REVIEW: LNH Comics Presents # 91 (ILC 56)

[Tom Russell]

On Jun 26, 3:35 am, Martin Phipps <martinphip... at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Perhaps but I've learned from bitter experience that one needs to be
> careful when directly comparing author's work: it turns out that "X is
> better than Y" is often taken to mean "Y is not as good as X".

When I do comparisions, I don't compare actual quality, but rather
qualities-- everyone's work is merely different, and no one is
ultimately better than anyone else.  Some are better at some things
than others: I wish I was as funny as you can be, Martin.

To take an example: Arthur Spitzer is RACC's master of the surreal, by
my estimation, but that doesn't mean that his work is better (or
worse) than Saxon's, which is generally more comprehensible and
classically "literary".  Hubert Bartles is much better at writing a
catgirl than I am; wReam had a special skill for unusually long
character names.

I never try to be a judge of quality.  I try to judge whether or not I
like a particular story, and I try to provide my criteria why.  Others
may disagree with me-- I mean, I hate ULYSSES (Joyce, not Homer),
which is apparently the greatest novel ever written.

I can only write about my tastes, what I like, and the qualities-- the
things that make a story or writer unique-- of the work.  The pet
themes, quirks, weaknesses, and strengths.

Another example: look at the way three different authors-- Martin,
myself, and Jamas-- write Master Blaster.  I usually write him as
being extremely stupid and sexist and violent and selfish; Martin
usually writes him a bit more realistically than that; Jamas usually
emphasizes the "action hero" perosna and does comedic riffs off of
that.  I don't think any of the three methods are better than the
others; they're all just different-- they have different _qualities_.

> Martin

==Tom