From this blog, maybe you'd think I'm a funny guy. Or at least not a serious guy. But for some reason I've never been great at writing comedy. I do have one comedy book out, Chet Finley vs the Machines of Fate, but it was kind of a struggle.
Some of the Eric Filler stories I've written that were intended to be goofier stories wound up being dark instead. And recently was the same case for a story called, Swap, Swap, & Away! The title even might sound fun with the exclamation point and all, but the story didn't so much end up that way.
The premise came from a Spider-Man comic I read where Mary-Jane Watson goes to a support group for superhero friends or spouses and laments how she feels every time Peter puts himself in jeopardy. Since Spider-Man is kind of a specific hero, I adapted it using Superman/Lois Lane as a basis instead.
The idea being that ace reporter Jane Jones laments her boyfriend Clyde, aka Superb Man, can't really understand what it's like to be normal. So when the dimensional imp Mystiplex offers her a chance to swap with Clyde, she takes it, thinking that his powers will go to her. Instead, they actually switch bodies!
Hilarity probably should have ensued then, but it really didn't. I guess having watched Invincible this year I got thinking of the one hero who tries to use her powers to really make a difference instead of punching bad guys. A courageous reporter like Lois Lane would seem like the type who would want to use her new powers to make a difference. So first she murders a mob boss, but that doesn't really make things better, so she goes into space and uses an alien's ship to put out wildfires and replenish drought-stricken areas. When her father, an army general, comes after her, she goes out to international waters to offer assistance to whoever wants it, which even includes North Korea.
Meanwhile, Clyde becomes Jane, but to get some revenge, the imp who changed them makes Clyde into the gorgeous bimbo Chloe and makes her a hooker for the mob. After some rough anal sex with a gangster, she sprays him with bug spray and escapes before he can kill her. She thinks she finds a friend in a coffeehouse, but the woman named Frankie is the new mob boss and handcuffs her to use as bait for Superb Man. Then like The Boys the idea is that killing Chloe in front of Superb Man will break him.
So, yeah, not really a funny scenario when really I probably should have taken a more Greatest American Hero take and had Jane running into walls and stuff like that and Clyde getting hit on by dudes and experiencing sexism and whatnot.
I don't know what happened, but I suppose one problem with these is they have to have sex, so I had to work that in a few places. Or maybe it's just the world isn't very fun right now so it's hard to think of funny scenarios. Or I just suck at comedy--probably that.
I suppose some smartass like Tony Laplume would say, "Just don't do that" but it's not like I actively decide this at the start; it's just you make one bad decision and then another and another and before long you've gone down the rabbit hole of bad ideas. By the time you really realize it you've either got to go back and rewrite a bunch of stuff or say the hell with it--I usually opt for the latter. I mean I don't think it's a bad story; it's just not the story I originally conceived.
I will probably be taking another shot at comedy with an XMas story. I've done XMas stories based on A Christmas Carol, It's a Wonderful Life, a song called "Rudy," The Santa Clause, The 12 Days of Christmas, and Jack Frost--the horrible horror movie. I was thinking what else I could do and thought of this song:
Only in this case it'd be Grandpa Got Run Over By a Reindeer...And Then Swapped. The idea being Grandpa staggers out into the snow, gets hit by Santa's sleigh, and Santa brings him back to life, only as a hot young chick. And then mayhem ensues that probably won't be funny. But we'll see. I might not even write it.
No comments:
Post a Comment