December 3, 2011 Gerhard Update

You might recall, back in October, the complicated idea I had for a combination of "World Without Cerebus" with my own long-time sig file quote, inspired by a kickstarter project being done by someone else altogether.

Heh - you got all that? Good.

The kickstarter project was a person who was pushing on the illuminated manuscript art form, mainly, as it turns out, using ornate and gilded letters to decorate poetry or other sorts of sayings.

(P.S., did you know that kickstarter.com is currently only open to artists with US bank accounts?)

The WWC idea was to conflate the ideas of using an illustrated manuscript page, a decided non-secular art form, to convey a strong secular allegory about science and knowledge. Given the nature of this transformation during the run of the Cerebus series, it draws a little less on the usual WWC events and more on a concept. Picking a remarkable breakpoint, I decided to title this entry as Page 185, coming just before "186" (an issue with strong meaning in the series).

And the subject matter centers on the 14th C Old French quote that has sat on the bottom of my email messages for decades:

"Vaille Que Vaille Lors se Verras"
One goes as one goes, then one shall see

And to include, as the universal power from the big sword-wielder in the sky:

"Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est"
And thus knowledge itself is power (Sir Francis Bacon).

And to wrap science, emerging from the tree of knowledge, in the most basic operational philosophy of science, namely, Occam's Razor:

"Entia non sunt multiplicanda sine necessitate"
one should not multiply entities beyond necessity
(William of Occam)

While the symbolic enemies of science do their best to attack it, and while - all the while - the sheep look on.

Hey, I didn't say it was going to be easy.

But, when Gerhard is on the job, you know it is going to be beautiful.