A single Q&A with Dan Harmon from a Reddit AMA

bc: Hi Dan!

Amongst everything else I really enjoy your story structure ideas, and am curious if you’ve ever read Joseph Campbell’s “Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake”?

(If not, it’s the first iteration of JC extracting the monomyth idea from James Joyce’s FW, a modernist version of the story circle, eternal return, etc.)

Similarly, do you like James Joyce at all?

Joyce influenced Campbell as much as Campbell seems to have influenced you, so in a sort of transitive property telephone game, you seem to me like one of the most Joycean writers around. (Intended as high praise!)

Sincere thanks for all the great work!

Also, here’s a drawing of you on the moon: http://i.imgur.com/7GUCwFo.jpg

bc

Dan Harmon: Ha, thank you for that art. I love it. And no, I haven’t read a single word of James Joyce and you’re right, I should, because you’re right, Campbell was obsessed with him. But unlike Campbell and probably James Joyce, I’m a lazy, shitty, self-satisfied blob of rapidly fading pop cultural influences and video game addictions.