On this 30th Anniversary of Spleling Boy...

Here's what LNH Authors and Readers had
to say about the 5th Anniversary...

Enjoy!


From: Jeff Barnes <dri... at precisionet.net>
Subject: [LNH] LNH Fifth Anniversary Special, Part #1
Date: 1997/05/04
Message-ID: <336CE23E.3323 at precisionet.net>
X-Deja-AN: 239367522
Sender: e... at windlord.Stanford.EDU
X-Date: Sun, 04 May 1997 15:23:42 -0400
Organization: Drizzts 'R' Us
Reply-To: dri... at precisionet.net
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.creative


INTRODUCTION (by Jeff Barnes)

Wow. Five years.

Doesn't seem like it could possibly five years since the
LNH started. Or four and a half years since a certain over-eager
college student started writing a somewhat excrable piece of work
he called CRY.SIG. It's been a fun ride. Ups and downs, but
always exciting.

I suppose I could go on and on, but I'd rather leave that
to my collaborators. Suffice it to say that today, May 3, is the
LNH's official anniversary. Happy birthday, Legion of Net.Heroes!

And that's why you're reading this little post right now.
I decided it might be a cool idea to get some of the past and
present LNHers to write about the LNH on its fifth anniversary.
In typical LNH fashion, about one third agreed to do it -- then
never did. One person fell off the 'net for a while (hi, Rob!).
But the six who did reply with essays have their works showcased
here for posterity. Or, at least, for poor, demented future
LNHers.

So, with no further ado, here's our first writer:

-------------------------------------------------------------------
DAVE VAN DOMELEN

I've been part of the LNH almost since its beginning, arriving
online mere weeks after the whole thing got started...and right in
the middle of the launching of the first real storyline. I
remember what it was like before alt.comics.lnh was deluged with
spam...I remember what it was like before there was an
alt.comics.lnh...I remember what it was like before there was SPAM!
Gods, I feel old. Why, back in my day we had a couple loons with
boilerplates on Bolsheviks, Turks and Holocaust Revisionism, and
that was it.

We've gone from the madcap add-on where no one much cared
about continuity, character ownership, spelling, grammar, logic,
little things like that, to the current setup where I can honestly
say a lot of LNH work out there is better than the stuff I see in
real comics. Then again, I do read a lot of bad comics.

The LNH didn't save my life, or drastically change it, but it
certainly made things more interesting. Here's to another five
years <sudden sound of the Cliche Police breaking down the door and
hauling Dave away.>

-------------------------------------------------------------------
HUBERT BARTELS

Sometime in 1989, I first ran across Sunrise's Kei and Yuri from
the Dirty Pair. A black and white GIF used as a background for a Sun workstation interested me enough to find who were these two girls and why
did they have such big eyes?

A trip to a comic store turned up Adam Warren and Toren Smith's
comic - which introduced me to rec.arts.anime. An advertisement in the
comic told me about Appleseed and Dominion. Frustrated by the long wait
until the next issue of Dirty Pair came out, I bought my first issue of Dominion. It wasn't the first issue - but it featured two characters that
I've been influenced by ever since. I'm referring to Annapuna and Unipuma.

At the same time, anxious to see more of the Dirty Pair, I bought
my first Japanese laser disks. Unfortunately, Animagic, the company that I
was buying the disks from, didn't have the Dirty Pair disks in yet - so I
added the first Dominion disk because I liked the comic and it was cheap.
(This was long before any translated video was available in America.
Dominion had failed to make much of a splash in Japan.)

This was the first disk that arrived on my player. Watching the
antics of Annapuna and Unipuma - catgirls with guns - on the screen, I
sorta fell in love with catgirls and anime.

This was about the same time that, I first became interested in role-playing. I had read a few of the D&D rule books and begun to read the rec.games.frp newsgroup. In October 1990, Jim Gaynor was setting up a
PBEM Shadowrun game - and Yukipuma, a character I had created, based on Masamune Shirow's Annapuna, was accepted.

But for one reason or another, the PBEM game's start was
delayed. I was reading alt.cyberpunk for background and ideas - and in
November 1990, Phyllis Rostykus (who was also in the PBEM game) was
arguing that interfacing with the world of virtual reality could be
created with text and words - that it did not need head plugs and direct
brain wiring to be effective. She demonstrated her argument with a short third-person description. Others picked up her thread to the point that
they were forcibly asked to leave the alt.cyberpunk newsgroup. It was at
this point that alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo was created.

I moved with the group to alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo. Jim Gaynor's
PBEM game was still on hold so I began to consider what my character's background might be like. I created a copy of Yukipuma, called her Nekoko, introduced her into the world of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo and wrote
in-character observations to other people's comments. At this time, alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo was a form of chat-room like alt.callahans - with
people posting discussions and comments. But late in November 1990, I
posted a protest against the stream of people describing themselves as
chrome superhumans, augmented with every cyber-thing in the book and twice
as mean as a junkdog. I illustrated my protest with a short story showing
my character's overcoming her problems with brains, not the use of massive firepower.

Carl Rigney (who was also in the PBEM game) quickly posted a
response that took my story from a remembrance to an ongoing storyline. I
added to the story and Nekoko's Story was born. Nekoko's Story ran for
about a year in eighteen parts. As I wrote, other people added to the
story or began their own. alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo moved from a virtual bar
to a place to post cyberpunk fiction.

I think Nekoko's Story is where I learned a lot about writing. It taught me about pacing, mood, point of view, and those other tools that
the writer uses to create fiction. Some of the early parts were discarded
and rewritten several times. But I will never forget the fun in working
with others across the country on parts of the story - or watching other
people take and expand parts of the storyline.

However, in the summer of 1991, I began to become dissatisfied
with the cyberpunk genre. Too many of the stories were violent and
depressing. Other stories featured more of those invincible chrome
supermen, mowing down their opponents in one easy sweep of their
mini-guns. I ended the Nekoko storyline with my cat-girl disappearing into
the shadows and began to look around.

Annapuna and Unipuma had led to an interest in other catgirls.
Feral in X-Force and Pantha in DC's New Titans had led to an interest in American comics. To find more catgirls, I began to read
rec.arts.comics. Then, one day, a group of posters created the Legion of Net.Heroes.

On how Panta came to be...

I had not intended to write for the Legion of Net.Heroes when it
first came out; I was amused by the stories in rec.arts.comics. When alt.comics.lnh was created, I followed the stories to the new newsgroup.
It was around this time that I was becoming frustrated in how Pantha was
being used in the New Titans. Feral was being slowly turned into a monster
in X-Force by a writer and an editor who found her an embarassing leftover
from Rob Liefeld.

'Panta' was created when I decided that I could show how a catgirl could be written; she would be interesting, intelligent, fun, powerful
without being a Wolverine clone and let me have fun with the other
wonderful characters being created on alt.comics.lnh.

At this time, all the main characters on alt.comics.lnh were
Writer Characters - designed as if the writer had given some form of,
often silly, superpower. Panta was one of the first created to tell a
story. Panta was not a Writer Character - which caused some confusion at
first. It was only later that I found a quote that best expressed who
Panta was:

'"A novel may be said to be the man who writes it. Now it
is always true that a novelist, perhaps unconsciously, identifies
himself with one chief or central figure in his novel. Into this
character he puts not what he thinks he is, but what he hopes to
be. We call this spokesman the self-character. You will find one in
every one of my books and in the novels of everyone I can remember."
John Steinbeck, Letter to Chase Horton, April 26, 1957, printed in
his 'The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights'.

Panta is my self-character - not me, but the one who's hopes, dreams and thoughts, I could identify with. Panta herself used this quote in Tales of
the LNH #299 as she applied for LNH membership.

Panta had leopard's fur because I found the idea of orange and
black spots on a female body visually interesting. It also made sure that
she would not violate anyone's copyright; Cheetah (tm, DC) and Cheetah
(tm, Fred Perry) were based on cheetahs, Tigra (tm, Marvel), on tigers and
the others on lions. The name 'Panta' came from shortening 'Pantha'; it
also described the effect of her sexy body on fanboys. (Pant, pant,
drool.)

She was designed as sexy to relieve pressure on Lurking Girl - who already had one or two sexual harassing scenes written about her. But
Panta was given enough strength that any writer that did misuse Panta
would have their Writer Character soundly beaten up in a following
story. However, this did not help her when the infamous Woody Scandal
popped up a month or two later.

Panta was introduced in a short writeup along with Lost Cause Boy
and Kid Anarky. The three were quickly bound into a single storyline that became known as the Integrity Quest - the search for a writer with
integrity. Next came a limited series starring the leopard girl. Finally, Panta moved into the 'Tales of the Legion of Net.Heroes,' where she is
still today.

On writing Panta

Writing for a parody of superheroes allows a lot of freedom.
Panta's stories have taken her from space to the sub-sub-sub basements
below the Legion of Net.Heroes Headquarters building. Any genre, any
setting, any time is available to the leopard girl for an
adventure. Panta's fought Nazis, Marvel Stormtroopers and a god or
two. She's been in a feudal background, fighting fanboys and
alt.fan.bugtown. I've used Star Wars, the Terminator and Indiana Jones as source ideas; there are many more places to go and things to do.

I've been inspired by my anger at many of the follies that have
beset comics in America today - speculators, editors who let their best
writers go over ego problems, storylines written for fanboys, bad girl
art, the collapse of comic companies. Each has started a Panta story arc.

I've found that I enjoy writing; when things go well, there's a
movie going on in my head. As the story unwinds - it is all I can do to
type out the words into the computer. The problem is not what to write;
it's how to best bring the action, the dialogue, the mood and feeling to
the reader.

It's said that comedy is hard. I agree. I wanted to keep Panta a light-hearted look at comics - with serious moments from time to time. I
have to work to keep my writing from becoming too serious.

One of the things I've enjoyed most is working with other writers
on a storyline. Integrity Quest was great because I never knew what Doug Wojtowicz (Lost Cause Boy) or Stephane Savoie (Kid Anarky) would come up
with. Working with Ken Schmidt (Kid G) resulted in great scenes like the
road trip to Net.braska and Panta's emotional breakdown after the
announcement of Pocket Man's wedding. Just as much fun was actually
meeting some of the writers on the LNH - Jeff McCoskey and Paul Hardy as
Paul took his long tour of the States. I wish there was a chance to meet
more - including those in Australia and New Zealand.

Speaking of the antipodes, it's interesting to realize that 'Tales
of the LNH' has a wider distribution than many mainstream comics. I've
gotten comments from places I'd never thought would be reading about
Panta. It's made me begin to write for an international audience. (Things
like writing measurements in meterics as well as the old English system.)

On Panta's future...

When I wrote the first story under the 'Tales of the Legion of Net.Heroes', I set the issue number to #278. The number comes from the
license plate on my Landcruiser. It is also the number of my favorite
steam engine, Denver, Rio Grande and Western #278, a narrow gauge 2-8-0 in Colorado. I wanted to reflect the idea that the LNH book had been running
for a long while; I was now the new writer on the book. At that time, I
thought it would be neat to actually write a hundred issues of
'Tales'. The current issue is #358 - another 20 odd issues and my goal
will be met. After that, I'm not sure. 'Tales of the LNH' is one of the
longer running series in the LNH imprint. Two of the story arcs I'm
considering include a trip to ancient Japan with Ultimate Ninja and a
story with multiple Pantas.

Some people have wondered why I don't do much self-promotion. I
prefer to let the stories stand for themselves. I don't write previews
either; the subject of the stories often change from week to week.

Like one or two other writers for the Legion of Net.Heroes, I've
had a story published and distributed in a nationally distributed comic.
This is a feeling that is hard to describe - seeing the book with your
story in it on the 'This Week's Comics' shelf at your local comics store.
If anyone is really interested in looking it up, it's a two page story
that I wrote and drew for 'MechANImoids', starring Jeff Wood's Snobunni
and published by MU Press in 1994. My art work has improved since then.

I should point out that I picked out the title 'Tales of the LNH' based on an old Marvel or DC comic. It was only fifteen issues or so later
that I realized that it was also a pun - Panta being one of the few Net.Legionaires with a tail!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------ STEPH SAVOIE

Okay, so it's 3:00 am sunday, and I'm supposed to get this in to
Jeff (Drizzt) by sunday afternoon, so I'm working on my usual schedule. (Although if Jeff is smart he'll have said Sunday afternoon meaning Monday Night. But I digress...).
So, A discussion of the LNH from my point of view. My memories
are poor at best. But let's try...
September, 1992: Having just made my way into university (Acadia, Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada), I was shown the wonders of the 'net. And
even before I'ld used email, I discovered alt.comics.lnh (It was high up
on the list (starting with "a") of newsgroups which sounded interesting
(ie comics related). But I was DARNED if I could stand what "lnh" stood
for!) The FAQ said you should contact one of the Main Guys if interested (Drizzt, wReam, or Scavenger), so I mailed Scav (he having just posted a
story, I think. Or something.)
Man I pity him.
I had a barely structured concept. I was still trying to think of
a net.persona (trying for a play on words off my name (Savoie can be
broken into "Sa voie" in French, or "his/her voice") can coming up with something lame involving Sonics. I can't really remember. Then this transformed into Kid Anarky somehow...
(At this point Anarky had been introduced in Batman that summer,
and looked like a one-shot villain. So I figured no-one would see that
theft of intellectual property. I'ld also seen a Fantagraphic comic
called Kid Anarchy which I thought was excellent, a semi-autobiographical
book of a kid in a small town with the trademark "A in a circle" on his
shirt. THAT was the extent of his connection to anarchy. The concept
still appeals to me a lot. (2 issues were produced). I ended up buying
them much later)
The concept for Kid A was simple enough: A character with sonic powers (I have NO idea why called Kid Anarky) is depressed by the
darkening of his universe (The vertigo line had just been created for DC,
with many books getting correspondingly darker), and maked it to a
brighter place, where he can only use his powers to create big visible
sound effects (that maybe he can hit people with?).
Well, that went over like a lead baloon. People just didn't care. (Note the number of appearanced of Kid A not in Integrity Quest.)
BUT, this wierd "story" me and two other guys were constructing
seemed to be coming along nicely... (To me Integrity Quest (as I ended up calling it) is the penultimate LNH story, with each writer wondering what
the heck the next would do, no-one consulting the other, people just
posting chapters when they felt like it. And it worked, I think. Mostly.
I apologize to Hubert for posting one chapter despite having seen his
draft for the same part.
And I think Doug was drunk when he wrote the "woody" post.
But anyway.)
(Wow, I'm doing pretty well for parenthese. Hard to return to the main point when there isn't one tho.)
SO, we wrapped up Integrity Quest, I christened the team the Net.Patrol (being a HUGE Grant Morrison fan, and he was wrapping up his
run on Doom Patrol), and never did another story. Sigh. Almost. But
not.
I did my short "Vertical Plain" mini (which is a play on Vertigo Plane, as in his home dimension), which I meant to do several of, the
first being Ascent to Nothing, followed by Progress in Limbo or Descent
into All or something like that. VP was cool at the time since it
integrated many of the going-on of the LNH of the time (ie very
contemporary), but this makes it almost impossible to read later.
(By this point I thought I knew what Kid A's problem was: LNHers
work best when they represent some kind of Comics Cliche. So I made Kid A
a herald (in the Galactus sense, which is to say "incarnation" or "representative") of Chaos (er K.Oss, whatever), a cliche in the extreme.
SO much for that theory.
I also planned to have a big culmination where Me and Kid A sit
around talking a-la AnimalMan #26 and Kid A berates me for doing this
story idea, since he knows he's a fictional character already (as all
LNHers did. When the writer wanted them to), reducing this potentally
poignant scene to pure ego-stroking on my part. ûI still regret nto
writing that...)
So, that's MY story. I dropped out of the runnings after my 2nd
year of university (not that it helped my grades; by then I had discovered MUDing), and haven't recovered since.
And now the LNH has moved to RACC, where it's been somewhat depersonalised I think. The LNH alone use to be able to support an entire (semi-non-existant) newsgroup after all, and I KNEW everyone who posted
there. I miss that...
And I miss the talk of the LNH T-shirt, the LNHcon (to happen
somwhere near Chicago, as I recall), and such.
But I did get to meet Martin Phipps (who produced the most
phenomenal quantity of writing you'd ever imagine... (not to be confused
with "the most phenomenal writing...", but that's a seperrate essay.))
once when I visited Montreal (summer of 93). I kind of invited myself to
sleep at his place, and I do feel bad for that...
And now... I'm trying to hard to get back into writing, but
there's just no time...I can't put in the high caliber of slacking I once did... I have enough material for about 10 issues of NWO: 2012, a couple
of Insanity Watch stories, and a new Vertical Plain mini... but how?
And of course, the fact that there are actually now some very
talented writers producing for RACC... it seems pointless to put out my
little vignettes. I'm not a writer after all, I still write the same now
as when I started, and don't see myself improving.
Ah well. I shouldn't end this missive on a downer, so I'll
mention that I applaud the young scrappers who'll actually take up the
fight and put out something for this crusty old label instead of starting
their own. I've read quite a bit of it, and the energy and enthusiasm
shows.
(Ironically enough, whenever I get the urge to write LNH stories
now, I'll usually read some new existing stories instead, and the urge
goes away. Probably some kind of self-preservation instinct)
So I go, but I'll always wear my label (not the "freak" one, the "LNHer" one) with pride. Part of it is the pride of knowing that someone, somewhere, years from now, could accidentally read Integrity Quest, and wonder...
"What the HELL is this?!"
The which I answer: What the hell... indeed.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------ RUSS ALLBERY

Comedy.

("Praise comedy!" suddenly comes to mind, but since the line is "Praise conflict!" I can't really use that.)

This might sound funny coming from me. After all, I have a reputation, or
had a reputation, as the defender of all that's serious in the LNH. Dove
head first into a few heated debates over that a while back, and ended up moving most of my writing out of the LNH when I concluded that I couldn't
write what I wanted to in the same universe as Cheesecake-Eater Lad.

(Of course, I don't have much of a reputation for anything at all any
more, probably, given that I seem to have turned into the Bird Behind The Curtain who makes things happen and doesn't say much. Hmm. Someday must
do something about that.)

See, I was under the impression that I really wanted to write serious
stories. And, by and large, I still do, if mostly because the characters
who have asked me to write stories about them are fairly serious ones. In
most of the stories that come to mind, humor plays a fairly incidental
role. ("Hey, what about us!" Yes, yes, I know, I'm getting to you, just
hang on.)

In watching racc since its inception, and alt.comics.lnh before that, I've found that this is actually fairly typical, or at least not uncommon. A
lot of people seem to strongly prefer serious writing to comedy. At the
same time, most people greatly appreciate good comedy. There are a few
reasons for this, I think.

The main one is, let's face it, it's easier to write serious fiction than
it is to write comedy. Mediocre serious writing is still enjoyable to
some extent. It's still at least readable even if it's off. Mediocre
comedy, on the other hand, is...well, let's face it. Mediocre comedy is
BAD. Comedy that misses is rather worse than serious scenes that miss. I think this is a lot of the reason why people don't write more comedy,
don't try comedy, or stick to serious writing. I *wish* I could be Ben
Brown, who can come up with gags that are actually funny pretty much off
the top of his head (and we've hung out together in person, and it's not
just on-line that he can do that), but I'm not. It takes a good, solid
year for enough ideas for a comedy episode to really gel for me. Or
longer.

I can read sweeping arcs of Omega crossovers and think "hmm...yeah, I can
come up with ideas like that and maybe pull them off." I read Punk with a Gun[1] and think "this is inspired brilliance that I couldn't have come up
with in a million years."

The other major reason for the heavy emphasis on serious writing is the inherent appeal of epic mystery. By mystery, I don't mean discovering who killed the heir of the Pengrass Estate while she sat reading in her locked bedroom. I mean something more like, well, this:

Finally, the door irised open, disturbing the thick layer of dust
covering the floor and filling the air with dancing particles
caught in the beams of their flashlights, and beyond was utter
dark. Slowly, they stepped forward, shining light around, but the
beams were swallowed and crushed by the sheer depth of the
blackness. And then, as one of the intrepid explorers leaned on
the wall to look out through the door, there was a metallic clunk
so deep it could be felt in one's bones, and suddenly there was
light. They stood, together, in awe, looking out into an
emptiness that could hold some cities, at a starship hanging
motionless in space.

That sort of mystery. The "what is it, where did it come from, what can
it do, and how can we find out more about it" type of mystery. The sort
of mystery that keeps one reading, episode after episode, for more to be revealed. In short, the good, old, time-honored sense of wonder.

You really can't do that in comedy. Sure, you could take that scene and
drop it straight *into* a comedy, but you aren't, as a rule, going to be
able to pull off pure sense of wonder in a satisfying fashion when people
are laughing at it. At best, you can do incidental humor in the midst of
an otherwise serious piece, which isn't hte same.

And, furthermore, the above scene came to me in about five minutes.
Trying to find a way to make it funny would take me days, if not more.
And I don't think I'm alone in that.

Now you might be wondering at this point what I'm rambling on about,
especially since the LNH is a comedy imprint primarily. Well, it so
happens that just recently I've had occasion to gain new appreciation for comedy. The circumstances are long and involved, and I won't get into
them except to mention that angst is the mind-killer, the little death.... Er...sorry. Anyway, I've been going back and looking at how important a
role the LNH really does play here in racc, since the LNH is the primary, established humor imprint.

And we definitely need that. We need what the LNH has provided faithfully
for all these years, the balance to all of the epic drama and stunning adventure. The realization that someone, somewhere, there is someone who
finds all of this hilarious. That there are people whose reaction to
danger and mystery is not appropriate awe but irreverant commentary. And
just more generally the realization that epic dramas have to be scattered
with some parts that *aren't* epic, just like life.

What's more, the realization that comedy is hard makes it all the more appreciated. And means that it's even more vital that there be a place
where people can *try*. Sure, a lot of the gags fall flat, but like
everything else it takes practice. Sure, parts of the LNH backstory
aren't particularly funny at all, but that's because a lot of it was
*written* as practice. And through all of that emerges a few wonderful, shining moments of brilliance. "DINSDALE!"[3]

There are also lessons that serious writing can learn from comedy, one of
the most important of which is that explaining too much is worse than not explaining at all. Everyone is aware instinctively that jokes lose all
their amusement when explained. The concept of comedic timing, which is
what explanation destroys, is vital. But this is true of mystery as well;
the person writing about long-lost spaceships is treading that thin line between revealing enough to keep the reader interested and not revealing
the entire story and having the reader go "huh, that's all?". This
balancing act has more in common with comedic timing than I think most
people realize.

So here's to the LNH, which has for years endured scorn, ridicule, and
lack of appreciation from people like my younger self, has steadfastly
endured despite occasional attempts to tell stories in it that really
didn't fit, and which has, through it all, provided us with our dose of
humor, some of it very bad, some of it occasionally brilliant. Here's to comedy.

Long live Cheesecake-Eater Lad!

--------------------

[1] Punk with a Gun is a very early Superguy title. It's also a
character in the Superguy universe. It's the joint responsibility of
Ben Brown and Rob Furr, better known in most circles as the Furr/Brown
Gestalt. Read it.[2] It's funny.

[2] <URL:http://www.eyrie.org/cgi-bin/autocollect.cgi> and search for
"Punk with a Gun".

[3] Legion of Occult Heroes. Read it too. Paul Hardy is sorely missed.


-- jdb
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeff Barnes dri... at precisionet.net Software Engineer, Alydaar Software http://www.eyrie.org/~drizzt/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------
"There are three types of people in this world: those who are good at
math, and those who aren't."

From: Ken Schmidt <t... at eyrie.org>
Subject: Re: [LNH] LNH Fifth Anniversary Special, Part #1
Date: 1997/05/04
Message-ID: <5kjml3$aq5 at eyrie.org>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 239404102
Sender: e... at windlord.Stanford.EDU
References: <336CE23E.3323 at precisionet.net>
X-Date: 4 May 1997 21:11:15 -0700
Organization: The Eyrie
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.creative


Hubert typed:

However, this did not help her when the infamous Woody Scandal
popped up a month or two later.

This line got me to thinking. It got me thinking that either Hubert was
going for a very randy pun, or he didn't think about what he was typing. ;) (Good job Hubert:)

Working with Ken Schmidt (Kid G) resulted in great scenes like the
road trip to Net.braska and Panta's emotional breakdown after the
announcement of Pocket Man's wedding.

Working with Hubert made the Kid G and Panta story turn from a decent
idea with middling writing into the story found in LNHCP Special #3.
If you liked the idea behind the story, that was mostly me. If you
liked the way the phrasing of the story conveyed the ideas, that
is mostly Hubert.

Hubert's writing is one of the things that settled my mind to
try writing for the LNH again. (Not the only one, but I'm not bring up the other reasons for fear of embarrasing them ;)

Ms. Fike sums up in her essay a reason why I stopped and dropped
from the LNH a few years back (not the only one, but one of them).
The LNH stopped being a group of people I knew, or in some cases
wanted to know. A few things I witnessed between people collaborating
(well, at least writing in a shared looniverse) just turned me off to
the place. I couldn't believe the people I thought I knew would
act like that. And it seemed to have caught on in the mindset of
the time, back when I stopped paying attention to stories.
I admit I kept reading all of the non-story threads because that
is what I enjoyed most about aclnh, knowing the people behind the stories
that made me laugh or smile.

I still shake my head at everyone who stopped reading aclnh who
considers themself a 'regular' of the Looniverse. I couldn't
believe my eyes when this post was not on aclnh while it was here.
I know the big complaint/reason behind dropping aclnh is that
there is too much spam vs. content on the newsgroup.

You want to know something?

I don't blame the spammer-side of this equation.


---Ken


From: Jeff McCoskey <j... at ix.netcom.com>
Subject: [LNH] LNH Fifth Anniversary Special, Part #1.5
Date: 1997/05/13
Message-ID: <5l8u8b$7cu at sjx-ixn5.ix.netcom.com>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 241310392
Sender: e... at windlord.Stanford.EDU
References: <336CE23E.3323 at precisionet.net> <5kjml3$aq5 at eyrie.org> X-Date: Tue, 13 May 1997 05:24:37 GMT
Organization: Netcom
X-Netcom-Date: Mon May 12 10:29:47 PM PDT 1997
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.creative


Well, as one of the many unfulfilled promisors of a contribution, my idea is better late than never right? Besides, by billing myself as 1.5, I'll get

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