LNH/REVIEW: Kid Review's Roundup - May 2014

[Andrew Perron]

On 6/7/2014 4:58 PM, Tom Russell wrote:
> Quoth the Perron:
>
>> "So... in the past, Tom's written some really funny stuff - amazing
>> kneeslapper gags and character humor. But often - and I think Tom will
>> agree here - the humor was *mean*, a lot of it coming from characters
>> being inventively cruel to each other. This, however - this story is not
>> only less mean, but *more interesting* for it."
 >
 > Well, with the Master Blaster stories-- which I just binge re-read the other
 > day-- yes, they were definitely mean, mostly because of my interpretation of
 > the character as a psychotic bully. Outside of stories featuring Master
 > Blaster (and to a degree his foil WikiBoy), I don't think I tended towards
 > meanness necessarily.

Hm. Let me rephrase. I wouldn't say your humor was mean *exclusively*, but 
that... like, if one character was dense and another was frustrated with them, 
the insults were usually pretty cutting. (If I remember, correctly. There's a 
lot of stuff I need to reread - I just went thru basically every LNH story 
Mike Escutia ever wrote, and I've started working on the early Dvandom stuff.)

>> "Similarly, I quite like Tina's dialogue, especially since it feels much
>>
>> like the style that a lesser writer would have automatically assigned to
>>
>> the dude friend without thinking.
>
> That's an interesting comment-- for me, Tina's "voice" and speech pattern is inherently feminine.

I say that because at first, I misread and thought it was Peter who had 
entered the scene.

 > "Oddly disproportionate" is what I was going for-- things snowballing like
 > crazy. It also was meant as a bit of world-building/house-keeping-- setting
 > up a new "big" conflict that will be a major story arc (Earth versus the
 > Pulse Collective), and new status quos-- the Seven Wonders disbanded, Max
 > and Julie no longer fabulously sheltered/rich, Fahrenheit Man joining the
 > Daylighters (who have "appeared" once before, and are going to be a big
 > deal in coming years/stories).
 >
 > All that being said, you're quite right I think that all this undermines the
 > gag aspect of it, and perhaps this story as a whole. In retrospect I
 > probably could have and should have found a better way to wrap it up, and
 > to set these little things in motion.

Yeah, the disproportionality comes not from how big these things are, but from 
how they don't feel like they fit with the story that came before it. It's 
like if The Importance of Being Earnest ended with the reveal that the mutual 
impersonations had collapsed their families' financial empires, which lead to 
a Marxist revolt in the streets of London.

Andrew "NO .SIG MAN" "Juan" Perron, not that I would not enjoy a Wilde-written 
play about a Marxist revolt on the streets on London.