LNH20: NHOP # 1

[Tom Russell]

On Sunday, November 9, 2014 7:01:18 PM UTC-5, Scott Eiler wrote:
> On 11/9/2014 8:50 AM, Andrew Perron wrote:
> > On 11/9/2014 7:25 AM, Tom Russell wrote:
> > <snip>
> >> I *think* the original NHOP is worth reading in its revised TEB
> >> edition (I want to say that I cut something like 60K words from the
> >> run), with the caveat that it's something I wrote twelve or
> >> thirteen years ago. It's  more of a melodrama, and still a wee bit
> >> unfocused and clumsy even in the revised edition.
> 
> Hey, I like to think I did good work thirteen years ago.  I had not 
> taken up the habit of writing a short story every month, though - let 
> alone writing stuff like people might actually read it. 
> http://www.eilertech.com/stories/2001.htm
> 
> 
> >> I'd suggest holding off on that though; it'd be interesting and
> >> helpful to me to see how someone who is both (1) well-versed in
> >> the LNH and (2) not familiar with the previous incarnation reacts
> >> to this one, and I'm pretty sure the overlap in that particular
> >> Venn Diagram is not particularly large.
> 
> On that note...  What's "NHOP"?

Good question! :-)

I did a Classic LNH series back in the very early aughties called "Net.Heroes on Parade" about a clique/subgroup within the LNH that mostly dealt with supernatural goings-ons-- demonic babies, werewolves, really old French dudes, evil gods, zombies-- you know, fun stuff! People sometimes called it NHOP for short. It was /fairly/ well-received at the time (especially in comparison to my still-recent juvenilia).

It was the last LNH thing I wrote before I went on a hiatus from RACC that lasted two or three years. It was really the only thing from my pre-hiatus period that I thought held up at all, and when I retconned "all my Early LNH stuff", the cut-off point-- the one thing that remained-- was that series. When I came back from that hiatus, I did a revised "canonical" five-volume TEB version to tighten it up in anticipation of continuing the story and rebooting the series as "NHOP". That didn't happen-- largely because when I came back from that hiatus, it was to help Jamie Rosen launch Eightfold.

When LNH20 started up, one of the first things that I thought to do would be to launch a "new" version of NHOP-- similar concept, most of the same cast but in the LNH20 universe.

I say most of the same cast because three of the seven original NHOPers will not be reappearing this time around-- Ms. Paprika [actress/model turned heroine], Gary Niceguy [Sarcastic Lad's son born after an orgy on the moon], and Shrink-Wrap Man [he, uh, shrink-wraps things]. Partially, this is because they always felt a bit like outliers compared to the "core" cast, and partially because I'm shying away from the actual "wearing spandex and having code-names" stuff this time around. The characters who remain all feel more at home in a supernatural/paranormal milieu-- and in this iteration, they're designed to be more at home there, rather than being shoehorned into it.

The first scene/cold open for this issue has been sitting on my computer for nearly a year waiting for the rest of it to be written. Inspired by Andrew's announcement of the "LNH: The Return" event, and the posting of LNH v.2 # 50, I started to feel nostalgic for those characters who made the cut-- and hence, this brand-new shiny #1 collector's item.

==Tom