Thingness

Death of the author, say the students of the Big D, it’s the text, stay with the text … yet in my experience, all too often, the text is abandoned along with the author. Instead, the eager young scholar is distracted by the cultural gestalt, a mélange of multiple derivatives, the shared “is” that “everyone knows.” The sizzle that sold once and can be referenced as having sold, in order to hawk its echo. Worse, instead of critiquing it, they adopt it, so that all the verbiage and Foucaltian Hegelian Derridan whatnot add up to nothing more than its own consumerized and recondite fandom, in which academic employment and careerism have replaced anything resembling inquiry.

Ha! I managed to utilize the characteristic prose of said academic movement and spoof it at the same time. That’s a bucket list moment.

Whom were they watching?

Scary supervillain! oh wait

BONUS POST: Thanks to Markku Tuovinen and his June pledge at the Doctor Xaos Patreon!

This is first of three posts about Watchmen, specifically the 12-issue run from the 1980s. I’m not including the movie or the new comics that came out more or less with it.