We’re having a busy week, and the temptation is to let the comic slack because it’s so easy to put on the back burner. Everything else is a necessity, but just telling a story never feels like the biggest emergency in the room.
While Nnewts is destined for a hiatus at some point, it’s still a ways off. The Tyranny of the Urgent is what we occupy most of our lives with. Those are the tasks that have to be done right now: get milk, get eggs, write this phone number down so I don’t forget, pick up that dustball I’ve been staring at for 3 days… we occupy our day with urgencies and almost nothing we do will be remembered 100 years from now.
What will last, in general, are the things that lack urgency. “I’ll start a family some day.” or “I’ll get around to my Great American Novel at some point.” I’m relieved that The Beatles didn’t have Facebook or we probably wouldn’t have had Let It Be.
I put a lot of importance into telling stories. They aren’t as ultimate as having a family, or perhaps even having a job, but they rank pretty high up there with the kinds of extra curricular activities worth sacrificing for. Making beautiful music is worth it. Tending a garden is worth it. Are webcomics? Could be.
Did she miss stabbing him or is she attempting to cut off his/its leg? The cues near the knife and her hands suggest the latter, but her apparent forward momentum would have me guess it’s the former.
“The Tyranny of the Urgent” is a great phrase! I’ll be using that. I completely agree that the mundane and often completely inconsequential “fires” in our life seem to overpower the really important things. As I had to remind my self when my little girl came into my office this morning (which should have been treated as a welcome interruption) and asked to sit on my lap while I was finishing up my sketch.
This keeps making me want to cry…
The tyranny of the urgent dictates that I read and comment on this, because I just got a tweet about it. Now I shall go back to the important….
Ps. I have a bad feeling about Mommy Newt.
Pss. OH!!! Wait a minute! Daddy dies of Weretoad bite! Mommy dies at the hand of the invaders! Herk grows up to be troubled Nnewt with a great destiny….
Psss. That’s… sad. Ok, now going back to responsibilities.
…you ARE gonna make us cry, aren’t you?
One of the great sequences in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is the exchange between Frodo and Sam in Mordor:
‘I wonder if we shall ever be put into songs or tales. We’re in one, or course; but I mean: put into words, you know, told by the fireside, or read out of a great big book with red and black letters, years and years afterwards. And people will say: “Let’s hear about Frodo and the Ring!” And they’ll say: “Yes, that’s one of my favourite stories. Frodo was very brave. wasn’t he, dad?” “Yes, my boy, the famousest of the hobbits, and that’s saying a lot.”‘
‘To hear you somehow makes me as merry as if the story was already written. But you’ve left out one of the chief characters: Samwise the stouthearted. “I want to hear more about Sam, dad. Why didn’t they put in more of his talk, dad? That’s what I like, it makes me laugh. And Frodo wouldn’t have got far without Sam, would he, dad?”‘
‘We’re going on a bit too fast. You and I, Sam, are still stuck in the worst places of the story, and it is all too likely that some will say at this point: “Shut the book now, dad; we don’t want to read any more.”‘
…shut the book now, Dad…
Let’s hope it goes like LOTR then, Lynn.
But “Let it Be” is their worst album.
The last one really made me tear up badly, but this one is making me think she just might survive. Will she? :’(
Wow, Lynn. You got me choked up with that post. The beauty of these low moments is that we need them to make the climax all the more meaningful. I understand your post, and know you’d never be able to shut the book, but if we do, we’ll never know how the story ends.
Do we stop now, or do we follow Roland through the door?
Maybe Herk will find himself a Samwise? Maybe he’ll be wearing a coonskin cap?
Webcomics are just as valuable as any other storytelling medium. They reflect the author’s life and heart and mind and project them to everyone who reads.
I have my theories about what happens to Herk’s parents, and that kind of depends on how close this story follows the theory of “The Hero’s Journey”.