, Manchester By The Sea, Neon Demon, Nocturnal Animals, and Arrival to name just a few.)

Imagine a year in comics where there were several comics that achieved a level of specific and personal emotion like the film Moonlight, written and directed by Barry Jenkins. In this film we follow one man, Chiron, who is played by three different actors. We see him grow up and encounter all of the complexities of living in Miami. We also see him struggle with his mother as a drug addict and try to navigate life with his father figure who is a gentle and loving drug dealer. What could easily become a niche art-house film is instead universal because of its approach to heartache, identity, and family. It is constructed in the most professional and wonderful way. Everything converges to make one fantastic story that washes over you, and I would dare anyone to not be shaken emotionally by it.

Some examples of earnest, raw, and nuanced intelligent emotion in comics includes contemporary comic artists Aidan Koch and Austin English as they achieve an abstract, emotionally-rich level of storytelling. In the graphic novel by Sam Alden It Never Happened again: Two Stories (2014), it is raw and powerful, yet refined and subtle. The emotional intensity and keen observation of human interaction and existence is profound and completely on par with the most understated and nuanced of films and novels. There are indie masters like Terry Moore and Alan Moore who consistently have vivid characters and build rich worlds. Masters of the past like Osamu Tezuka and Harvey Pekar continually tapped into genuine human emotion and shared insight into the human condition. Recent superhero stories by Geoff Johns, Justice League (2012), and Scott Snyder, Batman (2012), often capture the fun and energy one had when reading superhero stories as a child. They both add layers of humanity to superhero stories that are often stock and cold when written by others.

People may argue that graphic novels, specifically biographical stories, do achieve the same level of emotion that a work like Moonlight achieves. I cannot deny subjective emotion that wells up in a reader. But I can argue technique and structure. Using the example of body-horror stories, stories that focus on the fragility and decay of the human body, the structure and depth of character in a graphic novel like Charles Burns’ Black Hole (2005) cannot compare to a film like Andrej Zulawski's Possession (1981).

Before I jump in, it needs to be said that people may also argue that even comparing stories within the same sub-genre is like comparing apples to oranges. But I disagree. I believe Dracula (1931) can be compared to The Shining (1980). Two films within the horror genre (not of the same sub-genre), but with very disparate stories. Even still, the central focus of blood, family, and control of one's mind could easily spark thoughts of comparison and contrast.

Black Hole's structure jumps around, and we never focus on one specific personal conflict or really get to know even one character very thoroughly. We get more of a wide vantage point in the story. Everything is skin deep. Whereas Zulawski's Possession structure focuses on a family and places them in a familiar and terrifying backdrop: West Germany with the wall as a large and looming presence, almost a character in and of itself. Possession gets under your skin, you become part of it's mania. Black Hole appears to be more interested in a scattershot of characters and experiences. Burns’ story takes the analogy that body-horror innately brings with it and uses it to focus on a coming-of-age story in high school. This is an obvious metaphor that does not have much depth to mine. The depth of one character’s disease is never felt because it is never directly penetrated to the “basement floor” of a character, and, because of this, I found Burns’ story forgettable. Zulawski’s Possession, on the other hand, starts in the middle of a story we know nothing about. Everyone is acting strange and the locations they inhabit are equally bizarre as well as bare. As we get into the film, the reason for the strangeness becomes deeper and deeper, more personal, and alienating. By the end of the film, our head is spinning with what is real and what is fake: both in what we are seeing, but also in a relational context. The film is about alienation of the self, of the other--family, friends, and everyone else, of a career, and of the state. It is an incredibly complicated, nuanced, and personal film. It’s effect stays with you and every time you revisit another layer is revealed.

Structure

The reason that I use a three-panel, per page technique is because I feel one of the primary things missing from comics is a structure in which to set the narrative so other aspects of storytelling can shine and provide layers to the plot and characters within. An example of some very rare techniques to find in a comic that are commonly utilized in film are consistent frame composition, understandable perspective of a location as well as knowing where a character is within it, a steady and consistent flow from panel-to-panel--that does not exclusively utilize close-ups with bare backgrounds--like smooth and seamless editing does in a great film.

Something nearly all comics have in them consistently is a plethora of random panels. Randomly placed, randomly sized, and often framed very close or showing little detail beyond the character at the focal point. Comics can be hard to read for the uninitiated and feel like the story is being told in a randomly presented and ordered way. From superhero to indie, this is just how comics are made. Good questions to ask a writer or artist of a comic (or to think about while reading any comic) is why is that panel placed right there? Why is it that size? Why is it that shape? Why is it focusing on that character or action and nothing else? What else is happening in the environment around the character I am looking at, and why can’t I see it? Search Youtube for a video essay on any famous director, and you will find a plethora of video essays describing why Stanley Kubrick, Wes Anderson, John Carpenter, or Chantal Akerman--to name a very few--shot and edited the way they did. I dare anyone to find a video essay on the structure of a very famous book like Alan Moore's From Hell (1999). (As of the writing of this I found several surface level reviews of From Hell, but not a substantial essay. For comparison there are at least five essay/theory videos on the first page of Youtube for John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982).)

Why is a plethora of seemingly random sized panels a poor layout strategy for a comic? It’s not. There are a multitude of comics that use this format to an amazing affect. But unless you are Osamu Tezuka, Dave Sim, Gabrielle Bell, Terry Moore, or Dash Shaw, odds are your comic will be cluttered, confusing, bloated, and underutilized.

Comics Vs. Novel Vs. Film

When read, a comic book is spread out over two full pages at once. This lets the reader subconsciously see both of the pages at once and in part. The reader can see what is coming, but having not yet read the two pages, there is no context for the information they have. This is an enormous advantage over film. Cinema is ruled by time and must share its information clearly, consistently, and adequately. If the information in the film is not delivered in this fashion, the story will come across too fast, too slow, too jumbled, or too confusing. A film tries its hardest to keep you under its spell, and when a component is off, at any time, you will be thrust out of the film.

Prose is hindered because it lives inside the reader’s head, and it’s easy for an author to digress down countless rabbit holes often muddying up a plot with too many details and too much information. A film is hindered because it has such a brief time to tell it’s story it must often rush through the details, leaving out many sequences from which the novel was derived. Comics have the opportunity to use techniques from both mediums, and use them better. The comic book can utilize the freedom and tools found in both novels and film. It can use prose to describe just as easily as it can use an image to tell the same story. It can use whatever it needs to to make the story clearer, more emotionally resonant, and intellectually stimulating.

A novel works very hard at communicating what an image can say instantly. A novel is not bound by time or physical space to work within, like a film. And unlike a comic it can and must describe, in subjective prosaic detail, what the author sees and intends for the reader to see. A novel is a unique and subjective experience because the format and structure of a novel can be radically different from author to author. A film has a given structure at which every filmmaker must work under. A novel has proven writing strategies and guidelines, but given that, Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow (1973) is a radically different experience compared to reading C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia (1950). Watching Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is narratively very different than but structurally very similar to Pete Docter’s Monsters, Inc (2001). The difference between authors can be like the difference between a grand feature film William Wyler’s Ben Hur (1959) and a home-made five-minute-long Youtube video. Sure, they are both made by using a video camera, but beside that they couldn’t be more different.

Time

More than film, comics share a close relationship with television. Shows are often released a week at a time using individual episodes to sculpt the narrative arc of a season to tell one long story. This is very similar to what comics do, but instead they come out monthly, with less time to tell their story, as the average comic is roughly thirty pages--the average drama TV show is 45-60 minutes. In this way it could be said filmed narrative is more efficient than comics. But if you read a story by a master comic maker like Osamu Tezuka, every panel will give you so much uncluttered information, that the story doesn’t feel rushed or incomplete.

Another advantage the average TV drama has over monthly comics is that they are made and released in seasons. They are given a break to re-adjust, get some distance from, and fine-tune the following continuation of the narrative. Comics are typically unending monthly narratives. They are often made as quickly as possible, with little time to flesh out and iron out narrative and artistic wrinkles. If comics were released as seasons, with a proper amount of time to give space and breathe to the creative process, the average quality and it’s given control of a book would increase. Imagine a show like Breaking Bad (2008) never having any break between seasons. The writers, directors, and actors would become so exhausted and burned out. It would be easy to assume they would start viewing the process of the making of the show as a hill to climb and complete, instead of a journey to explore and spend time with. Comics rarely have this luxury.

No Right Way

Obviously, there are no “right” ways to make a comic, just like there is no “right” way to make a film, TV show, or write a novel. But over the decades of each of these mediums’, their evolution has increased and allowed for radically diverse approaches of creation. Comparing the short films of the Brothers Quay to a director like Stanley Kubrick is amazing in the radical spread of approach, sensibility, and sheer variety of perspective. Comparing a superhero story from the 30s to that of one of present day, or even comparing a contemporary superhero comic to the average contemporary indie comic, one will not find much difference in narrative content, structure, or approach to art.

I believe the three-panel technique is a way to address this common lack of growth in emotional richness and depth as well as structural complexity and integrity. By unifying the approach to panels, by focusing on perspective, and by providing a space for unique and specific location design the average comic reader will not be concerned with trying to keep up with a comic and what is going on in it. The reader will instead be enveloped by the story and art and get lost just like one does with a good novel or good filmed piece of art.

Final Thought

A final note on a unique aspect of comics is its two-fold use of image as a lexicon and comics as writing. Every day we see so many images and signs that we don’t even notice the majority of them any more. All it takes is the octagonal shape and red color, and we know we are to stop our car. All we need is a triangle on a remote, and we know that means “play,” just as a square means “stop.” We see stripes and patches of color, and we know it’s a country’s flag. These make up a lexicon of images that mean and communicate concrete thoughts and ideas--as in reading the combined image of letters spelling out “S-T-O-P” in sequence, we know exactly what to do.

In much the same way, comics are a powerful medium that often utilizes narrative and visual information, and all within a glance. See a costumed character flying with a fist outstretched, and we know this is a hero. If we see a figure with their head tilted down, eyes looking straight ahead while smiling, we know this is the villain. Film cannibalizes itself, referencing shots from films of the past, providing more layers and context to both shots. Film can’t take something like a simple shape, like a character’s body, or color in a rapid glance and tie it to a narrative that has complexity and purpose in the same way that a comic can. Film will always be locked into figures, stances, photographic composition, mise en scene, and editorial motion. Comics can and do deal with a wealth of symbols and images that are varied and unlimited. These symbols and images can be used in a narrative with an added layer of depth because of the use of image as lexicon.

When writing, like when playing an instrument, inspiration can strike, causing a speed and emotion to be felt, portrayed, and converted into art. Jack Kerouac’s prose, Thelonious Monk’s arpeggios, Allen Ginsberg’s poems, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s paintings--comics can achieve this level of spontaneity and locked-in emotion. Treating comics less like a piece of marble or a wooden chair and more like the sketch of a landscape or the initial draft of a song would be a healthy step in the right direction.

Comics can achieve something as close to the heart, as common, and as intimate as writing. Utilizing a lexicon of images to provide narrative information and context, comics can be written--not just drawn. The images themselves can be the words, and they can be written passionately, powerfully, and personally. They can be grand and heroic. They can be small and proletariat. They can be short, simple, and minimal. They can be complex, difficult, and long. Comics are amazing because they define what they are. They are cinematic. They are literate. They are visual. They are narrative. They are art. They are ours.