LNH/META: How to Write Mainstream Man

[Arthur Spitzer]

in article 20060513054317.66323.qmail at web31305.mail.mud.yahoo.com, Tom
Russell at milos_parker at yahoo.com wrote on 5/12/06 10:43 PM:

> HOW TO WRITE
> MAINSTREAM MAN
> by Marc A. Nicol, Jameel Al-Khafiz, Gary St. Lawrence,
> Josh Geurink, Jeff Barnes, Hubert Bartles, Robert W.
> Armstrong, Sean Christian Daughtery, Steven Howard,
> Jamas Enright and Saxon Brenton

What?  No line of credit?  :)

> [This is actually a very clever and imaginative use of
> Mainstream Man.  There's not a single mention of
> comics, comics clichés, M/NM and VG.  Instead, Arthur
> extrapolates from Mainstream Man's popular tastes in
> comics that his tastes _beyond_ comics are popular
> ones.  Adamant Authority-on-Everything makes a good
> foil in this regard, and it's a fairly subtle little
> scene.]
> 

I was once going to write a story after the 2000 election where Mainstream
goes nuts and attacks some cult of Ralph Nader voters in Florida who ruined
the election (which would have been funny since I voted for Nader in that
election myself).

I figure he probably votes for the candidate that will get the most popular
votes which probably means that the election in 2000 has always disturbed
him.  He of course voted for Bush in 2004.

Also in Jong #5 I wrote:
'And Meanwhile in the Fabled Avalon of Grassroots' America (And
supposedly the rumored realm of Mainstream Man.. but you didn't hear it
here)...'

Well, okay.  It's a rumor, but I figure he might as well have gone to school
there.  Grassroots America is also the place Self-Righteous Preacher grew up
in and also the place that the Ultimate Savior claimed to be from.

It's probably right in the center of America...

There mascot is the Grassrooter just so you know...

> So, in the end, what have we got?  If it takes a
> village to develop a character, what did this village
> end up with?
> Mainstream Man does not read independent comics,
> and indeed fears them like the plague.  He hates them,
> clinging to superhero comics and all the flash
> surrounding them.  Though he's a real-life net.hero,
> he'd much rather be reading about heroes than be one.
> He's lazy and perhaps his tastes are a sign of
> intellectual laziness.  He is far too wrapped up in
> his comics to be of much use to anyone, and it is
> perhaps a bit unhealthy: which really makes him a
> perfect, and classic LNH gag character.
> 
> After I finish the WEB OF MAINSTREAM MAN series
> with # 6, I'm going to be releasing Mainstream Man
> back to the public domain.  I do have an ANNUAL
> planned, and I call dibs on both it and the "powers/no
> powers" plotline.
> 

Arthur "Not in Saxon's Gazetteer though" Spitzer