Magic(k) and writing

I would start to introduce my entry with an extract of "The Mindscape of Alan Moore". A documentary about the ideas and thoughts of this English writer:

Artists is magic(k), magic(k) is art. And as Moore said "A magician have to be very careful with what he/she say". A magician had the power to control his/her environment and how people could perceive the world, changing and manipulating consciousnesses.

The big issue that writers have is that this type of magic has been transformed in a sort of degeneration for what magic was supposed to be. Today, art has been trasnformed into a way to manipulate the masses, instead of searching for your true self. Today's magic(k) is in power of advertisers who, instead of trying to illuminate people, they use it as an opium to anesthetize people. In that way, artists and writers tend to go on the same path that publicity has imposed: "Art is just and space of entertaininment for the population". (Now you can do a connection with Aldous Huxley's "A brave new world").

So, understanding that art has a lot of power on people. A power in which you can make them search for their self consciousness, or a power in which you can manipulate them, writers of these times have to be very careful of how they express their thoughts. As we discussed in class, Art Spiegelman had a great challenge which was to re-narrate the horrible experiences of a holocaust surviror. Spiegelman had to be so careful of WHAT and HOW he was writing those moments of his father's life. Because, if you fail on that challenge, you not only failed as a writer/artist, but you also failed as a human being, because you can't take the risk of  making a mistake and bein satirical with an issue so horrifying as the holocaust (or any other kind of attrocity that may happened during the XX century).

To conclude, I would say that an artist has a lot of responsbility doing his job. Also, they have this constant challenge of doing something remarkable and that can perdure through time. They have this constant challenge of being popular and recognized, but not being a product at the same time. They have to check their words in order to create the right spell... in order to make us their followers of their magic(k).

To end this post I would want to show you a scene from "The Simpsons" where you can see Alan Moore, Art Spiegelman and Dan Clowes as "The League of Extraodrinary Gentlemen". Note the different references of these authors and their graphic novels covered in this scene. Also, notice how Alan Moore gets angry when Milhouse shows him the movie adapation of two of his graphic novels ("V for Vendetta" and "Watchmen") arguing on how corporations take the ideas of artists and use them to do empty and commercial objects.