LNH/META: A 28 1/2 Year look at 30 Years of LNH

[Drew Nilium]

On 4/29/22 1:15 PM, Arthur Spitzer wrote:
<snip>
> Let's see where the Enthusiasm Meter is for this 30th Anniversary!
> 
> ** Looks at the Enthusiasm Meter **
> 
> Crickets begin chirping.
> 
> And then quit chirping and head to the parking lot so that they can beat the traffic.
> 
> Heh.
> 
> ** sheepish grin **
> 
> *Ahem* okay, looks like I'm doing this one solo.

Aggggggh, I'm sorry. X3; Obviously, it's been A Time.

> I was in my final year
> of High School, 18 years old, was using an educational network called Nova-Net which
> had some access to the internet (there was e-mail and gopher -- and that was about
> it).  You could use the gopher protocol to read the various USENET groups and I
> discovered a way to post to the groups using e-mail.

Oh, fascinating. God, all those old protocols, huh...

> And when I knew what it was -- a bunch of writers doing superhero parodies all set in
> the same share Universe (err -- I mean LOONiverse!), I had to join because I loved
> superheroes and parodies -- and all these brilliant ideas in my head for even more
> crazy characters that populate it.  And all these stories were free!

yessssssss yesyesyesyes |> Boy do I know that feeling <3

> At the time I was living in a small town that didn't have any comic books stores or
> book stores or anything cool.  I think the Safeway did have some comics in the
> magazine section -- so I could have bought those, but they always seemed expensive
> (like a $1.50 for part seven of a seventeen part arc).

Also familiar. X3;

> About
> this time also Russ "Eagle" Allbery was setting up the current archive, which would
> be a lot more complete.  Unfortunately at the time, since those were compressed files
> I didn't have the ability to unzip them so I usually had to pester Russ to send me
> some unzipped files and would have to wait till college for access to the unzipping
> technology.

Awwwwww. X3 I remember filling up, like, all my dad's floppy disks with text files.

> So, I started writing at that time also -- brought in this character that I made from
> this novanet computer game called Avatar and had written a few stories with -- The
> Slobbering Grue! 

Dun da-dun! :D

> Called the series JONG (don't remember why).

Curse you, Dr. Jong!

> Graduated from High School around
> that time -- and was going to lose access to my novanet account although I think I
> did have it long enough to say I was going to write something for Retcon Hour (the
> big crossover of the day -- parody of Zero Hour) -- but other than creating The
> Chuggernaut didn't really contribute much to it.

That's a memorable addition, at least. |>

> Then I started college -- so I had the ability to post again.  But I never really did
> that much writing -- some more issues of JONG, some more Omaha Project stuff --
> started doing On the Deadbeat, which while being NTB I did reference quite a bit of
> LNH stuff.

Hmmmm, I see

> he had very constrained schedule and instead he invited me to go to Phoenix
> -- where he was going to meet up at Jeff McCoskey's place with Hurbert Bartels also
> in attendance.  I declined though -- was a bit to timid to try my luck on the Phoenix
> Freeways -- and figured I'd probably get lost.  So didn't get to do that.

Awwwww, I'm sorry.

> Around 1998, probably inspired by various comics I was reading at the time
> (Morrison's JLA, Busiek's Thunderbolts, and Ellis's Stormwatch) I created the Saviors
> of the NET as a cascade for other to jump on if they wanted.  And various writers
> added to that bit of craziness and that was fun.

:D That's been one of the big influential things for me.

> Around 1999 was the end of my college (my terrible, terrible college years -- where I
> basically flunked out).

Oof. Also, unfortunately, familiar. :/ Happens to a lot of us.

> I did manage to survive Y2K and my parents helped me get a job in Yuma, AZ -- so I
> moved there (and sadly enough still have that job).

Hey, keeping such a thing thru all the bullshit of the last twenty years is an 
accomplishment.

> I did sometimes go to the library and use their computers to check out what was going
> on in RACC and did see Marc Singer finish the Saviors of the NET storyline (and he
> did a great job ending -- no complaints here).

Very agreed. |>

> Definitely by 2004 quite a bit of the posters that
> had been hanging around RACC in the '90s had gone off to the other parts of the NET
> (messageboards, blogs, live journal and so on).  I think by the time I came back all
> of the OMEGA Writers had already left RACC.  There were still plenty of people -- but
> you could tell that USENET was beginning to have some very bad health problems.

Mmmmmm, yeah.

> But during various discussions about the various
> problems of the LNH -- you'd always have these 'There are too many characters' or
> 'There are not enough rules' as reasons why less people were joining up or not
> reading.  And so LNHY had a lot more rules and way less characters (each writer was
> only allowed one character to be on the LNH).  And it kind of proved that too many
> character too few rules wasn't the LNH's problem.

Yeeeeeeeah. Like, I love LNHY, and I think the rules give it character, but the 
LNH being full of characters and highly freeform never really stopped people - 
heck, it was the most so when it was busiest.

(The 1996-97 era did have stuff happen that poisoned the well a bit, but I don't 
think the solution to that was rules - on the contrary, I think what was needed 
was a more open and forgiving community, and developing one of those is a big 
reason RACC has lasted as long as it has.)

> It wasn't a great success (but
> there were people who wrote for it -- so I can't really complain.  I mean given a
> choice between writing for LNHY and LNH Classic -- I preferred the Classic one like
> everyone else).

I really need to get back to Death of Trophy Wife, I have such plans, but, well, 
me and plans. X3 The fact that HHS is actually, properly finishing is a 
testament to the fact that I'm *finally* catching up with what I want to do.

> The health of the LNH between 2005 and 2007 -- it was fairly robust.  Mostly old
> timers were keeping it alive -- but you'd occasionally have a new comer pop in. 

Definitely an excellent time. |>

> One
> of the big high points of this era was the Infinite Leadership Crisis (or Cry.Sig)
> that happened during April 2007.  You had Jamas Enright, me, Martin Phipps, Amabel
> Holland, Mitchell Crouch, Saxon Brenton, Jessica "Jaelle" Ihimaera-Smiler, Rob
> Rogers, and Lalo Martins participating in it.  It was great fun -- I suppose the only
> problem was my idea for ending it as a prelude for my Beige Midnight storyline idea.

In particular, I think the only problem was that "where are the leaders going 
and who's doing it" was set up as a mystery, but it wasn't really solvable. If 
it had been, the Beige Midnight lead-in would've been great, and honestly, it 
still does work. :>

> And so from 2007 to 2012, I was deeply immersed into the whole Beige Countdown/
> Midnight storyline (my original plan was that it would only take like a year or so to
> write.  Hah!) 

God, do I know that one X3

> (Also in 2007 I created the first (and sadly only) LNH Webcomic --
> called The LNH Webcomic.)

God, I should do one of those... I want to do everything, sigh. X3

> By 2011, I still hadn't finished Beige Midnight and we were getting close to the 20th
> Anniversary of the LNH and there was a big discussion about making a new LNH Imprint
> (and I think some wanted to just reboot it).  I had my own ideas and others had their
> own ideas and there was a flame war between me and this other difficult person who
> always had a knack for getting into all kinds of arguments with other LNH writers.

God, that guy. I'm so glad we got rid of him.

> I decided to just let others do what they wanted with the new LNH imprint (called
> LNH20) and I'd focus on trying to finally finish Beige Midnight.

Super fair, but you're definitely always welcome there. n.n

> In 2012, I went to my first Real Life RACCCon in Benicia, CA -- and met Rob Rogers,
> Saxon Brenton, and Scott Eiler.  And that was great -- glad I got to do that.  And
> afterwards I managed to finally finish the whole Beige Midnight Saga in September of
> 2012.  I don't know how long the whole thing was (pretty sure it was over 100,000
> words), but probably the closest I'll ever get to writing a novel.

HELL YEAH. That was so amazing. <3 <3 <3 Inspiring! I should reread it sometime 
soon. X3

> And after finishing Beige Midnight -- I felt the need for another big creative
> project, but I kind of knew that it needed to be something outside the LNH and RACC.
> So in October of 2012 I started working on the Ripping Off King Arthur webcomic and
> that's been my big focus (well that and my more smutty comic!) even since.

Heck yeah! :>

> Went to Benicia, CA again -- and saw Rob and Scott for another RACCCon in 2019.  And
> that was fun.

n.n Someday I will go to one of those. X3

> My LNH output has definitely gotten leaner and leaner as the years go by.  I mean
> I've started some of the most recent cascades like Just Another Multi-Writer Cascade
> that will Probably Never Have an Ending, WikiLull, and the most recent Hungry, Hungry
> Sabertooths -- and then kind of abandon them to let others do what they will to them.

They really are amazing starters. X3

> I mean I'll probably never actually quit from writing LNH stories -- but it also
> wouldn't surprise me if the next one I write is also my last one.  I thought about
> doing a story for the 30th Anniversary -- but writing is hard -- and as I grow old my
> energy gets to be less and less.  (Did manage to hack out a RACCCafe story -- so
> there's that.)

Heck yeah you did. :> They're always enjoyed.

> I kind of think that maybe writing for the LNH should be a young
> persons game and if the LNH is to have any future you can't really depend on the over
> 40 crowd to save it.  But those of you stubborn old timers that want to keep
> breathing life into the LNH to keep it from its final rest -- well, here's to you.
> And here's to all the writers and readers that kept it alive for 30 years.

:> Honestly, I find it hard to imagine not writing it for the rest of my life. 
But I would love to see new blood come in...

Drew "maybe someday I'll find a way" Nilium