Kirby on Survival

  

“Now, the idea that A Story is a form of Communication — and entertainment — is one of those facts that appears self-evident upon first consideration, but that becomes more mysterious the longer it is pondered. 

If it is True that A Story has A Point, then it is clear that it is pointing TO something.

But What, and How? 

What constitutes pointing is obvious when it is an action specifying a particular thing, or a person by a particular person, but much less obvious when it is something typifying the cumulative behavior, shall we say, of A Character in A Story.

“ There is an old saying: "That which doesn't Kill You, makes You Stronger." I don't believe that. 

I think the things that TRY to Kill You, make you Angry and Sad. 

Strength comes from The Good Things: Your Family, Your Friends, The Satisfaction of Hard Work. 

Those are the things that will keep you Whole. Those are the things to hold onto when You are Broken.

— Jax Teller

"What Happens to People when they are acted-upon by Powerful Ideas from Outside Them?"

AND...

"What Then Happens to Those Powerful Ideas, when They get inside Those People's Heads..?

There are Tigers in The Night.

Creatures bearing great scars inflicted by wrenching confrontations -- lethal rushes on dark, unyielding ground where the body pours all it's strength into fitful instinctive thrusts.

This is The Real Thing! The primal struggle. Throughout history it has cried out for dramatisation on A Cave Wall, The Written Page, or The Panel of a Comic Book.

In my attempt to create a serious novel for our medium, I have chosen that most basic of experiences, one we have all shared at one time or another -- SURVIVAL. I have taken this innate response to danger and have portrayed it in mythological terms.

The concept is simple. Friends and Enemies squaring off in various ways, for various reasons, on some Eternal Battleground where all is won or lost and the debris is cleared away for the next conflict. THEY are Evil, WE are Good. THEY are Plotters and Traitors, WE are Loyal and Clever. THEY are eternally responsible for Our Woes, so WE will someday pull up our guts, stop the shadow-boxing, and go in for The Kill.

Thus I am doing what mankind has always done. I've turned these emotions and reactions into gods, and brought into view the awesome images that haunt our dreams. So it has been throughout the centuries. 

When Zeus' and Hercules' time had passed, Mercury and Mars arrived on the scene. France sent Napoleon's Grande Armée on tour; England subsequently hailed the unshakable heroes of Rudyard Kipling. 

Idols rose and fell all over the world with an odd and fantastic nobility that fairly flipped our history books. 

How we loved them all--our Horatios at the bridge, our Transylvanian Draculas. 

Grandiose figures such as these symbolized The Real Thing. Territories immemorial have been covered with Average Joe types doing what they've always done "in the name of (fill in the name of your choice; all sides have continually offered so many). 

When my turn came at the draft board during World War II, I chose Superman as My Guardian. Tarzan, at that moment, seemed somehow related to my early teens. Superman was the electrifying hero of the day. Who was going to rub out a guy who hid behind such a patriotic and invincible image? There was even talk in the army about General Eisenhower trading pulp magazines for copies of Action Comics. How could I have landed in a better outfit? It eased my trepidations about having my hair parted by a twenty millimeter shell. 

Experiences like these seem to stimulate and guide one's thoughts into avenues where one's humanity must be examined in relation to The Past, Present, and Future. Darkseid, Highfather, and the rest of the cast have always been sincere expressions of my feelings - reactions to all the things I knew were out there in The Night, like the scrabbling of an unseen army of claws, or the beating of wings in nocturnal vigilance over sleepers in repose. 

Today The Real Thing is something we've never known before, a new something not yet devised, shaped, or defined. It is something we must deeply consider, since Darkseid looms ever larger, like a great, monumental cobra moving ceaselessly and vengefully. 

Ever-present, he is thwarted, sometimes outsmarted, but always eager to swallow us en masse and integrate us into his push-button paradise where his every wish is fulfilled. 

For Darkseid is the god of the silo that houses the death-package. He rules the toxic wastelands and merrily increases their rate of expansion. He seeps into our hatreds and prejudices, and nurtures our biases until they become time bombs --primed and ready to activate The Worst in us. 

Darkseid is playing for keeps in a cosmic minefield that's never supposed to blow After all, isn't that where we all are? Isn't that where we live? Aren't we at the apex of the Big Blast? Well, that's the backyard I'm playing in. 

How is it going to turn out? Suffice it to say that like Darkseid, I too play for keeps. You see, I'm walking that same cosmic minefield. What I have in mind for the Hunger Dogs graphic novel will make your blood race. What will they do, these gods whose situations so strangely resemble our own? The bottom line involves choices. 

Neither gods nor humans have ever stood calmly in a minefield forever. 

Good or Evil, they are bound to choose. And when they do, you will see The Truth of all that motivates us. As a thinking being, you have the obligation to choose. If the fate of all mankind were in your hands, what would your decision be? 

As a Writer and An Artist, I've drawn my answer.