Rebel Without A Clue

Typically, just as I decide to use this blog to explore the thinking behind what I'm writing, both in my comics and on Elephant Words, I'm the Monday man at EW, and have almost no time to actually put any thought at all into what I'm writing there!

This week's story was particulalry hard to write, partly because the pic' went up very late Sunday night due to some technical problems, and partly due to the fact that I haven't really been in the frame of mind to write as I was assaulted by my ex-wife's boyfriend last night. But, yeah, let's not go into that, eh?

So, let's at least try and talk about my Elephant Words story this week - Rebel Without A Clue. The pic' either is, or looks incredibly like, the observatory from the film Rebel Without A Cause. It's been a looooong time since I saw the film, so I could be completely wrong there, but that was the immediate association that sprung to mind. I remember thinking the film was excellent, but, I also seem to recall watching it with my grandparents, while my gran struggled to decide who were the goodies and who were the baddies. Bless her. I guess it's hard for someone who sees everything in black and white to appreciate a film which is all about shades of grey.

I've always been amused by the subtle pun version of the film's title, Rebel Without A Clue, which, I think, might have been used in a song or something...I don't know...heh... But my mind immediately turned to those damn middle class emo kids who are depressed about having nothing to be depressed about. Who resent their parents for giving them a stable, loving home, because, you know, it's preventing them from being properly troubled and angst ridden like their ultimate idol, Kurt Cobain. I think for most of my generation, who were teenagers when Cobain was alive, and Nirvana were at their height...the idolisation of Kurt Cobain by today's youth is a complete mystery.

And that's about it, really, that's as much thought as went into writing it. The ending was a bit tricky, I knew I wanted to riff off the classic line from the film "What are you rebelling against?" "What have you got?" but finding the right way to do that wasn't easy. Originally I just had the kid stare blankly at his mum, lost for words, but I didn't feel that was satisfying. So, instead I went for the vague, noncommital, "Just...stuff..." which, for me, kinds of sums up the vague, unfocused rebellion of a generation that seems to think that dressing the same as all of their friends is rebelling.

Kids, stop watching Death Note and watch some James Dean movies, you might learn a thing or two about rebellion...