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02-23-2010, 03:27 AM | #11821 |
W.O.R.M.S. Commander
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Back in the US of A! (NoVA)
Posts: 10,649
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That's too bad Oliver. Maybe if you bug him enough, he might come to realize, "Hey you know what this guy and his friends know more about these characters than I do. They know what fits where, and have tried to figure out how it all ties in together. Next time I have a question about who can be subordinate to who, or who has a relationship with so and so, I should asks these guys."
OK that will never happen. What question did you ask him. It sounds like he's worried about the material he's working on now, and hasn't even started working on 155 1/2? Not that there is anything to work with near the end there. The last 2 years of the Marvel run were terrible. Yeah Bring on Ninja Force! |
02-23-2010, 03:59 AM | #11822 |
I.O. SpecOps
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: In a secret underground bunker.
Posts: 4,404
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Quote:
Gentleman, here's another unsatisfying answer from Larry, and to be honest I think this is his way of saying: Please don't ask anymore quesitons.
"I have no idea. Impossible to recreate where my head was when I wrote the original file cards. Everything about the Joes has been reimagined so many times, and I am in the midst of yet another reboot, so everything pre-dating this past January seems kind of moot to me."
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Dr. Venture: Why is it every time I need to get somewhere, we get waylaid by jackassery? http://www.hisstank.com/forum/g-i-jo...r1s-b-s-t.html |
02-23-2010, 04:49 AM | #11823 |
EQ-Viper
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 4,343
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Yeah, I wouldn't think too much about Hama's curt response oliver. As has been mentioned by others in this thread, Hama wrote most of the original Joe stories and filecards under some pretty difficult circumstances (deadline-wise and in terms of how much creative leeway he had), so it's really no surprise that he can't be arsed to remember certain details and whatnot. It was "seat-of-his-pants" writing for the most part, which occasionally resulted in repetitive dialogue, plot holes you could drive a Mobile Command Center through, and continuity errors galore.
But that's part of the quaint charm of the original Marvel comics for me. The spontaneity of the writing struck a chord with me as a kid. In retrospect, the fact that Hama oftentimes had no idea how the last page of a monthly 22 page comic would play out until he actually got to it probably added to the genuine sense of danger and giddy excitement that I got from those stories. I think what's really changed in the years since he last wrote a proper GI Joe comic book are our expectations as fans of the property. We're older, more "sophisticated," and we want the same attention to continuity and detail in any new telling or re-telling of GI Joe as we have in contemporary entertainment (notice how the amount of time and/or page count alloted to exposition in narrative media has increased in the past twenty years). I don't think Larry Hama is the ideal guy to do that for us, though. He's from an older comic book writing tradition, and expecting him to go from his old process to a more measured and deliberate one consistent with contemporary writing trends might be asking a bit too much. He'll always be my go-to writer for fun and relatively lighthearted GI Joe comics that help me re-connect with the sense of wonder I had when I was a kid (and that's what I'm hoping the new series he's writing later this year will be), but there are other writers out there (Christos Gage comes to mind) who are better suited to writing a more internally consistent, historically accurate, "sophisticated" and "realistic" (however you wish to define those terms) take on GI Joe. Last edited by zuludelta; 02-23-2010 at 04:58 AM.. |
02-23-2010, 10:54 AM | #11824 |
Crimson Guard
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Philadelphia
Posts: 2,157
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Quote:
I think you're right. I've been expecting Larry to have this giant old notebook with all his character bios in it. He doesn't. And you're right, most of us on this thread have put a lot more thought into that Larry ever intended to. It makes me a little sad... and maybe that's why I'm finding his work less than satisfying.
But I wouldn't sweat it too much, man. Part of the fun for me, and I suspect this is true for most of us in this thread, has been the freedom to kind of fill in the blanks myself. And like Hama said, things have been retconned so much over the years that nothing is really written in stone anymore. So, we can just pick and choose the parts of the Joe history we like, ignore the parts we don't, and make up our own stuff tomake it all fit together. And in Hama's defense, he does respond to the questions. He may not give us the detailed answers we'd hope for, but at least he doesn't just ignore you. Last edited by lister; 02-23-2010 at 10:57 AM.. |
02-23-2010, 01:15 PM | #11825 |
Crimson Guard
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Joe HQ
Posts: 1,716
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I think it's better off if people just make their own little world. Trying to put all the comics, filecards, etc.. together into one story and timeline would probably drive you nuts.
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02-23-2010, 01:34 PM | #11826 |
I Ride with Claymore!!!
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Alexandria, Virginia
Posts: 6,821
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Quote:
I guess, here's what I would have liked (at a minimum): It took Mr. Hama until the next day to provide an answer. It would have taken a total of 15 minutes for him to go to Yojoe.com and read the relevant filecards if he needed a refresher. And then, with no contrary evidence in play, he could have just made something up/shot from the him... just like he wrote his stories. He could have been like, "Yeah, I always thought of Flint as a Princeton Grad." or "Oh, Flint went to KU on a baseball scholarship." Anything would have done. And we would have said, "Well, Larry said this, _____, so that's the answer we've been waiting on." And that would have been great. The same for Falcon. He could have said anything: "Oh, yeah he's supposed to be an OCS grad." or "Actually, his dad was a West Point Officer and he went to West Point too." He could literaly have made it up, and that would have been fine, and it wouldn't have taken much more time than it took to type the answer he gave me. And so it just seems like a brush off, and a way of not encouraging future questions.
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Why aren't there more Joes from the Deep South? And would it kill Hasbro to give us a Marine Corps Officer? |
02-23-2010, 01:36 PM | #11827 |
I Ride with Claymore!!!
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Alexandria, Virginia
Posts: 6,821
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Guys, seriously, no comment on my Chuckles theory? Really? What's this thread coming to?
;) just kidding
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Why aren't there more Joes from the Deep South? And would it kill Hasbro to give us a Marine Corps Officer? |
02-23-2010, 01:41 PM | #11828 |
Crimson Guard
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Joe HQ
Posts: 1,716
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If he does write back that Falcon went to West Point, he's going to be quoted on that. Will that be permanetly engraved into the GI Joe encyclopedia? lol
Maybe he's just playing it safe so as to not "rock the boat" anymore and end up giving 10 difference fans 10 difference answers. Just my guess. |
02-23-2010, 01:42 PM | #11829 |
Crimson Guard
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Joe HQ
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02-23-2010, 01:47 PM | #11830 |
Crimson Guard
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Philadelphia
Posts: 2,157
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Quote:
You're right. And I am thankful that he does take the time to write back. It's flattering, and I get excited everytime I get an email from Larry Hama. So I don't mean to be rude or dismissive about Mr. Hama's correspondence, but it just feels like I'm being dismissed.
I guess, here's what I would have liked (at a minimum): It took Mr. Hama until the next day to provide an answer. It would have taken a total of 15 minutes for him to go to Yojoe.com and read the relevant filecards if he needed a refresher. And then, with no contrary evidence in play, he could have just made something up/shot from the him... just like he wrote his stories. He could have been like, "Yeah, I always thought of Flint as a Princeton Grad." or "Oh, Flint went to KU on a baseball scholarship." Anything would have done. And we would have said, "Well, Larry said this, _____, so that's the answer we've been waiting on." And that would have been great. The same for Falcon. He could have said anything: "Oh, yeah he's supposed to be an OCS grad." or "Actually, his dad was a West Point Officer and he went to West Point too." He could literaly have made it up, and that would have been fine, and it wouldn't have taken much more time than it took to type the answer he gave me. And so it just seems like a brush off, and a way of not encouraging future questions. |
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