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Tell us what you thought about the April 2005 issue!
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Senior Critic
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Location: Somewhere outside San Diego
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Joined: December 31, 1969, 08:00:00 PM
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...I expect the po-pos to know all about the Black Panther since when we know they've had bodies before; and it's perfectly appropriate for the grease paint detail to be fully revealed at the end. My observation was about whether readers should've been given some indication about the grease paint at the start of the story, perhaps at the point that Dennis was looking in the mirror.
Dan E.
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I'm going to rewite this story and eliminate all reference to grease paint and snap-on claws. They just muddle things up, and I should have thought of that when I initially wrote Six To Go. I'll make Dennis Bonn a black man with long, sharpened fingernails and toenails. Dennis, you see, really does transform into a Black Panther with nine lives. At the story's end he has six remaining. That's what I want the reader to realize.
J.E. Deegan
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I'll have to agree with the others. I found it more interesting when I thought Dennis was a misguided psychopath who only believed he was a were-panther. That also cleared up a troublesome plot-hole for me: as incompetent as the cops of Limboland may be, there is no way they would mistake an animal mauling for a serial killer, especially multiple killings.
Another comment. Dennis is hardly sympathetic as a protagonist. If you're going to have your main character be a villain, he needs to be more than a two-dimensional killer. Few writers can get away with writing from a villain’s perspective and get away with it. It can be done, but it's extremely difficult.
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As for the question (raised in other posts) of why the cops never noticed that they had killed the same guy three times, J.E. never said how Dennis died in the prior incidents. Could have been shot or stabbed by some of the other denizens of Limboland and left for dead ... in which case there would be no detectives' or morgue attendants memories and no crime-scene photographs to help make the connection.
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Why is Dennis a villain? He only kills when he's a Black Panther, and he kills for food, as all predators do. As Dennis Bonn, he's a shy introvert who lives and works alone. He was quite content with that life, and he didn't ask to be mauled by that terrible tabby that fateful night in the park. Is the panther his alter ego? Sure...at least in a sense. The panther is everything that Dennis is not: powerful, aggressive, feared, the king of his domain. And let's not forget that the panther - like Dennis - is a loner, a creature that eschews the company of others of his kind.
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