I think one of the most humbling aspects of aspiring to create anything is the knowledge that it's not all that unique. I'm a little stucky in a not-to-great place creatively where I read some amazing authors with wonderfully bonkers ideas and instead of being grateful for the experience, I'm instead envious and mad at myself for not participating in the construction of such wonders. These feelings are only magnified when the material in question is perilously close to ideas I've been sitting on forever, but have yet to get over my own bullshit sufficiently to explore.
This weekend I bought a number of delightfully imaginative graphic novels, that more or less read like an organized acid trip and I'm grateful once again for comics as a medium, where borderline hallucinogenic ideas can be explored so shamelessly just for the fun of it. In that lot were Trees by Warren Ellis and Jason Howard, who still delights with the unexpected, the new Prophet reboot by Brandon Graham and Simon Roy, volumes 2-4 of Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples and the Wicked and the Divine by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie.
Trees is about giant alien pillars that crash into the landscape and proceed to ignore us for 10 years, and is a slow burn towards revelation that I couldn't put down. Prophet is a glorious acid trip that really takes off in the closing story, in which Rob Liefeld's silly 90s character is reborn into a long-abandoned earth, seeking to restore the human empire, while navigating alien settlements teeming with death and slime. There's more to it than that, but a large part of the enjoyment of the story is a series of ever-more-interesting twists that lead to promising cliffhanger.
Saga, as most people seem to agree, is wonderful, if crass. A bananas new concept or image every issue or your money back kind of thing. I can't say anything more than a million people haven't said already, but it's worth your time, if you're into weird alien odysseys.
The Wicked and the Divine blew me away, and prompted the need to write about it all. It's the story of the pantheon of gods (a mixture of all regional pantheons apparently) who reincarnate every 90 years, inspire the world with their over-the-top antics for a couple years and then die horribly. The story frames itself around Lucifer, who defies the mysterious rules of the gods by using divine powers to destroy some would-be assassins, and who is later framed for killing the judge at her trial. It's maybe not a story for everyone, but if you like any sort of mythology, it's worth a look.
I got a sick feeling while reading that last though. Not because it isn't good, it is, but because it's so perilously close to a story I've been dragging my feet on where the gods are re-incarnated as children periodically (although the set-up and the overall themes/direction are fairly different). Which is a silly response on a number of levels. It's not like this author is the first to write about gods incarnate. It's not like I can't write my own take on it anyway as long as I'm forthright about the similarities and don't lift anything wholesale and claim it as my own. It's not like I imagine I'll ever actually be the kind of writer that people will pay human dollars to read, so there's really not competition here.
But I'm still getting that, "Oh god, I've procrastinated too long and now the moment has passed me by," kind of feeling, which I get a lot, and I'm maybe getting tired of it. Both in a, "there's no reason not to write my crappy stories" kind of way and in a broader more philosophical, "nobody really owns an idea, man" kind of way.
Which is true right? There's no such thing as "my ideas," there's just ideas I've discovered on my own, or have been expressed to me by other people and I discard them, or incorporate them or champion them to other people as shiny golden wonders. But I certainly don't own them, and I can't take credit for them and I shouldn't feel bad when someone takes an idea I stumbled across roaming free and snaps them onto other ideas they also find pleasing and calls it a story and tries to share it with me, right? I mean, what are we if not idea-processing machines who snap thoughts together like lego into what we consider pleasing shapes and then share with other people? If that's ownership, then it's the kind of ownership strengthened and validated when shared as far and wide as possible I think. Especially since there is no artificial scarcity involved. Ideas are an infinite resource that can be replicated as many times as there are sentient minds to do so.
And we should do that. I should do that. I should make little lego-idea objects to send to you, which you should examine as a whole and then pick apart and reassemble incorporating any lego ideas you've managed to hold on to in your time here. Or not, if that doesn't seem like a good idea to you.
Maybe it doesn't matter who touched an idea first, how long it's taken me to piece mine together, how many people care to receive it, maybe it's just the ideas that are important, and championing the ideas that seem particularly important in the here and now. Maybe I can just get out of my own way for once.
I am not unique. I am not original. I do not create or own ideas, there is no artificial scarcity in idea-space, I am not the first to swim here and I will not be the last. And that's all okay. Because ideas are fun. Creativity is fun. And I only have so much time to play with them. Why waste that gift on petty jealousy over a thing that no one can own?
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