On the shelf of Hollis Mason — the original Nite Owl, turned car mechanic — are three books: his memoirs, Under the Hood; Automobile Maintenance; and Philip Wylie’s 1930 novel, Gladiator, which many argue is the original inspiration for Superman. I recommend Gladiator.

Daniel is the fellow in the owl costume, who rightly points out that the whole planet is on the brink of annihilation. Rorschach replies: “Some of us have always lived on edge, Daniel. It is possible to survive there if you observe rules! Just hang on by fingernails … and never look down.”

Many people who have fallen through the cracks of the current system have been living like Rorschach for years. Some of them were born into this type of marginal existence. A great many Westerners have been hanging on by their fingernails, just surviving, with no hope for improvement of their lives.

Watchmen was considered a very notable subversion of traditional superhero stories when it came out, but by now it has been studied so thoroughly that it has probably been thoroughly digested by the great propaganda-pornography complex. I fear that any positive effect of subversive art is quickly overwhelmed by the capacity of the degenerate sectors to co-opt subversive images. I have seen parliamentarians wearing Guy Fawkes masks in parliaments as cheap publicity stunts. I have seen porn stars in Italy’s parliament. Now all that remains is for a porn star parliamentarian to don a Rorschach mask on the floor of a parliament as a publicity stunt, and pop culture will finally implode.

Pseudo-great fiction – also known as message fiction – is an author tract on reality, where the author is out of touch. It tends to broken aesops and glurge.

Genre fiction gets caught up in its own tropes and thus becomes self-referential. But it’s fun, and you can easily sneak greatness into it.

A corporation is a legal fiction. It is constructed entirely of words and kayfabe. It is its own reality, without a center. Only the profit motive connects it to reality. When that’s lost, the corporation degenerates into LARP, and then into bankruptcy.

I recently watched American Psycho, and was struck by the fact that no one was shown actually doing any productive work, or even making business decisions.

Or try to substitute them for reality.