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

[Scott Eiler]

The Big Stories are what catch my attention right now.  And I didn't 
even set out to write an apocalypse-story, but I will admit it's big.

On 10/9/2014 10:56 AM, Andrew Perron wrote:

> Powernaut 1969 #11-14
> "This Kid's Like a Powernaut!", "I've Got This One!", "Da-Da!", and "Let
> Me Tell You About Power!"
> A Superhuman World [SW10/WWW] webcomic
> by Scott Eiler
>
> "Ellipsis is one of the central characters of the Superhuman World.
> Despite being created in the early '90s, Ellipsis feels more like a
> post-9/11 character, all about geopolitics and superpowers as
> instruments of systemic change.

heh, I recall Warren Ellis doing power politics with Doom 1999 in the 
early '90s.  I think I precede him.  My contributors get the credit for 
pushing Ellipsis that direction even before then.  I game-mastered 
"Superhuman Control Initiative" scenarios at conventions in 1992, in 
which Ellipsis shifted his operations to the Bahamas - provided his 
hirelings could save him.  I had great fun making Ellipsis scenarios 
warp his universe, and so did the players.


> "In mainstream comics, such a character
> tends to pull others into his wake, retcons and revelations making them
> more a part of his world. But Scott pulls a fascinating trick here, by
> rooting him suddenly and deeply in Silver Age-y Kirby-inspired
> psychedelia - and that's not even the most important or interesting
> thing about this story!"

I sincerely thank you for your fascination about my trickiness.  But I 
hadn't intended it to be a regrogression tricky thing.  It is more a 
*standard* trick, because I operate a *shared* universe.  I have three 
"title" characters for my stories:  Ellipsis, Wyatt Ferguson, and the 
Powernaut.  When they meet, each one prevails depending on whose story 
it is.  That's kind of a shared universe rule.

The characters already had some amusing interactions in 2004-2005 text 
stories.  The Powernaut was around for the 2005 stories.  This peaked 
when Wyatt and the Powernaut published rival versions of the same story, 
known by the Powernaut as "Power Patrol, September-October 2005" and by 
Wyatt as "The Dark Maneuvers"! 
(http://www.eilertech.com/stories/2005/powerpatrol2.htm)  I emphasized 
the Powernaut's version when I published his 2005 cartoon "Workin' for 
the Powernaut!".  I promise more of the same.

I have already admitted, I did not originally plan Powernaut 1969 in my 
story plan.  When I put all the eligible characters together for it, it 
kind of exploded.  That's the way my stories usually work.  But of 
course it's the Powernaut's story, so he prevailed.  8{D>


> "One thing that's easy to forget in the Powernaut's sheer glorious sense
> of fun is that the character is truly a metaphor for power and its uses.
> The Powernaut of the '60s makes a strong thematic statement here. In one
> sense, it's just a restatement of 'with great power comes great
> responsibility', but it goes further - power itself is, well,
> *powerful*, and therefore dangerous in many ways. But it doesn't seem
> cynical, as many similar messages do."

Eeeee.

My title characters have their own personalities, of course.  Each has 
influenced me in turn.  Psychoanalysts would probably call the Powernaut 
my Id, Wyatt my Ego, and Ellipsis my Superego.  I think the Powernaut is 
actually making me a more pleasant human being right now - especially 
since I draw him in public while I have dinner, and people usually 
confuse Powernaut 2005 with me.  (|8{D>


> "Also, I love these tiny-huge artistic details, like the multicolored
> definitely-not-Infinity gems revolving around the Pentahedron along with
> masked metaphors of characters' power.Scott is just a plain good
> cartoonist, artwise and writingwise."

Thanks.  Just, thanks.


> Red Hart #1-3
> Untitled, "The Beasts Set Loose", "The Forest Prince Returns"
> An Eightfold [8FOLD] miniseries (I think?)
> by Tom Russell
>
> "RACC's most fascinatingly experimental title of the month, and that's a
> significant accomplishment when put next to Powernaut, ROKA, and Super
> Wizard. Tom swings for the fences with a classical form and a cosmic
> plotline."

I am pleased to have my stories in such company.

> "The plot is... amazing and abstract. It really does feel like a
> psychedlic '70s cosmic comic was adapted sometime in the early 1600s.
> Even the flirting feels lyrical. This is awesome."

I'm mostly impressed at how the other stories set up a galactic war 
scenario, and then this one brought in something else from right angles 
to reality.  I have always been inspired by the Rush album "Hemispheres" 
which set up a god-war and then brought in a spaceship from another 
album to resolve it.  This seems of that same tradition.


> Ripping Off King Arthur #200-204
> A webcomic [WWW] series
> by Arthur Spitzer
>
> "Every single plan goes into effect! Things change like a heck of a lot!
> Expectations get upended! It's all rather fascinating, to be honest."
>
> "Seriously, Dr. Deadbeat's story continues to go interesting places
> *even as* it becomes ever more silly and ridiculous. Arthur continues to
> impress."

And he learns artistic tricks.  As an artistic trickster, I approve.


> The Super Wizard From Space #49
> "The Red Hand of General Dragutin" Part 6
> A Marlo Vivo [MV] series
> by Wil Alambre
>
> "The most amazing thing about Super Wizard is how incredibly *willing*
> it is to leave behind the obvious, worn-out, cliche conflicts, and go
> for something new - something that, often, *should* be just as obvious,
> but that nobody *does*, you know? How willing it is, in this issue, to
> have the big army buildup be a feint, and to have everyone just be
> willing to leave that behind in favor of the actual emotional conflict
> that's been building up ever since this arc began."

I don't catch the emotional conflict so much, but the story *is* all 
personal.  Poor Sybilla Super-Bee and Petar Super-Wizard...  But I do 
get some underlying power politics.  Whaat, Super Wizards were supposed 
to protect us, but now we have super-beezzs and super-mummy-machines? 
And next, we take the Super-Wizard Homeworld!


> Andrew "NO .SIG MAN" "Juan" Perron, got to... catch up...

I probably have to let go some more.  Here I am on pre-vacation night.

-- 
(signed) Scott Eiler  8{D> -------- http://www.eilertech.com/ ---------

When you *are* the leader... whatever goes wrong... whether you did it
or not... *you* are held responsible. - Barack Obama

I know. - Archie Andrews

- from Archie #617, March 2011, scripted by Alex Simmons.