Character Design

The digital art I did that inspired the following story

"Which one is next?" says the voice in the darkness.

The man (that's what he thinks he is at least) in the glass, gel-filled tube listens. And somehow, he understands.

"This one, Lord," says the voice's shining assistant. "Subject #419."

The conveyor belt whirs beneath the man in the tube and jolts him sideways. He stops directly in front of the voice, and suddenly becomes acutely aware of his own mortality.

A mechanical arm drops down in front of the man in the tube. It has an orb at the end which emits a beam of red light. The soulless eye peers through the man, seeing his every atom, yet not seeing him at all.

"And what makes this one so special?" the voice in the darkness asks.

"Nothing, father," answers the assistant. "He's utterly unremarkable."

The soulless eye returns to whence it came, leaving the man in the tube alone once more.

"As they all are. It's what makes them perfect for these experiments. They're utterly disposable, but they are always trying to prove otherwise."

The man in the tube feels hopelessness without ever having felt hope. He feels as if he has failed, yet he knows not the terms of victory.

"Shall we subject him to the experiments then?" asks the assistant.

If only the man in the could speak. But he has not learned how. He has not had the joy of hearing language for the first time.

But if he could, this is what he would say right now. This is how he would answer the assistant's question.

"Yes. And though I may never know again the nature of my own existence, I will defy you. I will defy you by being happy in the face of your mad science. I will be nothing but a data point to you, but if I must be that, then I will be an outlier. I will not conform to you natural laws and give you the outcome of being unremarkable and dead that you hypothesize."

That is what he would say if he could speak. But he can't.

"Dump him in simulator ninety-two," says the voice coldly. "Maybe he'll surprise us."

They Have No Answers

Jormungand writhed about the feet of Janus as Quetzalcoatl returned to the shores from which Ra departs each day.

The hero of the story stood before them, in awe.

What answers could they provide?

More important yet, what questions could be asked of them?

He pulled out his eye and cast it into the River Styx.

“Why am I alone?” asked the hero. “What did I do that I deserved to be forsaken?”

“You did nothing at all to deserve it,” answered the snake(s) of Coatlique’s face. “And that is the greatest crime of all.”

The hero watched as the woman had to empty her cup and Loki screamed in pain as the venom struck his eyes. The shriek shook the mountain, causing Sisyphus to drop his crucifix.

“So it’s meaningless then?”

“Everything has meaning,” Izanagi told him. “Which makes meaning fairly meaningless.”

Ishmael and Abel ran past the hero, fleeing Cain and Jacob. Hades cursed Zeus for his trickery.

“I don’t understand.”

“Now you’re getting somewhere,” said Coyote. “The first step is admitting you don’t know you have a problem.”

Hercules got drunk and ran Balder through with mistletoe. The world ended.

“Where do I go now? What can I do?”

“Forward,” Anansi told him, “Something.”

The flood then receded, and Brahma helped Noah unload the animals.

“And what of love?” asked the hero of the story.

“Good question,” the universe told him.

Capes 101: A Case for Superheroes in the Classroom

In Talking With Gods, a documentary about acclaimed comic writer Grant Morrison, Morrison presents his unique perspective on Superman: “…then for me the big thing was discovering superhero comics, because suddenly, there were people who could stop the bomb, Superman could take an atom bomb hit to the chest and just shake it off…[and then I realized] that the bomb, before it was a bomb, was an idea, and suddenly that understanding: Superman was a better idea, so why not make [Superman] real instead of [the bomb]?”