  Comedy
This week: Edited by: Ben Langhinrichs  
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Don't you know no one alive can always be an angel,
When everything goes wrong, you see some bad.
But I'm just a soul whose intentions are good:
Oh Lord! Please don't let me be misunderstood
Horace Ott and others, Sung by many, including The Animals and Santa Esmeralda
Greetings! I am a guest editor this week for the Comedy Newsletter, and while I am not a regular editor, I do feel that I am becoming a bit of a regular irregular.
~ Ben Langhinrichs
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Misunderstood
Misunderstandings form the core of many stories, both comedies and tragedies. Of course, given the point of this newsletter, we don't give a salted turnip about the tragedies. Instead, we care about the funny stuff. Shakespeare, I imagine you've all heard of him, wrote a number of comedies which revolved around serious misunderstandings, usually about who was whom and who most certainly wasn't.
Now, I could write a scholarly essay about the use and misuse of understanding and misunderstanding, but I'd likely lose the two or three readers left who forgot to cancel their subscriptions to this newsletter after my last guest appearance. Instead, let's create a few misunderstanding scenarios and imagine the stories we could create with them.
Vampires are big these days, on TV, in the movies, in stories. The most common "surprise" is that the naive and innocent girl doesn't realize that the charming gentleman who only visits at night is... wait for it... a vampire. Anyone for a Bloody Mary?
But what if we turned that around? What is the naive and innocent girl thinks that he is a vampire, but he isn't? Think of the comedic possibilities as she tries to get him to bite her. The innuendo you could add as she tries to say she is willing for eternal life and he thinks she has exaggerated ideals for his... stamina. Steamy and silly all at the same time.
On Duotrope, a wonderful site showing magazines, e-zines and a few how-the-heck-would-you-categorize-this-zines, I saw a call for an anthology on Zombie Animals. I'm guessing they want horror, but the appeal of a zombie Fido for a comedy seems obvious. Think of the antics as Rover fetches the newspaper boy instead of the newspaper. And the misunderstandings that could ensue since everybody would expect Obedience School to do the trick, where he really needed a steady diet of brain kibble.
Your assignment (aha, you didn't know I would give an assignment, did you?) is to write a short (under 1000 words) story in which a fantasy/sci-fi/horror character is misunderstood. You have to make me laugh too. If you do, aand if you tell me about it, and if they ever let me do this gig again, I will guarantee you fame and, well, just fame by putting a link to your story in the newsletter. No poems. No scripts. No lyrics. Just stories. Have at it.
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Comedy: January 20, 2010 Issue [#3508]
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