REVIEW: LNH Comics Presents # 91 (ILC 56)

[Lalo Martins]

Tom,

Thanks immensely for the review; you're right in saying this is my first 
full review it the group, and as such, it's appreciated.  You raise a 
number of good points too.

Also spracht Tom Russell (Tue, 26 Jun 2007 04:20:41 +0000):
> The plot isn't the greatest for an ILC story, nor is it the worst;  I
> think I would have preferred a story that focused more on Weirdness
> Magnet _personally_ and what situations his special personality and
> powers were either well- or ill-equipped to handle.

It's funny that you say that, though, as this was my overall goal.  I 
guess the bottom line is, I didn't make my "point" clear, and I should be 
more careful about it next time I write Weirdness Magnet.

The key things I tried to express in the issue were:

1, his power is passive; while it is possible for him to actively 
"invite" weirdness every now and then (such as on his very first 
appearance in BOAV), that's a big effort, and usually unnecessary.  This 
plays out first by having the Acra Flight appear in front of him, saving 
them potentially weeks of trying to cross the world; then, having the 
ship accident become a beacon for the LNH to find him; and then, more 
strongly, on the invading force landing on the right place to fight the 
turtles, or vice versa.

2, his primary character strength is lateral thinking, as a way to cope 
with all the weirdness.  I played that out with the Tsk.Force experiment, 
with the solution for the piling paperwork, and the party.

Or perhaps it's my personal take on management.  The way I see it, 
leading/management is not about what you do, but how you facilitate 
others doing what they have to.

So -- to get back to the bottom line :-) -- you think I should deal with 
WMag more explicitly?  I feel from your review that a single extra 
paragraph in LNHCP91 could have helped a lot, something along the lines 
of: (insert in the party scene, before the toast)

Weirdness Magnet smiled to himself.  Maybe he won't be remembered as one 
of the LNH leaders who *acted* the most.  Sure, the paperwork was finally 
cleared under his leadership, and an alien invasion was repelled, not to 
mention a wave of rampaging Turtles of Apocalyptic Proportions.  But 
superficially, none of those seem to be to his credit, except possibly 
for the paperwork, and even then indirectly.  Unless, of course, someone 
understood how his powers work, and more important, how a lifetime of 
having them has forced him to learn to cope with all sorts of 
situations.  .o(Conventional solutions are for conventional people), he 
thought, looking around.

Anyway, thanks again; this helps immensely :-)  It's not always easy to 
find potential points of improvement in something you wrote yourself.

                                               Lalo Martins
-- 
      So many of our dreams at first seem impossible,
       then they seem improbable, and then, when we
       summon the will, they soon become inevitable.
                           -----
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