3. UnComix Tales: Howler "Cureds" (Un-Iverse #40)
Author's Note for UnComix Tales #3: Howler "Cureds" (Un-Iverse #40)
"Barracuda Was Wrong" is one of my favorite cover taglines EVER! Because you don't understand what it means until you've read the issue.
For this issue, I play it that Augatha is the protagonist and hero and Gabrielle and the Werewolf Resistance are the bad guys. Just this once. But it's especially subversive coming as close to the endgame as it is. None of the stuff Augatha does in the finale is justified. But the things she did getting to that point? It seems she may have had the moral high ground after all.
Augatha having a sex dream of Gilda is another demonstration that almost all of the main characters outside of Meek and the Piranha are secretly in love with Gilda. And yes, I include Dr. Raggleworth and Bernadette in that statement.
I HATE the Green Golf Balls story. I HATE having to tell it. No matter how much I insist to people they'll hate it (and me) for telling it, I always somehow get browbeaten into it. And they ALWAYS look at me with disgust, as if I didn't warn them repeatedly before I told them how much they'd hate it. It's the worst joke ever told. I'm not kidding about that. Did people truly expect to like "the worst joke ever told" after I've told it? It is an unreasonable expectation to enjoy the worst joke of all time. Screw everyone who has ever made me tell it to them, and looked at me as if I was a total monster by the end of it. I'm not screwed up. It's people who WANT to hear it who are.
What I SHOULD have told people bugging me about it is "If you don't shut the hell up, I'm going to make the joke last as long as I can, and be as interesting and spellbinding as possible too." Which, if we're being frank, is pretty much the worst threat you can throw at somebody that doesn't involve violence. And it's still a REALLY harsh threat.
True story: the more successful tellings of this joke drag it out longer and longer, and add more and more suspense and curveballs. It's almost like the Aristocrats in people putting their own weird stamp on a mundane, unfunny joke. This is the best telling I have ever done, because not only is it a decent length, but I give several bullshit hints that there IS an answer and resolution coming, when there obviously is not. I almost wanted to do a full issue of this story to truly get under people's skin, but this is the one story in the canon where I'm TRYING to piss the reader off. I'm not going to push my luck.
Still, I doubt anyone will be TOO pissed. Honestly, I think this is the kindest version anyone will ever get. Because having Bernadette Anderson being the surrogate for the disappointment of the reader gives you an almost clinical detachment to things. If I told the story to you, you would think yourself the butt of a joke. But now you merely think Bernadette is instead. She stands in for your embarrassment in being suckered in by a Tall Tale with no resolution. And it's because she's the victim instead of you, that people will be able to tolerate it. If I had just told you this story in person, you'd want to kill me. I don't think that's true of the Meek's Chiller Theatre version.
This story right here pretty much tells me that I often use Meek's Chiller Theatre stories to work out my personal demons and artistic frustrations. I'm a good storyteller. And this is the worst story I've ever told. And a HUGE part of the rejection of my talents from friends. Which means it HAS to exist in The Un-Iverse. It's my way of getting back at the unfairness of the reaction to the story. The fact that Meek is pretty much my surrogate character was almost too good to be true. The Universe REALLY wanted me to put this story here once I came up with the concept of Meek's Chiller Theatre for "The Curse Of The Pink Gorilla". Meek is destined to fail at this story. It's the only way. It is my experience, so it is also his.
I think it might be possible to tell the joke without upsetting someone if you say right at the outset that there is no solution, and the kid dies before he reveals the answer, and that the actual joke is on the listener. But as a storyteller, I cannot in good conscience do that. It may be the worst joke ever told, but it IS a joke, and the entire point of jokes is to build to the punchline. You don't say it at the beginning. If someone wants to know exactly why this is the worst joke of all time, I actually have to make them live through it. Otherwise there IS no joke.
Bernadette browbeating Meek into telling the joke is pretty much me putting my experience right there on the page. While part of Meek seems to enjoy humiliating Bernadette, you WILL notice he only told this particular story under duress. Which describes how I usually tell it too. But unlike Meek, I hate telling the story. Meek is far more fearless about Bernadette's potential negative reaction than I could ever hope to be.
Still, this was a MUCH worse story than I planned, simply because it is awesome. People are going to want to chase me down with torches and pitchforks after that.
The ironic thing is that just based upon Bernadette's reaction to that, this is STILL the kindest version a prankee of that joke could ever get. If Bernadette did NOT get so pissed, I would get death threats from the readers.
Here's a way this version is MUCH worse than any other I've told. You SHOULD care about the characters in this version. That's a first. It's literally a joke using people who don't have names. You don't care about people in jokes. But you will Dave and Roger Talbot in this version. The fact that this story is actually good on some level and makes you care is the worst thing about it.
In the first panel of the last page of the story, I had Bernadette leaning in and staring intently at Meek, spellbound by the story, before he lowers the boom. For the reader, this specific resolution might not be so bad because of choices like that. But Bernadette is every bit as invested in this story and characters as the people who gave me the finger after some of my better and more intricate tellings of the joke were. For me telling this joke, Bernadette's is the best and most credible version I have ever done. So she is a FAR bigger victim than anyone I have previously told the joke to. What's interesting about that is that because she is, the reader probably won't feel that way, and might even feel as if they are actually IN on the prank. This IS the worst story in The Un-Iverse, but at least I imagine some readers will be a bit amused, and maybe even weirdly empowered by Bernadette's outrage and anger. Because if I had told them the story without a framing device or a surrogate victim, that would be the reader's reaction. Some readers will definitely still feel betrayed. But this is the first telling I've done that lets the reader off the hook entirely for falling for it. The prank is not actually on the reader, at least not as much, and maybe even not at all. But the first panel of the last page shows that Bernadette is as enchanted by this story as she was the Pink Gorilla one. Only she doesn't find THIS one awesome. Not even a little bit.
Here is something unique about Bernadette. I have never, not ONCE, had an intelligent reaction to the joke. Not once. Never once has there been a person who instantly got the joke, or even the purpose of the joke. And I have told it to some pretty intelligent people in my day. The initial reaction is always "That's it?". They simply cannot wrap their heads around the idea that there exists a joke where their bewildered reaction is the punchline to the teller. I'm supposed to be their FRIEND! I should never do that! Tell me there is MORE! You have some ideas cooking don't you? You're a storyteller, for Pete's sake! I want and deserve more that that! Bargaining stage of grief! I understand why my friends and acquaintances' reactions are so childish and petty, but it always makes me sad. I might be the only person who ever heard that joke, and thought the ambiguity of it was why it was fascinating, if not funny.
Bernadette's reaction is the reaction of my hopes and dreams. If someone started scowling immediately upon hearing the words "And then he died", and after three seconds threatened to kill me, even just the once, I might not have felt the need to tell it one last time here. Bernadette gets the joke IMMEDIATELY, and is pissed instantly for the correct reasons. She doesn't have to be woken up by the spellbinding story to have it affirmed by me that yes, the joke really DOES end there. She already knows, and immediately hates Meek for it. Bernadette's reaction is a smart reaction. Which I have never gotten once. Not even from smart people. Talk about artistic frustrations.
My relationship with that joke is similar to Donna Demented's relationship to serial killing, and trolling her friends with her outrageous comments and behavior. If someone ONCE told her she was a total badass, and got exactly what she was doing with her alarming behavior, instead of believing in the Betty Crocker / Donna Reed shtick, she'd become completely placated, and move onto to something else. For her serial killing is a performance art style prank to brush back on a cookie-cutter society. If someone finally got and appreciated the joke, she could actually stop telling it. That described me and Green Golf Balls all throughout my life. As it is, I had to tell it this one last time, in this precise way, in this precise story. Is this version STILL the worst joke ever told? I am no longer sure of that anymore.
I learned the joke as a very small child. I had to have been eight at most. And it's weird that I seemed to be the only person who ever kind of dug it and the implications of the unfinished story. There is probably a reason I gravitated towards Twin Peaks in the first place, and why it influences so many of The Un-Iverse's most ambiguous unanswered questions. I'm not saying the saga will end on a cliffhanger (although note I am also not saying it won't) but I definitely will not answer all of the questions, partly because it's better for the reader to have some things to work out for themselves. And partly because I could probably never give a definitive answer as pleasurable and neat as what a reader could come up with. Believe it or not, I will answer a LOT of questions. But only the ones I choose to, and think make the story better for revealing. And that doesn't mean all of them. It doesn't mean that at all. And maybe this story should set off some alarm bells for you, but I actually think that most people will really dig the ending to The Un-Iverse. Maybe it's a definite one, maybe it isn't. You'll find out later. But I personally think it's going to be pretty amazing.
This is the last Meek's Chiller Theatre story. It is possible that Bernadette now simply never wants to do this again.
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