"We haven’t really had anything “new” since the Big Bang, whenever that was. Everything since then has been a reconfiguration of something that already existed. But that’s the way it works—the best way to preserve something isn’t necessarily to protect it. I’d like to think I’m conserving through reuse, that, like my introduction to Bogie and Robinson via Looney Tunes (if I’d never seen Casablanca or Little Caesar, I’d still know their plots, their characters), Shadow Man might be the variant that survives, or else the variant that the variant that survives is derived from."
Thanks to Andrew for putting the whole thing together, and to Tim and Jensen for their company (and for their interesting, smart comments throughout).