This tickles me in a very “Sergio Aragones” kind of way. I bet you find work like this in the margins of the Phyrexian edition of Mad Magazine.
I agree with Josh – both here and in his Men of Magic interview. I love the flavor and story of Magic, but I tend to love it more the way we encounter it in bits and pieces through the cards. Other than Arena, which I read after buying it to get Sewers of Estark, I haven’t read any other Magic novels. Although I’d like to be able to detect the story from the cards – I realized today I have no idea what underlying plot was actually supposed to be happening during Lorwyn block – I don’t really want the super-drawn-out novel version.
The way we interact with cards is actually the way we interact with a lot of history and the real world – in bits and pieces. When I check in with the BBC, I don’t get the next chapter in our protagonist’s narrative. Instead, I get a story filed by a British reporter who’s stuck in Misratah and hasn’t seen much outside of his apartment block, but who’s been able to check in via phone with the local hospital.
For more about the joys of Magic worlds as seen through these snippets of card, check out the latest Inkwell Looter post.