Drinking, drinking and more drinking
It seemed today like the cast of April's Real Blog spent most of its time drinking, or explaining about the events that occurred when they were drinking. Little did I know that when Howard described his drinking antics with Winnie and Melville Kelpfroth, his aunt and uncle, that it would be the theme for the day. There was even a little glue-sniffing and smoking thrown in for good measure. It's hard to believe we are emulating For Better or For Worse, that nice family strip, except for the rape and adultery stuff, of course.
One of my interests in emulating the Foobiverse is to not have the characters stray too far from what is presented in the strip itself. This seems a preposterous thought given that I have changed Howard into a gay, opera-loving, thug who was hired as a part of a conspiracy to get Liz together with Anthony. I have discussed at length in prior posts to this blog why the strip itself made that explanation more plausible than the one LJ intended. I should mention that I am waiting for an opportunity to explain the Howard thought balloons that appeared in that strip sequence, to make the transformation complete. So, despite evidence to the contrary, it is actually one of my intents. Believe it or don't.
The novel creative experience for me today was to wend my way through the posts of Duncan, Anthony, Becky, and Gerald to piece together a sequence of events involving Duncan's and Gerald's visit to the gentlemen's club "The Gig"from the perspective of Kortney, the dancer there, whom I have recently established as being interested in Howard romantically. Not only did I want the explanation to include elements from each character's story, but I wanted to grant the possibility that Gerald and Duncan were still the somewhat innocent 14-year-olds that appear in the strip. The posters for Gerald and Duncan were disturbingly good at maintaining a sense of continuity between their stories, so Kortney only had to address the few spots where they disagreed and some of their more obvious lies. It was not as difficult as I anticipated, but when I got to the end of it, it appeared a very dull and humorless exercise to me. I was surprised when people posted they liked it. I can never tell what people are going to find funny.
Years ago I was in a production of "The Sound of Music" playing Uncle Max. In the show, Max comes into the House Von Trapp, and is required to make a quick change into a tuxedo from his traveling clothes. When he steps back onto the stage in his tuxedo, he says in a loud voice, "Presto Chango." I never found this to be particularly funny, and yet in every show the audience would howl with laughter. It was pleasing and yet disconcerting. Sometimes reactions to posts are like that.
Join us tomorrow for Howard, Prison or Freedom?
One of my interests in emulating the Foobiverse is to not have the characters stray too far from what is presented in the strip itself. This seems a preposterous thought given that I have changed Howard into a gay, opera-loving, thug who was hired as a part of a conspiracy to get Liz together with Anthony. I have discussed at length in prior posts to this blog why the strip itself made that explanation more plausible than the one LJ intended. I should mention that I am waiting for an opportunity to explain the Howard thought balloons that appeared in that strip sequence, to make the transformation complete. So, despite evidence to the contrary, it is actually one of my intents. Believe it or don't.
The novel creative experience for me today was to wend my way through the posts of Duncan, Anthony, Becky, and Gerald to piece together a sequence of events involving Duncan's and Gerald's visit to the gentlemen's club "The Gig"from the perspective of Kortney, the dancer there, whom I have recently established as being interested in Howard romantically. Not only did I want the explanation to include elements from each character's story, but I wanted to grant the possibility that Gerald and Duncan were still the somewhat innocent 14-year-olds that appear in the strip. The posters for Gerald and Duncan were disturbingly good at maintaining a sense of continuity between their stories, so Kortney only had to address the few spots where they disagreed and some of their more obvious lies. It was not as difficult as I anticipated, but when I got to the end of it, it appeared a very dull and humorless exercise to me. I was surprised when people posted they liked it. I can never tell what people are going to find funny.
Years ago I was in a production of "The Sound of Music" playing Uncle Max. In the show, Max comes into the House Von Trapp, and is required to make a quick change into a tuxedo from his traveling clothes. When he steps back onto the stage in his tuxedo, he says in a loud voice, "Presto Chango." I never found this to be particularly funny, and yet in every show the audience would howl with laughter. It was pleasing and yet disconcerting. Sometimes reactions to posts are like that.
Join us tomorrow for Howard, Prison or Freedom?
posted by howard at 10:18 PM
6 Comments:
I think the humor of Kortney's account came from the discrepancy between Gerald and Duncan's cool-guy posturing and the bumbling innocence that Kortney's version conveyed.
I know what you mean about the difficulty in anticipating what others will find funny. I had a play that I wrote performed several years ago, and I was surprised at some of the places in it that became laugh lines--or moments that seemed mildly amusing when I put them on the page becoming bigger laughs when staged. :)
I had a similar experience some years back when I wrote a 4-part choral part for a college class project. The pianist who took the music added an accompaniment that turned it into an Oom-Pah-Pah drinking song, which he said was obviously my intent from the chorus parts. The song was so much better as a drinking song, I didn't tell him that it was not my original thought.
I'm the same way re. not being sure if I'm being funny. FWIW, Becky's posts consistently make me laugh (and I agree about "The C must stay pure for the A."). :)
qnjones and aprilp_katje, let me assure you that you are both very funny and regularly put me into stitches. I am frequently amazed by how fast you react to each other with your Blog conversations. You set the standard very high for the humor.
Thanks--and right back at you! Your "Howard" posts do such a great job creating a world and pulling together many FOOB threads in brilliantly unexpected ways. :)
omg, becks, like, me 2! ;)
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