You know, when making enchiladas, it says to put in meat and cheese and enchilada sauce, but really, what are enchiladas without vegetables? I mean, inside, not on the side like cheap mexican restaurants? plus, you can make them interesting by combining regular sauce and green chile enchilada sauce. then put 3/4 of a can (or that amount) of this combination sauce, instead of 3/4 can of regular. and only a cup of cheese? who are they kidding! especially if you add things like a can of rotel tomatos and chopped onion. I mean, you have to keep the ratio the same, right? that's what cheese is for, making it cheesy. So yah, feel free to fudge it a little. it does make the spices I add a little different, but since I fudge it by just smelling things and thinking, "yah, this would go well!" It doesn't matter anyway. Now, if I could only get the tortillas to roll without breaking...stupid corn tortillas.

So, on a serious note, Neil Gaiman is godlike and everyone should read everything he's ever written. Or at least the Sandman series, American Gods, and Neverwhere. I'm reading the Sandman Companion right now, which has background about him, how his relationships with other writers and artists work, how he got into comic books in the first place, and interviews with him step by step through the 76-issue comic book legend that we now know and love as the 10 volume set of Sandman graphic novels.

Two things I have learned about comic books: 1)you need have no artistic talent at all to write one, because the process involves someone making a script, someone sketching it, someone inking it, and someone coloring it (with all the regular editorial and production staff). So a writer with vision and the ability to describe what he wants can create a comic book, then simply hand it over to artists to actually create for him. And 2) I need to read more stuff by Alan Moore (Swamp Thing was the reason Gaiman took back up his childhood dream of making comics, and Alan Moore's instruction and encouragement are what helped turn Gaiman's fantastic literary talent into a fantastic comic-book creating talent). Plus I need to read something called Maus, which I'd never heard of, except that supposedly it's one of the classics that helped American comics become serious. p.s. I'm not talking about anime at all, because American comics and Japanese comics have evolved quite differently. It has only been in the past decade that anime has, through children's cartoons, become a significant influence upon the artistic style of American comics. Wouldn't that be an awesome class to teach: The History of American Comics? I mean, I'm not sure what would be used as textbooks, since some of the classics are now far too expensive to be regular books. You'd almost have to make your own textbook. Hmm...maybe I shouldn't say that out loud, where someone might steal my idea... [laughs] Gaiman, before the series had even started, had the idea of having an annual serial killer's convention (conventions are, after all, a bunch of people coming together who have nothing in common except a single interest), but he had to leave it on hold for over a year before he could actually put it into a comic. But yes, books are good, everyone should read more. That includes you! Blogs don't actually count. Except Dave Barry's blog, because he's just that cool.

http://weblog.herald.com/column/davebarry/