ABOUT NOBLE CORVUS

I remember early on in our undertaking, Marc and I met for lunch to talk about name ideas.  We didn’t magically come up with any one name, or even several that we really liked.  We had hoped to do that, but alas.  Instead, what we did was discuss what we hoped to accomplish with the undertaking.

By the end of lunch, we agreed that the name should stand for 3 things: Mythology, Duality, and undiscovered talent.

Mythology is a big one because both of our stories in some sense explain away the gods of old: Norse, Greek, Christian, etc.  Every culture has its pantheon of deities, of the unexplained, and many have similar themes, similar archetypes: tricksters, shapeshifters, etc.  As a note of clarity, I don’t mean to imply Christianity to be polytheistic or offend the Christians in the audience, but I’ve done significant reading and some of the lesser sects or denominations, Coptics, Gnostics, parts of Judaism and even Kabbalah, to a degree, (all of the “mystic” types) have various angels and stories not mentioned in the Bible, or at least the accepted Canon, and some of those tales can be likened to the more familiar and pagan myths.  We’re not trying to state that any such beliefs are true or untrue in any way…it’s not about that.  It’s simply about explaining why these beliefs exist and offering a different interpretation on some of the things history and the Bible leave purposefully vague or have lost in translation.  At least, in the world of the Enemas, this is the case.

We also both talked of the similarities in the two books, such as their themes, the powers and abilities exhibited by humans, and the differences, primarily tone: light vs. dark.  Humor vs. horror.  To us, these books and their worlds are simply two sides to one coin.  There’s a duality.  A yin-yang relationship, and we wanted to acknowledge and explore that.  We talked about how each of the books will be a work of fiction in regard to the other book.  In the Enemas, the Grave is a popular TV show that the characters watch.  Perhaps they operate in parallel worlds?  Perhaps in time, we’ll do cross-over issues.

Finally, we decided there are so many people out there, like us, with talent and passion and drive, but no outlet.  We want to find those undiscovered, and we want to give them a voice and platform to launch from.  It’s our hope that no matter how big this grows, we’ll always make time for submissions.  We’ll always be there to lend an ear to someone daring enough to pitch, anyone who believes in what they do.  To anyone with drive, ambition, desire, to pull themselves up out of working a job they hate…we want to be the hand up.  We want to be a catalyst for creativity and an outlet for growth.  And we always want to be able to have that time to mentor.

A week or so afterwards, I was thinking about the word “Lost,” as I figure it represents the undiscovered talent we are hoping to bring out.  Somehow I ended up thinking about homing pigeons and ended up on a bird kick.  I thought Dove (cousin to Pigeon) and Raven/Crow as being opposites, going along with the duality.  I then began researching ravens and their link with mythology.  Of course you have Odin's ravens, Munin (memory) and Hugin (thought).  The raven also plays in very heavily into the Native American lore, as well.  The raven and the coyote are often used as trickster type figures in NA lore, sometimes as deity figures (in creation myths) as well, sometimes as a heroic type figure, bringing humans fire from the gods in a very Prometheus-type way.

This led me to learn of anthropologist Klaud Levi-Strauss (still not sure of his connection to the jeans, but seems too odd to be just coincidence).  He did a pretty big study on myths in his day, even going so far as to say that all myths are made up of two things.  He said that (are you ready for this?) myths consist of (1) elements that oppose or contradict each other and (2) other elements that "mediate", or resolve, those oppositions. 

This of course means that two of our ideas (myths and duality) are essentially the same thing.  Mythic thought consists of dual natures.  He said that the raven and coyote appearing in myths as prominently as they do is because, in essence, they bridge the gap between the opposites, between life and death.  These animals are carrion animals.  Life is represented by the harvest, by herbivores, by what grows in nature and death represented by the hunt, by carnivores, predators.  The carrion animals are carnivores and predators, but they don't catch their food the way that herbivores don't catch their food.  It's just there for them.  They don’t kill for it, and thus preserve life.

Of course, there were other ideas that I was playing around with.  I studied other symbols that represented what we going for.  The Taiji is the balance between two forces.  Taijitu is the name of the yin-yang symbol.  Yin and Yang simply meaning light and dark, respectively.  And from the Arthurian legends, the character Bran's name means Crow or Raven.  Apparently there is a story that ties the Tower of London to Bran the Blessed and that England will not fall as long as the ravens remain in the Tower of London.  I thought of the Crow movies and how a crow carries the souls of the dead to the after life.

All of that to say, These were some of the original ideas I suggested for names:

I liked the name Noble Corvus almost from the beginning.  Corvus is the genus in which the Crow and Raven both belong.  Ravens/Crows being identified with souls and the dead, it represents the Grave while Noble (think Daring, Gallant, Epic, Bushido, Heroic) represents the Enemas and the superhero motif.  We talked briefly about maybe dropping the Noble from the name, maybe replacing it with a latin word meaning roughly the same, most notably Altus, but Altus Corvus…just doesn’t have that ring to it.  So within a few days of nobody having a better idea, that’s the name that stuck.

And that’s it.  The short version.  Well, at least what I’ll tell my priest.

Joey