Sunday, January 27, 2008

geek alert

Confession: I have a geeky side.

It's not developed enough to boast about, but every once in a while some geeky piece of information will cross my path and I will be enthralled and run with it for days. I would suggest that my older son inherited my lone geek gene, but he has left me behind in his dust. He is also brilliant, which I am not. I have my moments (like with my geekiness) but they are erratic and therefore undependable.

But back to this recent geek discovery... from a post by Wil Wheaton (you do remember Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: The Next Generation?!?) He is definitely a genuine geek, not to mention a pretty talented writer, who quoted a post by Eric on the the subject of retconning. It's long, but fascinating.

Just what is retconning (besides being a cool word)? Short answer: You take an existing story, flash back in time to rewrite the story so that all the subsequent events have changed. Time travel for writers... and the universes they alter are the established stories we have come to know and love. Now specifically Eric uses this term in regards to comic books (a major geek marker, if you're trying to decide whether you qualify). But I (of course) jumped into the theological bru-ha-ha and thought about it in terms of Scripture. When has it been done? Who did it? How many fans were upset? And of course... most dangerous of all, How can I do it too? Then I realized maybe I already have... with my creation cartoonz. Imagine that.

2 comments:

Neen said...

I had such a crush on Wil when I was younger, (shhhh still do as a matter of fact). That is so cool that he quoted Eric. I am a geek at heart.

HeyJules said...

Yeah, the whole time I'm reading the second paragraph I'm thinking "Doesn't she realize this is what she's already doing???"

:-)

I love you, geeky side and all.