Genius in a minor chord

Young cousins Sammy and Joe have a scheme to cash in on the boom in superheroes following Superman's success in the late thirties. They have contracted to produce an entire sixty-four page comic starring only masked men. Commandeering a neighborhood house and recruiting all their artist friends, the group intends to conceive all the characters and write and draw the entire book over the course of one weekend. Sammy is one of the weaker artists, but...

If I had any wishful figments offered to me, I could do worse than to play the role that Sammy plays here, all the livelong day.

Excerpt from The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
by Michael Chabon,© 2000, published by Picador USA.