Words and Pictures

Did you ever sit tensely at the keyboard staring at the screen and the next word just won’t come – let alone the next sentence?  Perhaps you need to heed the old proverb that a picture is worth a thousand words.

Three Houstonians are applying that proverb in a creative and entertaining way.  Take a look at the Phantom Hearts project (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1327401305/phantom-hearts-a-steampunk-novel ).  Reema, Micheal, and Danny are writing (composing? Creating?) a steampunk vampire novel that breaks the bounds of word-limited writing.  Their collaboration combines the traditional stream of words with interposed sections of graphic story-telling.  All of us who try to write have been told: “Don’t tell us; show us.”  Micheal and Reema do both at once.

(Disclaimer: While I have read and enjoyed some steampunk, my skeptical nature prevents suspension of disbelief – willing or not – sufficient to view vampire tales or the rest of the supernatural genres as anything other than silly, boring tripe, so I will not attempt any kind of critical assessment of this work.)

Ever since medieval monks empowered their manuscripts with illustrations, writers have tried to heighten the effect with illustration.  The very earliest printed books included woodcuts and etchings.  The comic books, and their evolutionary descendants, graphic novels, reversed the process by telling stories through pictures heightened with limited narration.  This new approach used in Phantom Hearts may move the process to new levels.

Reema, Micheal, and Danny are pioneers in another way as well.  They are funding their publication through cloud sourcing.  If you like what they are doing and think it will be successful, their web site allows you to invest in their project and share in any profits they make.  You can be an entrepreneur in a whole new direction for literature.  Take a look!