Mary Catelli's Erraticly Updated and Exceedingly Ill-Organized Journal

A useful image when thinking of genre: a wall. It looks like paintballs hit it and splattered, but as you get close enough, you see that center is in fact where the dots cluster. Those are the works that cluster to the center of the genre.

If you look at the very center of the superhero genre, you will see:( Read more... )

When designing a superhero it helps to have a concept.

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Metaorigins are useful in a superhero universe. Provides a degree of unity in a genre not generally noted for it.

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It's a classic of the planetary romance genre, to have a few moons floating about the sky, just so you know it's not Earth.

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So why would superheroes only show up in modern times?  Bar being the Mad Scientists' handiwork, which works in a simple and elegant manner for that -- and carries a lot of baggage.

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Sometimes the story comes from the title.

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Was working on my superhero tale. . .

Which does not fit into a genre neatly any more than most of them do, because of the world-building issues.

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And fantasy, too.

Doyle's SF Genre Rant

I have a princess who has her own planet.  And that title's not a translation into modern English.

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Some natter about what the classics are, but as one panelist pointed out, if they polled the room, there would probably be some fair consensus.
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