LNH/META: To Reboot or Not to Reboot....

[Andrew Perron]

On Oct 27, 9:07 am, Lalo Martins <lalo.mart... at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thursday, 27 October 2011 05:35:11 UTC+2, Andrew Perron  wrote:
> > (Okay, I'm gonna crosspost my reply, since IMHO, this discussion should
> > really be on the newsgroup in the first place; I thought the LNH Authors
> > group was basically "discuss future plot points without spoiling/put
> > stories up for editing".)
>
> Agreed on both counts. My mistake for replying there: I haven't really been on the newsgroup very often lately.

It happens! Glad we managed to reel you back in for a bit.

> > Lalo, I mean no offense by the statement that follows this, and I do not
> > consider it objective fact, just my own subjective opinion.
>
> > This is an incredibly, horribly terrible idea.
>
> No offense taken. I disagree, though :-)

I figured you would! ^-^

> > But not writing in the old one anymore?  One of the reasons I *love* the
> > LNH so much is that so many different people have poured their ideas into
> > it, their different styles, their characterization and history.  A universe
> > that's been fleshed out as thoroughly as the Looniverse is a hard thing to
> > come by *anywhere*.  It's worth far too much to throw away or ignore.
>
> Again: I'm not saying we pass a law that nobody is allowed to write the classic Looniverse anymore. That would be silly, for many reasons, ranging from being a bad idea to begin with for the reasons you list, to the fact that it makes no sense to try to make absolute rulings in an intrinsically anarchic group such as we are.
>
> What I *am* saying is we shift the primary focus to the “new 20” or whatever it's called. That's what I'll be setting aside time to write for and that's what we should advertise to our friends, and heck, if new readers get bored that we're not writing fast enough to sate them, they can go hit the archives and knock themselves out with top-quality Classic LNH stuff.

Well, that's the thing.  There's only two ways to "shift the primary
focus"; make such a rule and try to enforce it... or just put the new
world out there, and make it interesting enough that people *want* to
contribute.  I know I'm not going to be moving the bulk of my writing
time over there just because it's there; I also know that I'm amenable
to starting something long-term there if I feel like there's something
I can really dig my teeth into.

> Finally: I also proposed we do a “cowards reboot” like DC did, meaning, we start from a point where there is already some backstory and we use the classic universe as inspiration for that backstory. I wouldn't go so far as saying “everything that happened still happened except where we say it didn't” because DC has proved that doesn't really work (for the fourth time IMO), but we don't need to discard all the backstory either.

Honestly, I've always hated those.  It was a bad idea when CoIE did
it, though I can see why they did, but the New New DCU is just
ridiculous.  I can definitely see the merits of creating a new
backstory with elements from the old one, but you really do need to
create something new or it'll just be more confusing.

> > (Also?  I've always thought the whole "we need to reboot to keep the
> > continuity from getting confusing" thing was silly.  Just focus on what
> > matters now, y'know?)
>
> I prefer DC's new ethos of “we need to reboot to keep the stories current and give the writers more freedom to go crazy” (even though concretely I didn't really like the new 52 much).

If all of the New 52 had the same level of "let's do this whichever
way we want" that Action Comics #1 did, I'd be a happy man.

> > > The reasons are: when is the last time we got a new writer? I think I'm not
> > > the last but the, well, last but one.
>
> > Well, not necessarily the LNH, but RACC has picked up a bunch of new
> > writers recently. (I'm responsible for two of them, so.)
>
> Any particular reason why they didn't want to write for the LNH? Is it because it feels too complicated? Because it has a high barrier to entry? Because it's intimidating? I'm sure it can't be because it's not interesting, after all the stuff you guys have been posting is really, really good.

Honestly, for the people I brought in, they had stories in mind
already and I gave them a place to share them. (Although James Mason
has expressed a bit of interest in trying something else.)

> >  For the LNH to survive as a concept it
> > > needs both new writers and new readers. And one of the reasons we get no new
> > > readers is because we're this obscure club on Usenet (really, Usenet?)
>
> > Gaaaaaaaaaaah.  I hate the whole "LOL, Usenet is old technology!"  Frankly,
> > I've never seen a web board which has the same level of functionality,
> > especially in our well-moderated, completely archived group.
>
> I'm talking about perception here, again, based on my experience trying to bring people over. Myself, as a technical-minded guy, I love the Usenet. The feature set is awesome. But people are afraid of it, or they think it's a system for distribution of pirate files, or they don't have access and aren't willing to pay for it just in case this thing maybe is interesting.
>
> Of course, as I wrote in the other post, the answer to all that is Google Groups. It wasn't, a few years ago, but now it works beautifully. So, let's put that one to rest and focus on the “obscure club” part rather than the Usenet part.

Indeed. (Although my god, Google Groups, you really need to fix the
search engine.)

> My point was not that the Usenet was intrinsically bad, just that it's something that very few people even know about, which contributes to the obscurity of the club.

Ah, well, wholly agreed there.  Thus, the need for advertising!

> > This is pretty much why I proposed the "Intro to the LNH" project - a
> > single story that's all you need to read to start in on any LNH series.
> > It's stalled out, but getting that done will be very useful.
>
> I had the same goals with the Kid Recap mini... and the same results ;-)

Well, then, guess it's time to kick it into gear once again!

Also, on the subject of the New 20: I'd like for a complete story to
run through a few of them.  How about, in an LNHy metafictional vein,
someone discovers that their universe is only a few days old?

Andrew "NO .SIG MAN" "Juan" Perron, The Coming of... The Writers?