21 lines
1.2 KiB
Plaintext
21 lines
1.2 KiB
Plaintext
retcon
|
|
|
|
/retkon/ [short for retroactive continuity , from the Usenet newsgroup
|
|
rec.arts.comics ] 1. n. The common situation in pulp fiction (esp. comics or
|
|
soap operas) where a new story reveals things about events in previous
|
|
stories, usually leaving the facts the same (thus preserving continuity)
|
|
while completely changing their interpretation. For example, revealing that
|
|
a whole season of Dallas was a dream was a retcon. 2. vt. To write such a
|
|
story about a character or fictitious object. Byrne has retconned Superman's
|
|
cape so that it is no longer unbreakable. Marvelman's old adventures were
|
|
retconned into synthetic dreams. Swamp Thing was retconned from a
|
|
transformed person into a sentient vegetable. [This term is included because
|
|
it is a good example of hackish linguistic innovation in a field completely
|
|
unrelated to computers. The word retcon will probably spread through comics
|
|
fandom and lose its association with hackerdom within a couple of years; for
|
|
the record, it started here. ESR] [1993 update: some comics fans on the net
|
|
now claim that retcon was independently in use in comics fandom before
|
|
rec.arts.comics , and have citations from around 1981. In lexicography,
|
|
nothing is ever simple.
|
|
|