Well, I’ve checked Funky Winkerbean every day since, and there’s been no further mention of “the day I’d never forget” (and no further appearance of that character), so I’m chalking it up to an acid trip by the artist.

In the meantime, I’ve talked myself out on the Funky junk — brought it up in my class at USC on Monday night, brought it up last night in my workshop (and I think I’ll spare my Saturday workshop), and generated alarmed stares from my family, who somehow don’t see the incredible importance of correctly depicting the timeline of comic books as cultural markers.

But it is important. Verisimilitude is part of what lends power to literature. Art doesn’t have to be literal — witness Guernica — but it benefits from being specific. Funky may not be art (clearly), but it even fails as pop art because its interior universe is so wrong that everything is called into question.

It’s better to get it right. Asking the right questions — who, what, when, where, why, how — of the universe you’re creating leads you to new and interesting answers. Not asking the questions leads to cliche, sentimentality, and weakness.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 19th, 2006 at 7:10 pm and is filed under On reading, Thoughts, Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.