Legion World Forums LEGION CLUBHOUSE The Legion of Super-Heroes Levitz talks Legion

Those crazy youths and their futuristic communication forums! What'll they dream up next, I wonder?

I wonder if Levitz will reintroduce the Leader elections?

Like we have going on soon here at Legion World. Don't forget to vote for Dev Em!

If Levitz was crazy enough to read this board, I'm thinking that our standard election, er, conduct would cure him of any nostalgia on that front pretty quickly.

I'm sure...or we may think that Giffen has taken over again.

I finally got to hear the entire Substitute Podcasters interview today. There was some rambling (I tend to have a short attention span for spoken word on the net) from the regulars, but basically it was pretty interesting.

Hey all,

Paul came and sat down with us a second time on Legion of Substitute Podcasters Episode #86. He gave us some great teases for upcoming issues of Adventure & Legion, as well as some fascinating talk about digital distribution from someone who has had a hat in both the business and creative sides of the industry.

Thanks for all of the kind words about the first interview. Paul's definitely a gentleman and we definitely appreciate his taking the time to come back and talk to us again!

http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/www.archive.org/download/losp86i/losp86.mp3

curious..is there a transcript where I can read for sure since I cannot hear the audio (I am deaf) because I would love to know what Paul has been teasing you and others?

I've only got a horrible old dial-up connection which is too slow for podcast/video things so I'd like to echo superboymddjr's request for a transcript or summary of this interview please.

I am sure somebody else will be able to do a more accurate/detailed recap but this is what I can remember:

They talk about the response to the new book and Paul says that at signings he is seeing a lot of familiar faces but also quite a few people saying that this is the first Legion book they have picked up.

They also talk about how some people read quite a lot into a story and try and interpret what they see in ways that were far from what the writer was intending. He uses the Imra has TK discussion here as an example of this and seems to say this was not his intention but also leaves enough room for him to carry it on if he wanted.

He reveals that the variant cover for #2 is Superboy and Krypto

There is a big discussion on how technology has changed for creators since he stopped writing previously. He mentions that for him it has not changed too much as there are only so many ways you can write a script but on the artistic side is where the changes have come with the digitalisation of things speeding up the process vastly. He states that whereas before they would be working two or three months in advance on a book it is not uncommon for them to be working on a book the month it is due to be released.

Related to this there is a discussion regarding digital distribution and piracy. Paul says he is against piracy and is glad that working out a viable digital business model is now somebody else's problem.

It was an interesting interview and I have probably missed something important out but this should tide you over until something better comes along.

Thank you stuorstew for your synaps of the interview. Just like cleome I too have a short attention span to stuff like that, so your sum-up was great!

Thanks stuorstew.

It was another great interview. Thanks for posting a notice about it. You guys have a fun podcast and I am going to try and listen more often.

I loved listening to it! It's obvious that you care very much about the Legion. It was great that Legion World was mentioned too!

Thanks, all!

And thanks for that summary, Stu. Unfortunately we don't have a transcript, mainly because it's something we haven't really thought about. Stu's summary reminded me of something that Mr. Levitz said at Wizard Chicago in 2008 I believe. Someone asked him about audio comics and he told a story about how when he was young he'd record himself reading comics on audio tapes for a blind friend. It's awesome how the fan community helps each other!

In case anyone's curious about the show, we've got a general DC talk episode up today, and then next Monday, June 14th, we begin a series of episodes on the Great Darkness Saga!

The Great Darkness Saga series should be cool episodes. I'm interested to get some behind-the-scenes info from Paul Levitz as to some of his thought processes writing the story at that time.

Two other things of note from the interview: the baseball game in Adventure #12 was a riff on an old Superboy story, The One Man Baseball Team, which appeared in the Adventure issue that featured the Beast Boy story.

Re: R.J. Brande, Paul says "I ripped off his speech pattern years ago from a great Pol Anderson character, Nicholas van Rijn, wonderful science fiction character... a futuristic Scandinavian rich baron of space, who alternated between being surrounded by serving girls and outsmarting aliens, outsmarting other civilizations and making gazillions of dollars. Brande doesn't do the serving girls because it's the wrong species for him."

I haven't read Anderson's books with the van Rijn character, but here's some of what Wikipedia has on him:

Nicholas van Rijn (2376 to c. 2500 A.D.) is a fictional character who plays the central role in the first half of Poul Anderson's Technic History. He is a flamboyant capitalist adventurer, and is Dutch, apparently a resident of Djakarta. His speech is bombastic and heavily laced with unconventional constructs, puns, oaths, and words from various Northern European languages, in particular Dutch, German, and possibly Danish. Although he frequently employs malapropisms such as "Angular-Saxon" or "hunky-dinghy," they are often so devious or apropos that it is difficult to believe they are unintentional. Anderson seems to have enjoyed writing this sort of dialog, and some of his more minor characters have used a similar patois.

Quite honestly I though that it was speculated somewhere that he is trying to depict a French- Canadian accent (after all, his name is a French one).

can't wait to vote for the legion leader....I know who I want to vote!

Coming soon to a store near you - Adventure Comics featuring the Green Lantern Corps in the 31st century

I like that he's giving Matter-Eater Lad a page in #6 after seeing our reaction to the one line write-off.

And I'm excited to get to vote for Legion leader. I wasn't a Legion reader when the previous reader elections were held, so I'm glad I get to be a part of the new ones.

As much as I don't appreciate his one-line writeoff of Tenzil, I **LOVE** that he listened to fans who were upset by that (I wasn't the only one!!) and is making it right.

I think it pays to sometimes follow the oldschool-fanboy-pleasing-isms of Geoff Johns. (At one time, back in the day, Geoff seemed to be writing comics just for ME...)

Levitz always gives a good interview!

You notice how Paul avoids, as much as he can, any subject related to Green Lantern?
It make me wonder if this is something he supports or was just given orders to oversee.

The idea of a 31st century group of Lanterns is not a new one ... the recently cancelled cartoon/comic beat them to the punch with that one.