Two comedy stories + It is my birthday!

+ A behind-the-scenes look at WBTH2 cover designs

Aug 08, 2023

I am now 31 years old. That means I’ve been writing for 26 years. That’s a lot of time to be making things up in my brain.

Thanks for being here and supporting me.

These emails got a bit salesy recently because of the WBTH2 release. It had to be done, this is how I pay for food to keep my brain nice and wet, so the stories can slide around on it, but I have missed posting stories.

Glad to be back on that now.

What you see here is a remix of the original, limited edition WHO BUILT THE HUMANS? cover poster. I handed about 32 out during the pre-order, and I’m hoping to to the same again for WBTH2.

One of my goals for the WBTH1 hardback (coming soon) is to give it a relaunch with all the new things I know about publishing, and to add more value and content to it. Right now I am working on the chapter headings, which are full colour renders of scenes, made out of Lego.

Here you can see Lahkx, Nori Furukawa, Slin-Vek, an Intersect Timeship, Lucy’s Earth, and Varda’s and Orbarop’s starship.

I have no affiliation with Lego, but I was on Lego Masters, so I can do the headings myself. I’m not endorsed by them in any way, I’m just good at building.

Anyway, I want 3D book covers to return, and I miss my WBTH1 one…

This is my idea so far. Bold and white background for the dustjacket, an entirely different image underneath. I find the 3D effect is less offensive to the naked eye if placed on a bright background, which is convenient. The white background was an idea way back in 2020. I wanted WBTH to be bold, punchy, and easy to spot on a bookshelf (not that anyone stocks it physically, but I’m fixing that).

What do you think?

Story time

This story is called Weekend, and is one of the chapters of a delirious love triangle between Barry Binbag, Naff Crapcrafts, and the narrator of the book. What you will see below is as much as I have written thus far.

WEEKEND

“Have you ever done cattle mutilation?” Barry asked, his manly chest lying there all manly with hairs on it and stuff.

“You mean cows?”

“Yeah,” Barry said, twirling his curly blonde wig.

“No. There was a horse though.”

“Oh, what was she like?” Barry asked, twisting a lock of ginger hair. Naff Crapcrafts sighed deeply and smiled sorrowfully, at the same time.

“He was brilliant. We were experimenting on increasing the interior dimensions of horses.”

“Why?”

“So we could use them as transport vessels of course, to get past human detection systems.”

“Like the trojans?”

“Never met them.”

“Never mind. Horses. So that explains all the horses in government buildings!” Barry Binbag exclaimed, almost dislodging the pot of yoghurt from his chest.

“No, it doesn’t, totally unconnected,” Naff explained. He took another spoon of yoghurt and launched it dutifully at the ceiling. The creature looming above them (which they paid in yoghurt to film their romantic encounters) caught the spoon with its gravity beam and ate the spoonful in one go, spoon included. Naff took another spoon from his utility belt, which was full of spoons.

“Oh,” Barry sounded deflated. He had for years tried to work out why so many government departments were infested with horses. It was the greatest mystery that had not yet been solved. But that would have to wait for another time. It was Naff Crapcrafts’ turn on the dialogue now.

“Anyway, as I was saying. There was this one horse, we managed to fit an entire old lady up it. The horse unhinged its jaw thanks to our redesigns and swallowed her whole in the night. You might have seen it on TV.”

“Nope, I only watch the sales channels.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, not seen it.”

“Oh. Well, that’s it. We modified a horse.”

“I see.”

“Why did you ask?”

“Just making small talk.”

“About cattle mutilation?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re involved with the cow mafia again, aren’t you?”

“How did you know?” Barry asked. He twiddled the dark brown hair on his head.

“I can see the hoof marks on your chest.”

So there are some satellite sketches of Barry and Naff going about their daily adventures after Barry’s alien abduction turns romantic. On the surface it’s a play on the inevitable domestic side of all those SEXY BLUE ALIEN PICKS UP HUMAN WOMAN books, but as per usual it spirals madly off in many directions and gets weirder and weirder. I like the idea of making them small snippets of conversations, implying Barry and Naff are flying through the multiverse of WBTH2 on their way to somewhere, and bickering the whole way.

Bonus excerpt from another story

THE EVIL WILLY FROM OUTER SPACE

His erection rose. It rose again. It continued rising, tearing itself from his body, floating violently out of the open window, narrowly avoiding an owl who had mistaken it for a levitating field mouse. The erection carried on through the air, bothering military outposts and late-night shoppers alike. Eventually it was shot down over London, but not before it had gone viral, in more ways than one.

(Coming in WBTH2)

I think I’ll put that one under the Rod Grasper pen name…

See you need week, when I’ll be posting a short comedy play about someone falling in love with bigfoot. I’m going to go play with Lego and see if I can get the ISBNs for my new books.

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