Upbeat On The Beatdown

I was watching a documentary last night about the 1980's punk movement; It followed the careers of everyone in Hardcore, from Bad Brains to Black Flag to dozens of smaller yet important bands which came up and burned out before most people every knew they played their first gig. It was noisy, violent and a crazy trip down memory lane.

One thing it made me think of was the creative balance between going for it all right now and holding something back for later. As one of the members of Minor Threat had put it, "There were two ways of doing it; Some guys looked at what the kids liked and what they wanted, and they did that... and the other group didn't care and tried to provoke the audience and say phffffttt..."It's very tempting when you have good ideas to spill them all out now, and to pack every story with as many of them as you can. It's like JLA or The Avengers when you do that- all the coolest characters running around together, regardless of whether or not it makes good story sense...

The other side of things is- you risk provoking a negative attitude when you hold too much back; It's like waving crack in front of a crack addict and then handing them a pixie stick. Sure, it gets their attention, but the backlash can be rather messy if you aren't ready for it.

Right now, I am stuck between using a great character in a story and saving him for his own book. Sure- we could do a spin-off, but most turn out to be Joni Loves Chachi.

Gruesome thought, isn't it?