It's fascinating that a footprint for these people can be easily found on Wikipedia. Charles Platt seems to have produced a wide variety and considerable amount of content, but not one single thing listed drifts remotely into my radar. Judging from the article, he seems to be something of a flake, seems to resist the moving forward of technology and in general doesn't seem to be much liked. Of course, Wikipedia can be very, very misleading. The cryonics thing, though ... just hm. He's still alive.
I post this for its obvious D&D connection, especially that it's a voice in 1981 not connected to the Dragon Magazine.
I don't see a lot of antagonistic humor; I've forgotten how much more common it once was.
ReplyDeleteWow, after reading that, all I can see in my head is an old man, vaguely resembling Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino, shaking his cane at some punk kids and yelling at them to stay off his lawn.
ReplyDeletePlatt was 36 when this was published.
ReplyDeleteJust noticed your tag on these last few posts; 115 bonus points.
ReplyDeleteI love a good "get off my lawn" article, and Pratt makes some decent points. But I could still probably refute half of this.
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing he'd not be terribly thrilled with adult humans playing D&D.
@JB, I can't image he wrote this with a straight face; it was printed in Heavy Metal, after all.
ReplyDeleteNow, I take umbrage at that.
ReplyDeleteDon't want to get all nostalgic or anything, but at the time, the magazine (not the film, though I liked the latter) was cutting edge art/graphic storytelling and underground artistry. At least, certainly prior to 1984, when obvious changes to the product and its distribution resulting from too many people learning about it caused a serious and distressing "purification" of the content.
I have no doubt, from his wikipedia history, that Pratt well and truly had his head right up his ass as he wrote this, and did so with a burning fervour utterly recognisable from a class of academicians who DISPISED this interloper Lord of the Rings among other "distressing" turns in the culture. Yes, probably the editorial was intended to "stir the pot" among the readers (if this is the sense you mean, Sterling), but I feel duty bound to point out that the author was undoubtedly wholly serious in his accusations.
Nut job that he was.
Sorry for causing offense, Alexis, I meant not to disparage Heavy Metal with that remark, but to point out it is a fantasy periodical and thus theorize that Pratt was writing facetiously. Perhaps you are right and it was the editors alone, rather than them in collusion with, or at the suggestion of, the writer, intending to "stir the pot." I don't know Pratt at all either.
ReplyDeleteIt does remind me of a sort of antagonistic humor that I remember from that era that I don't see around anymore.
Dammit, JB, you got me calling him Pratt now too!
ReplyDeleteI remember that humour being connected with stuff like Mad Magazine, National Lampoon and such, all produced around the same time. Heavy Metal, on the other hand, was supported overwhelmingly by French, Spanish and German artists. The sort more interested in being taken seriously for their craft rather than committing themselves to satire. Some of Heavy Metal's worst sins came from a tendency to hammer home a theme with a sledge hammer, what we'd call today "telling, not showing."
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