Who's got the right stuff for League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 1990s?

Wraith Form said:
Based solely on the fact that we're not able to remember any iconic lit characters from that time, I suspect there are none...
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Post modernism does not encourage one to write from the heroic perspective if one wants to be taken seriously. (You'll find that in current era the majority of praise is given to victim narratives, which are usually of a form I call "reader absolution delusions" in that they are experienced as giving the sense to the reader that the understand some hardship and by this false sense of understanding absolve the reader of his apathy, detachment, and comfortable life.) Therefore, the only real heroic characters in modern literature tend to be found in blatant fantasy and science fiction, where the writer seldom cares whether he's being taken seriously because he or she knows that simply because of the genera he is writing in his or her work will be dismissed.

Stephen King characters are absolutely in the running. Who else wrote memorable novels in the 80's and 90's?
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Yes. But consider the snears that Stephen King still recieves from establishment critics.

We live in an age were we do not know ourselves, and we probably will not know ourselves. Decades or centuries past what we will have done that will be remembered and accounted worthy will probably look nothing like what wins awards and obtains praise now. We are unable to right about ourselves in a true and clear voice and so the only things we have left are on one hand ghoulish self-loathing (of which I would consider 'LoEG' a part) and on the other sheer fancy (and 'LoEG' manages to be both).
 

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The problem with limiting to 'literature' (as in printed book medium) is that there is not nearly as much interesting characters to work from that 'everyone knows'. TV and Movies (and newly on internet) are the literature mediums of this age. If there was TV in the 1800's then the most memorable characters would have most likely been taken from there.

I doubt that there will ever be a purely book oriented literary age again. It is as different now as the difference from cave drawings to heiroglyphs, or from stacks of scrolls to bound books. The medium is movies now, and will likely move into multimedia very soon.

So I have the opinion that the TV Icons will do fine for an endeavor like this. So how about Charlie's Angels.
 

smootrk said:
So I have the opinion that the TV Icons will do fine for an endeavor like this. So how about Charlie's Angels.
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LOL....agreed.

...and only if it's Cheryl Ladd's character. (I had a crush on her when I was 5.)
 

Celebrim said:
Post modernism does not encourage one to write from the heroic perspective if one wants to be taken seriously. ** SNIP ** We are unable to right about ourselves in a true and clear voice and so the only things we have left are on one hand ghoulish self-loathing (of which I would consider 'LoEG' a part) and on the other sheer fancy (and 'LoEG' manages to be both).
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I am in love, and full agreement, with your pessimism. (Or is that realism?) :)
 
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theredrobedwizard said:
I came up with some archetypes of late 20th century literature, and figured I'd just pick one of each.

Time Traveler: Dr. Who or Dr. Emmit Brown
Super Spy: Jason Bourne or Ethan Hawke
Anti-Establishment Type: Codename V or The Punisher
Insane-But-Maybe-Useful Type: Tyler Durden or Leonard Shelby
Wisened Olde Leader: Indiana Jones or Rupert Giles
Token Supernatural Guy: Harry Dresden or Harry Potter
"Everyman" Type: Ash Williams or Malcom Reynolds

And the winners are:
- Dr. Who (David Tennant version)
- Jason Bourne
- Codename V
- Tyler Durden
- Rupert Giles
- Harry Dresden
- Malcom Reynolds

-----

-TRRW
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I still have to laugh at the first sentence's use of "literature" and then all the characters that follow.
 

Nuclear Platypus said:
It occurred to me that a good set of villains would be the martians from the War of the Worlds tv series but that would be a bit obvious / overdone. The aliens led by Dr. Lizzardo from Buckeroo Banzai or the Visitors from V.
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Or the visitors in Alien Nation (TV or movie).
 


Contrarian said:
All the TV and movie characters bother me. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is a tribute to the literature of a given era. I would stick to characters from print.
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All the 1890's -had- was literature. You couldn't pick the biggest radio star, or movie star, or tv star. None of those existed before this century. So any implied emphasis on literary characters before this century is misleading at best, because they were all literary characters.

I'm still voting for Susie Salmon. The Lovely Bones is an excellent book.
 


Nellisir said:
All the 1890's -had- was literature. You couldn't pick the biggest radio star, or movie star, or tv star. None of those existed before this century. So any implied emphasis on literary characters before this century is misleading at best, because they were all literary characters.
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Except that when Alan Moore talks about the 1950s League (like here), he doesn't talk about characters from TV, radio, or film. He talks about characters from Keruoac and Burroughs. The core characters of the League series are always from literature.

With that in mind, I'll second arscott's suggestion of Hannibal Lector. He's perfect for the League: evil but charistmatic, literary but well-known to non-readers, and he's even sorta British.

You know, come to think of it, a real 1990s literary League would probably have a disturbing number of serial killers. They do seem to have been the "go to" villain of the era.
 

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