Susan Gibb writes in a comment on this post:

This reminds me of conversations, and the way one thought expressed verbally inevitably “triggers” another in the listener that leads to another trail or narrative. This is sort of where I was heading in my own postings the other day about the brain being the working model behind new media ideas. The paths are there, the clues are there, the options are open, and the layers appear upon cue.

I think this is a dead on metaphor. As a relevant note, as we read through Watchmen in CF we’re noticing how panel reading in that work maneuvers the reader in all sorts of directions as we seek the paths, the clues, the narrative, and the connections that make sense, just as Laurie, Dan, and Osterman do, as well as the other characters, just as the you and I and Reader of Calvino’s If on a winter’s night a traveler does. Which, of course, recalls Borges and the Aleph. Watchmen, The Garden, and Continuity. Mirrors.