Everything is a Mask

Ideas are things, and things grow and change, first it was a fan blog for The Question, then for faceless characters, then masks, Now? Now whatever it ends up becoming.

[apocalypse-polakiewicz]

tlestoryteller

[rocket-prose]

Original Creig Flessel art: a re-creation of his own cover for 1939′s Adventure Comics #44, featuring the Sandman.

[pulpsandcomics2]

The Rocketeer vs. Sandman by Chris Weston

[obsidian-sphere]

La Maschera - The mask by Joseph-Désiré Court 1797 – 1865 French painter of historical subjects and portraits.

[alternateworldcomics]

The Question: All Along The Watchtower #1 Review: Murder On The Justice League Express | Comic Book Club

Read our review of The Question: All Along The Watchtower #1 from DC Comics, written by Alex Segura with art by Cian Tormey.

[browsethestacks]

Comic - Wesley Dodds: The Sandman #06 Cover (2024)

Art by Sebastian Fiumara

[allmasks]

The Question story from Blue Beetle # 5, 1968.

[allmasks]

Argosy / 24. April 1937

Cover by Rudolph Belarski

[comparativetarot]

The Devil. Art by Brooke Penrose, from the Tarot of The Crystal World.

[hawkzeyes]

The Question Quarterly #1 (1990)

[curtvilescomic]

Sandman by Patrick Zircher 

[obsidian-sphere]

The Household Magazine Oct. 1935 cover by  Theodore Benda

[dirtyriver]

Batman Urban Legends #14, cover by Giuseppe Camuncoli

[allmasks]

The Master Detective Vol. 5, No. 3 (November 1931). Cover Art by Dalton Stevens

[doc-avalon]

Reveals how to use masks, meditation, and improvisation to free yourself from overthinking, self-doubt, and fixed ideas of who you think you are

Sharing a series of mindfulness techniques and acting exercises that show how malleable the self can be, award-winning actor, narrator, and Zen Buddhist priest Peter Coyote explores how to work with masks, meditation, and improv to suppress the ego, calm the mind, and allow spontaneous playfulness and spaciousness to arise from your deepest nature.

• Shares a series of mindfulness techniques and improv exercises with masks to suppress the ego, calm the mind, and allow spontaneous playfulness and spaciousness to arise from your deepest nature

• Draws on Buddhist philosophy to describe how and why the exercises work

• Woven throughout with a lighthearted parable of an overweight and out-of-work Lone Ranger and Tonto who meet Buddha and experience spiritual awakening

Sharing a series of mindfulness techniques and acting exercises that show how malleable the self can be, award-winning actor, narrator, and Zen Buddhist priest Peter Coyote reveals how to use masks, meditation, and improvisation to free yourself from fixed ideas of who you think you are and help you release your ego from constant defensive strategizing, calm the mind’s overactivity, and allow spontaneous playfulness to arise out of your deepest nature. Developed through 40 years of research and personal study, Coyote’s synthesis of mask-based improv games and Zen practices is specifically designed to create an ego-suppressed state akin to the mystical experiences of meditation or the spiritual awakenings of psychedelics. After preparatory exercises, seeing yourself in a mask will temporarily displace your familiar self and the spirit of the mask will take over.

Likening the liberated state induced by mask work to “Enlightenment-lite,” Coyote draws on Buddhist philosophy to describe how and why the exercises work as well as how to make your newly awakened and confident self part of daily life. In true Zen form, woven throughout the narrative is a lighthearted parable of an out-of-work Lone Ranger and Tonto, who meet Buddha and experience spiritual awakening. Illuminating the lessons of mask work, the transformation of the Lone Ranger mirrors that of the individual pursuing this practice, revealing how you will come to realize that the world is more magical and vaster than you thought possible.

[failed-mad-scientist]

Spider-Man Noir - Denis Medri

[i-love-this-art]

Cesare Sofianopulo / “Masks” / 1930 / Revoltella Museum