I feel like I would be a little remiss if I didn't tell you (in brief) a conversation me and my girlfriend and literary flatmate had a few months ago (well - I say conversation - "heated argument" would also be a good description - but whatever) that was around the idea that works of fiction / works of art all have a limited shelf-life due to the fact that most of the time the thing that makes something special is how it breaks new ground (which means that they're normally greeted with some sort of uproar) three of the examples we talked about where Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, Thomas Gainsborough's The Blue Boy and Mozart's The Magic Flute (yeah I know that this is a blog about comic books - but doesn't mean I still can't break out the culture now and again - you know? Especially - because - hey: we're talking (well -going to be talking) about Jane Austen here) and the point I was trying to make was that a big part of what made these works so great and infamous was due to how radical they were: and if you look at the history of popular art and popular culture - a lot of the really big important things that are out there were things that broke new ground in some way (if you want an example that's a little bit more comic booky: well - Watchmen is a good reference point: in that there's no way that someone who picks up and reads Watchmen now can really appreciate just how ground-breaking and unique it was when it first appeared - yeah?). But (and I guess this was my point) because all the really really good stuff that tends to ascend to the pantheon of the greats (or whatever) usually is built upon and intertwined with it's newness that means that after a while - inevitably - when people start ripping it off and stealing all the best elements (example? Ok how's about Nirvana's Nevermind? And all the Nicklebacks and Puddle of Mudds and Nine Black Alps that ended up spawning...) well - the thing that felt brand new - won't end up feeling so brand new anymore... (no duh). Of course along the course of this conversation / heated argument composure was lost a little all round and I ended up saying (yelling?) something like: "Jane Austen has nothing to tell us about being human!" [1]