h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm considering writing a comedy superhero fiction story based on a personality I created for myself on the now long defucnt Leisure District...

Would you be willing to help me in any sense as to how to do a respectful send-up of the type of novel we 'all' love..?

Always happy to lend a hand, I suppose. Exactly what type of thing did you have in mind?

Hoping you woyldn't ask that question...

Erm... some kind of help..!

But I want some kind of satirical look at super-heroes... Like the cheesy names etc.

Thinking I could call the city Marvel DC... or something like that..

I just want a kind of origin story for Blake Falcone: the Black Falcon, for the minute. Then maybe kinda of draw on that with a kind of episodic serial with really terrible bad guys...

I'm not pushing it if he was bitten by a radio-active, genetically mutated falcon am I?

You've got more experience with the outside Marvel universe, even if I m the one trying to get a carrer in that business..!

I like your enthusiasm by the way! Don't worry you'll be credited. Maybe in the same vain as my name on your page, but it's publicity for my space innit?!

Oh, and the movies/TV serials...

Oh, you mean kind of like the Tick or Mystery Men? Yeah, could work. About ten years ago on the very early internet there was a funny series called Wonder Grunion about a super-powered fish.

(pause to Google)

And, inevitably, it's all archived somewhere. Nostalgic evening coming up, methinks...

I'm also reminded of a book called 'How to be a Superhero' which was a (parody) guidebook. The section on how to get superpowers was particularly droll - 'the reason there is no hero called Tiger-Man is because anyone bitten by a radioactive tiger is invariably devoured alive'. Probably out of print now.

...so... any... help..?

Exactly what kind of help do you want?

I don't know, the whole phone booth/secret ID thing's been done to death, and if you're going to start parodying specific characters then you'll probably end up with an extremely limited audience.

I seem to recall that even the best parodies of my younger days, like Rat Man and even Wonder Grunion, eventually lapsed into fairly straight-faced adventures instead of comedy.

Err... some kind of collaboration where I sit with 999 of my peers at 1000 typewriters?

Some kind of joint production... You obviously won't have to have any work to do!

And I was only planning on a pilot and see where it goes...

Erhhh... how about this for an idea, a world where *everyone* has superpowers and goes about doing terribly noble deeds absolutely all the time, and the great heroes are people who put on masks and disguises and go around fixing the plumbing etc? It's sort of been done before but not that often.

You've just ripped that straight from monty python!

'Bicycle repair Man!'

Yeah, I said it had been done before, you could also have mentioned Alan Moore's Top 10 series which has a vaguely similar theme.

Talent borrows...

Still, I'd prefer a kind of parody...

It is going to be written after all...
And it's just an origin story for the minute so it doesn't tax the brain.

How familiar are you with Skrull Kill Krew? It was a book many years ago which was 50% parody, 50% straight (same as Hitman, now I think of it). It was about some people who catch superpowered mad cow disease after eating hamburgers made out of cows who were really shapeshifting aliens. That the sort of thing you're after?

How familiar are you with Skrull Kill Krew? It was a book many years ago which was 50% parody, 50% straight (same as Hitman, now I think of it). It was about some people who catch superpowered mad cow disease after eating hamburgers made out of cows who were really shapeshifting aliens. That the sort of thing you're after?

Yeah... kind of...

Don't know the book though.

Apple ogies for the simulpost. Now I think back it was a bit more serious than it sounds... 'twas only a miniseries, too, Grant Morrison wrote it just before his Second Coming (ie the Big Gun JLA relaunch).

I was watching TV the other night and had an idea for how you could write superhero satire in prose. If superheroes were real, they'd be like the ultimate rock star celebrities - outrageous behaviour in public, screaming fans, ridiculous costumes. You'd have famous heroes found dead on the toilet, conspiracy theories, groups that've been around since the sixties complaining about the younger heroes, ridiculous legal battles ('I've been calling myself Dr Miracle since 1978, and now this new guy's trying to steal my name - and he hasn't even been to university!'), burnt-out one-hit boy wonders. It'd be funny, and satirical, and you wouldn't have to worry too much about writing endless fight sequences.

I could see that... a serial of one-offs..?

I would need advise as to how to go about writing in that vein however.

Er, well, ask away...

(I assume you *are* asking *me* for advice...?)

Apologies for mis-spelling advice.

I'll never get used to a keyboard.

Oh OK then...




Oh please mighty Awix! Guide in my time of need!