“There is nothing in the dark that isn’t there when the lights are on.”
So Rod Serling told us, at any rate, but there’s simply no convincing the subconscious mind of that, is there? As a result, darkness, through no fault of its own, has become the go-to metaphor for negativity, depression, evil, you name it. Difficult or challenging times in life are “dark” times. The historical era dominated by superstition and anti-intellectualism is referred to as the “Dark Ages.” Encroaching despair is the “darkness closing in on us.”
It’s primal. It’s instinctive. Our rational minds know that it makes no sense, but nevertheless — darkness isn’t just symbolic of fear, it’s symbolic of all fear, of the fear. The fear of losing ourselves into all-encompassing, all-devouring nothingness.
Laura Lannes understands this more intuitively than any cartoonist working today, and I say that without a moment’s hesitation. Her strips in…
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