META: The Greats

Arthur Spitzer arspitzer at earthlink.net
Tue Apr 11 17:25:01 PDT 2006


in article 1144683033.343037.295090 at v46g2000cwv.googlegroups.com, Tom
Russell at milos_parker at yahoo.com wrote on 4/10/06 8:30 AM:

> Some other thoughts on Panta, Hubert, and TALES:
> 
> TALES OF THE LNH were not only some of the funniet stories in the LNH,
> but also some of the most memorable.  I still remember, for example,
> Rob Liefeld going nuts when someone requested a background.  It was a
> classic moment, and TALES was full of 'em.
> 
> The first LNH story I ever read was a Panta story.  If I recall
> correctly, it was # 360-- I do remember that it centered on
> Self-Righteous Preacher harraunging everyone's favourite furry female.
> One's first exposure can be a powerful thing: SRP and Panta were two of
> my favourite LNHers, early on.  My work with SRP was undistinguished,
> even if the idea was interesting: it's execution that counts, and my
> execution was severly lacking.

> I think one of the reasons why I had trouble getting a solid handle on
> Panta is that, as Rob Rogers points out in the aforementioned essay,
> she was really a mixture of many things, a number of seeming
> contradictions brought together into a cohesive whole.  In a Looniverse
> full of characters defined by one trait-- like Super Apathy Lad-- this
> sort of gestalt is tricky to pull off.
> 
> Hubert did it in spades.
> 
> --Tom

Yeah, I agree Tales of the LNH was a great series.

I think Tales #299 was probably the first LNH story I ever read.  I believe
that was the conclusion of the whole 'Bloodkitty' Arc, which was great
stuff.  Certainly it was the Self-Righteous Preachers appearance in that
issue that inspired me to have SRP appear in my first series JONG.  Hubert
definitely was SRP's definitive writer.  That whole Panta vs SRP conflict
was one of the funniest things about the LNH.  I think Tales of the LNH was
also the first series that I hunted down the back issues in the archive.

I guess Tales of the LNH was one of those series that I kind of took for
granted when it was around.  I guess I figured that Hubert would just keep
writing it forever.  It wasn't till it was gone that I realized how
important that series and Panta was to the LNH.  I really hated that last
issue Hubert wrote.  Panta shouldn't have been retconned out of existence.
Ignoring the fact of all the horrible continuity errors that such a retcon
would cause (I mean Pliable Lad's disappearance caused 'Retcon Midnight') it
was a pretty bad way to end her series.  Kill her, have her disappear like
Rebel Yell or something would have been better.  But she was Hubert's
character to with what he pleased.

I do regret never writing the character of Panta.  (It's not like I didn't
have time, I just thought that Panta would always be around.)  About the
only thing I did with Panta was I think the Mid.Net Star thingee I did about
some Taxi-cab driver claiming that he was Panta's long lost brother.  And
some SRP dialogue where he was cursing about some wicked half-naked cat girl
that was ruining his life.

Had a chance sometime in the mid-90's when Paul Hardy was visiting America
to see Hubert, Joltin' Jeff, and Paul Hardy; but I think I had a test or
something the day they were meeting in Phoenix.  Wish I had blown that test.

When both Tales of the LNH and Dvandom Force ended it kind of killed an
entire era of the LNH.  I don't think the LNH ever really fully recovered
from those series concluding.  If I started posting new issues of JONG
today, JONG would be the oldest series still running.  If Rob Rogers posted
more issues of Easily-Discovered Man that'd be the oldest series running.  I
guess Martin Phipps could start posting new issues of LNH v1 and that would
be the oldest.  But for now it looks like maybe Saxon's LAM is probably the
oldest series running and that started several months after I joined.

But yeah, Tales of the LNH was great series.  And Hubert was a nice guy.
And Panta was probably the greatest female character in the LNH.

Arthur "The Last Arizona LNH Writer reading this group" Spitzer




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