Abby and Norma --- by Erika Hammerschmidt --- Oct 19, 2007

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TEXT OF COMIC:

Some authors Google every idea they get before they use it in a story, to make sure no one has come up with it already. But I think new ideas are like fossil fuels. The world is running out of them, and we have to start conserving.

In the old days, say an author came up with a clever title for his book-- he'd have no way of knowing if there was already a book with that title. So he'd use it anyway, and there could end up being quite a few books with the same title. Which is okay. The world can live with that.

But now we have the Internet, and every author can know beyond a reasonable doubt whether his title is taken, and make sure he uses one that isn't. Which means we'll run out of new book titles a lot faster.

Same goes for other kinds of ideas. The world of creativity is experiencing an energy crisis.

I propose a policy of creative conservation. When we get ideas, we should put them into practice without checking to see if they're new. That way, we'll be using both new and recycled ideas, and we'll use up the world's resources of creativity at the same slow rate as before the Internet.

Someone's probably thought of that already.

Well, I'm not going to check.