Before I get to my next bit of fiction (probably the next chapter of “The Gathering Storm”), I thought I’d pop in here with another post for my “Ruminations” category. Or maybe it’s a “General Announcement.” Hell, let’s just say it’s both and move on.
Clearly, things get a little dark around here. I mean, Janus is a psychopathic asshole with a girlfriend who not only is criminally insane but makes other people insane, too, when she feels like it. And then there’s Tooth Fairy, whom my 21-year-old son said a year or so ago was one of the scariest characters in this world of mine, and he’s not exactly some milquetoast lightweight young man. Query, while a hero who cracks sarcastic and witty at times, is a brooding guy, not unlike Batman. Ladykiller is a vigilante who doesn’t have any problem slashing men to ribbons for an act of sexual assault. Many of the stories here deal with dark themes.
At the same time, there’s obviously levity in many of these stories and in the various chapters of “The Gathering Storm,” which will clearly be of sizable novel length by the time I finish it.
Well, I’m obviously feeling at least a tiny bit lighthearted tonight, as I’ve decided, thanks to a strange inspiration yesterday and a typo in a tweet tonight, to introduce two new characters soon, at least in passing: Plain Jane and Amateur Knight. At some point in the more distant future will come a duo of also silly inspiration (OMG and BFF…I’m pretty sure OMG will be the lead in the duo with BFF as the sidekick; it only makes sense, right?).
With stories like “Wolfman and Sparrow,” “Mild-Mannered,” “The Rule of Opposites,” “Curiosity Thrills the Cat” and others, it’s clear I have my playful side. Hell, I introduced a character (not yet fully fleshed out) in “The Gathering Storm” named the Vegan Manhunter (who is a nod to DC’s Martian Manhunter, my son’s decision to go ovo-lacto veg a couple years ago, and the vegan power guy in the film Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.)
So, what can I say about Amateur Knight and Plain Jane right now? Not much. They’re still forming in my head.
But Amateur Knight will live up to the first part of his name and be a pain in the ass for the hero community because of it, and Plain Jane will somehow dovetail with Crazy Jane because it just makes sense.
As for OMG and BFF…I’m probably going to go full-out silly on that one when I finally decide to tackle that duo, whom I’m willing to bet spend a lot of time on Twitter, Tumblr and Pinterest.
See you in the (slightly) funny papers, folks…