Robin Crew's Holistic Literary Agency

First of all, if you recognize the title of this post from somewhere, give yourself a cookie.

So the other day, I got one of the many “Hah! Every publisher everywhere ever is SERIOUSLY considering my AWESOME book and they LOVE me so you MANY, MANY agents who have POLITELY DECLINED can SUCK IT.” Jesus, what a diva. To be fair, there had already been a couple of “Thanks for your time” messages That day so I knew it was coming. But right as I was deleting this message a new query came in for a book titled “Idol Threat.” This made me shoot milk out my nose (to go with the cookie I gave myself for coming up with a clever title for the post). Gold star to Idol Threat. I mean, it’ll probably be some thriller about a celebrity stalker or something lame. But the secret of comedy is in the timing. And this was just too perfect to be true. Fortune smiles upon thee, Idol Threat.

Also it should be noted that the winner of the month's critique never sent me anything to critique so I am now officially done offering. If anyone wants me to look at something, my e-mail is over there. Drop me a note, make your case, and I'll invent some task for you to earn it. Like doing a tango with your dog.

Next up, in case anyone was wondering- on a recent diplomatic mission to Mikoslavia I read the *other* three volumes of Scott Pilgrim and I was right. From their respective half way points they become increasingly divergent. It's not that big a deal, actually. The movie is easier to follow, doesn't suffer from sudden scene shifts, and keeps a more steady pace. The comic on the other hand portrays the heroine more sympathetically and has a subplot for another character who really gets the short end of the stick in the movie. Take your pick. Reviews also came in for the Third Parasite Eve game. As I feared, they made Aya, the main character, into a wuss. Shit, back in the day we only had like three female heroes so they bothered to make them good. Now that they're common place I guess they don't get to kick ass anymore. Booo. Not sure I understand the logic. Is there some extremely finite amount of ass-kickingness alotted to the "fairer sex" and the awesomeoness of each character is inversely proportional to the total number of female mains? That sounds retarded. They're digital asses that are being kicked. That means there is a potentially infinite amount of ass. So I can't buy that argument.

Also, I saw Kiss Kiss Bang Bang the other day. I would not call it a great movie, but it was fun to watch once (I mean, it does star Robert Downey Jr who I like, a lead actress I'd never heard of but is good (and also gets nekkid!), a hard-ass private dick named "Gay Perry" and Corbin Bernsen as the villain. How many movies does someone accidentally pee on a corpse? Also, why is Robert Downey Jr. always peeing on things these days? See: The Soloist where Downey slips on his own pee twice if memory serves). I seem to recall that a reader recommended it (I think I can guess who. Does your person wear a bandana? Or a...headkerchief?). Anyway, it made me think. Why not ask my readership about something.

See, I've always had a soft spot for genre fiction like fantasy and sci-fi because even though most of it is awful, when I was a kid, that's the middle grade I read. And YA wasn't really a thing yet so I used light fantasy and SF like Robert Asprin, Piers Anthony, and Douglas Adams to make the transition to adult books. But last fall I read some recent upper MG and YA like Behemoth by Scott Westerfield and I realized that genre fiction is alive and kicking. It's just that a lot of the adult stuff is derivative. And also dumb. In other words, bland, same-y and un-original. But they're convinced they aren't. The various "kid" stuff acknowledges the elephant in the room and so can be more adventurous. If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times. There can be no greatness without audacity. Anyway, you fine folks know my tastes. I like 'em dark and/or goofy. You also know books. Indeed, many of you specialize in YA. So I was wondering if any of all's y'alls had any recommendations.

You Know What They Say About Common Sense

A few choice titles and subject lines from recent queries.

“MG Non-Fiction Juvenile/Parenting.” First thought: I knew kids were growing up fast these days, but do we need a parenting guide written for 10 year olds?

“Jesus Loves Tea Parties Too.” Seriously. Stop laughing. Then read it again. Resume laughing. Personally, I’m holding out for the sequel “Jesus Hates Pinko Commie Traitors.”

“How to be a Fairy.” No comment. Or more accurately, I have no comment that would be acceptable in polite company.

“PB Boo-Bah and the Sugarey Mushroom Take a Plunge With Pirates.” Like, wow man. This title is like. Trippin’ balls, yo.

So not too long ago I was at the dentists’. This is amusing in and of itself. First of all, the dentist is a huge nerd. Also, my whole family makes fun of me for going there and getting along so well with a crazy old man, his slightly crazy hygienist as well as his wife, the receptionist. They also make fun of me because I might be the oldest person who sees him for general checkups. His specialty is pediatric dentistry. Lots of adults go to him, but mostly for emergency work involving caps, crowns and cavities and other things of that nature. Jeez. Look, it’s the three evil Cs of dentistry. So much akin to Convenience, Contrivance and Cliché for writers. Indeed, it’s inspired me to theorize what I call the rule of Cs which states that in all things there are three evil Cs to beware. But I digress. See, the hygienist told me to start chewing gum.

“Dur,” I say “But I done thought that chewin’ done caused all them thur cavities. Mama tolds me tha’ th’ only reason I ain’t never had one was ‘cuz I was a good lil’ boy who don’t never chew.”

Turns out though that *most* gum isn’t really bad for you anymore. What made it bad was sugar. Most gum is now sugar free. Meanwhile, it’s actually pretty adept at picking up tartar and shit on the back of your teeth before it solidifies or you swallow it and it blocks your arteries and gives you a heart attack. I always wondered why bimbos had such nice teeth. Well, mystery solved. Thanks, science.

Office Comedy Week Part V: Abandoned Concepts

I feel pity. Oh so much pity. It’s a pity how shitty I feeeeeel.

Okay, that’s enough singing from me. You can’t hear me, but my laptop can and it ain’t happy. Although with that said, perhaps I should write musicals. For god’s sake I could pretty much vomit and create something both deeper and more melodic than the average musical. God Bless America and its low standards. Anyway, you may wonder why I feel pity. Or feel shitty. Todaaaay. There’s a lot of reasons, actually, including my job status, the situation in Japan, and how, although I actually have some small amount of free time these days every time I sit down to write I realize someone else has already done it better. Or they’ve done it worse, but they did it first.

I remember years ago when I invented Atheistsmas. Complete with its own history, celebrations, and even terminology (such as an Atheistsmas statistical anomaly) only to be told by a friend that I must have been ripping off Festivus. Damn you, Seinfeld. You’re not even funny.

Ironically, one of the things that has brought me the most joy, The Tick, single handedly killed several concepts I had in the works when I first saw the live action series about eight months ago. Here’s a few examples.

Terror on the 20th Floor-
A 1st person narrative where the speaker is never named or described, and is left to be imagined as a regular Joe Everyman (not to be confused with a character whose name is actually Joe Everyman). He’s the odd man out in HR and Facilities, which is to say- he’s a man. In HR. Being in his position he comes to learn that many of his coworkers aren’t what they seem. Andy Mark Deux, CPA is secretly a robot. Richard, the sales rep is a werewolf. And the main’s first ever new hire turns out to be an alien. It’s actually pretty funny. At least in concept. Can you imagine? He invites his new hire to dinner to “tell her about the company” but she moves too fast for him and before he knows it he has to claim in desperation that Earth customs dictate no probing until the second date. Each chapter was planned as a self contained story with the intention of spoofing trends in paranormal and horror (and to a lesser extent, Sci-fi and fantasy). I was maybe half way through the first story when I got stuck. Andy had to subdue Richard with his Rocket Fist (a reference to Japanese robot shows, specifically Mazinger Z) when it was starting to look a little too stupid. That’s when I started to watch The Tick. For encouragement, I guess. Like minds. Inspiration. And by the end of the first episode, The Tick had Doc Brown teaching us the lesson of Metcalf (He wanted to be a superhero, and now he needs a machine… to poop!), a soviet android programmed to assassinate Jimmy Carter, and Apocalypse Cow shooting fire from her teets. How the hell was I supposed to compete with that? And being a book, I couldn’t use visual stunts. Arrrghle barghle.

Wave of the Future-
The greatest heroes of all time. Awesome Guy. Captain Obvious and his sidekick, 20/20Hindsight. Speedy Guillermo. Psychedelic Lightshow. Aqualung. And the ever popular Wonder Lass (occasionally referred to by chauvinistic pigs as Wonder Bra). This story has nothing to do with them, but rather their Graduate Assistants, known collectively as the Wave of the Future. They are:

Danger Tongue- Apart from being fairly charming (particularly where older women are concerned) he has no powers of any kind and despite being team leader, he insists that he gets no respect. No respect at all. Hence the name Danger Tongue. Mostly he gives statements to the press and is sent to commandeer civilian vehicles, cut people in line and do other little dirty tasks for more important heroes.

The Airy Punster- who has found a way to turn levity into levitation.

Lens Flare- Whose “powers” are all edited in during post production thanks to her 1337 photoshop skillz.

Lok Smith- Secret son of Will, rumored to be the result of a government project in Eugenics, and their resident stealth and infiltration expert.

Together they battle against the world’s greatest fiend- Subsidius, the family farmer whose evil organization is funded by YOUR TAXES.

I think you can see why I dropped this one. Maybe as a one shot graphic novel, except I can’t draw, don’t know many who can, and graphic novels are crazy hard to sell. Also because I’m into novels and short stories. And also because best case scenario, one day I’d be signing copies at a convention and Ben Edlund would come over and say “You just wish you were me.” And he’d be totally right.

Office Comedy Week Part IV: SPOOOOOOON

Alright, I apologize for the title line. I'm not discussing spoons today. No, I'm talking about the little engine that could of the super hero world- Ben Edlund's THE TICK. It started as a comic as far back as the late 80s. But comics are for losers and we all know I'm such a cool guy and totally not a nerd, so like all cool people I was first exposed to the Tick through the mind melting affects of children's Television circa 1994. But while us crazy folks who watched stuff like Freakazoid may remember the cartoon well, so few people ever remember that there was a 2001 live-action version. Possibly no one remembers because it was during that period where Fox canceled everything. As in, that's when they canceled Family Guy (to such strong protests they eventually brought it back) and it's shortly before they canceled Firefly, a cult sci-fi show whose following actually continued to grow until a followup movie was made (Incidentally, Edlund worked with the far more famous Whedon on a number of his projects including Firefly. Edlund; the unsung hero of losers everywhere). Fox was not exercising the best judgement at the time. What really hurts is that the live action Tick is genuinely one of the funniest goddamn things I've ever seen in my life. So much so that numerous concepts I had in mind just fell apart. It seemed like the Tick beat me at every turn. And look at how far it got. A mere nine episodes, not all which even got the chance to air. As a rule of thumb, the better and more distinct something is, the less time it gets in the media. Beatle Bailey and Blondie are still doing their shtick sixty years. Or, since we're talking TV, the Simpsons is 20years old and hasn't been funny since the mid 90s. Shows like Cheers and Frasier went on forever and one was a sequel to the other. These days we've got Two and a Half Men. Thank God Sheen's insanity is putting a stop to that. Pains me to admit this though. The Tick's ratings sucked. Even Firefly could claim 5 million viewers an episode. But again, like Firefly, it had such praise from its existing fans (as well as all the actors in it etc.) that it was quickly released on DVD, and today is perpetually availible on Hulu and Netflix instant.

Again, you might not see how this would be an office comedy but I assure you that it is. The shows I've discussed so far have been either batshit insane (Better off Ted and Archer) or taking the extraordinary and making it commonplace (Dead Like Me). The Tick is unusual in that it does both of these things. Patrick Warburton who played the title role went from being no one as far as I was concerned to being one of the funniest people alive through this role. He's probably the most over the top of the cast, but even the sraight man (Arthur, until recently an accountant and boring enough to prove it) is laughably excessive. There's the episode when he's forced to tell his mother and sister about his "Life style choice" (You mean your family doesn't know that you're... super?) and gets committed. And that's how many episodes go. Little actual heroing is accomplished. It's always about the prelude or the after affects of the heroism. So another example: the episode when The Tick and Arthur are invited to join a League of Super Heroes while their friends Batmanuel (try saying it a few times. It grows on you.) and Captain Liberty (the only proper hero of the bunch, really) start a class action lawsuit against the same league for discriminatory entrance policies. And of course the classic episode where they all have to testify in court against Leonid Kasparov Destroyovitch AKA “Destroyo” despite the Tick's limited understanding of the justice system.

The icing on the cake is Warburton and the hilarious Tickisms which come up frequently.


I know you all expect and hope that I’ll hate everything I come across but I’m not really some hate filled monster. Just a critic. Everybody is. I’m just better at it than most people. But I’ve been feeling pretty shitty lately so I’ve really only been talking about stuff I enjoyed. And this is the best of the best. Stupid, yes. Cheesy, yes. Weird and dumb and niche, yes. But also made of pure win. Watch it. Or I’ll sic Destroyo on you.

Office Comedy Week Part III: Archer

Archer is one of those shows intent on playing devil’s advocate in the issue of whether or not intelligence agencies are actually intelligent at all. I don’t know about you, but personally, I’m sick to death of “realistic” crime dramas where every cop is psychic and even better, the ones that follow FBI, CIA or other such groups who have magic underground rooms where they can see everything happening everywhere at any time forever. It’s like have magic mirrors. Computers don’t work that way. Profilers aren’t magic. Lab techs and hackers are not the same thing. NCIS was tolerable until they gave it a spin off. But in general? These shows drive me ape shit. How they could even have pretensions to realism is beyond me. So maybe my burning desire to tell millions upon millions of viewers that what they’re watching is stupid and why it’s stupid (because it isn’t what you think it is) has been influencing my viewing patterns for the last decade. I’m more likely to watch The Man Who Knew Too Little or A Shot in the Dark than James Bond, and I’m more likely to watch Archer than CSI or Criminal Minds or whatever.

The show centers around an intelligence agency- ISIS, and its key players. Namely, Malory Archer, former black ops specialist, and a drunk, horny woman. She’s also the world’s worst mother. Which is fitting since her son, the titular Archer is the world’s best-worst secret agent. Code named Duchess after Malory’s dog, Archer’s as talented in the individual aspects of the spy game such as shooting, driving get away, stealthy infiltration, and running the fuck away as he is emotionally retarded. Oh, and he’s as horny as his mother. Not that it’s easy to tell in this show. Of course there’s also Cyril the accountant, who is dating Lana, the other star field agent at ISIS and Archer’s ex. Then you have crazy Carol, or Sheryl or Cristal the secretary (she changes it in every episode) Pam, the disgusting HR director, and everybody’s favorite mad scientist, Krieger, inventor of the fabled Fister Roboto.

You may not think that randy, irresponsible spies is an office comedy. That’s because you’re thinking Austin Powers. You’d be surprised how much of the office aspect comes through in this show. Indeed, relatively little actual spy work goes on. The first episode has Archer accidentally uncovering a double agent when he tries to cover the fact he’s been using the agencies’ funds for personal use. And yet everyone seems to be more concerned that the donuts Lana knocked out of his hand will attract ants. It’s actually really clever how they work most of that stuff in. For instance, there’s the episode where they have to try and bribe a representative of the UN to give them a grant rather than their rivals, ODIN.

Really, the show has only one downside. It’s ludicrously foul. I have no problem with cursing, or disturbing imagery or ideas or even basic plot premises. It’s virtually impossible to offend me. Which is why this show doesn’t. BUT it’s one of those rare occasions where I can see someone saying “Why would they do that?” because sometimes it’s so excessive it overshadows anything else that’s going on. And usually the show is at its funniest when it’s kinda-sorta-pretending to hide its nature. Like a conversation between Malory Archer and the head of Odin (observant folks will note a clip from this scene is in one of the linked videos. And also, that Malory and the head of Odin are played by the mother and father from Arrested Development, which links us back to Better Off Ted. Re-read that post for a refresher if you’re not sure how)where every exchange between them is a double entendre and seemingly unintentional when taken individually but become increasingly obvious, sped along by Archer helpfully interjecting “Phrasing!” every time. Anyway, it ain’t a show to watch with the young ‘uns that’s for sure. But if you can get past the show’s penchant for excess it’s incredibly funny and unusually clever. Its second season just ended. I’m kind of expecting that’s all we’ll get. Good shows are usually lucky to get that. Anyway, although they took it down during the new season, the show is available instantly on Netflix and *used* to be on Hulu, so it'll likely come back to that as well. I’d imagine the second season will join it soon. Just be sure to only watch when the kiddies are at school.

Office Comedy Week Part II: Dead Like Me

Wheras Better Off Ted was a laugh a minute satire, Dead Like Me is the sort of office comedy that works by making something that would obviously be insane and making it mundane instead. So I guess it’s more of a “Ha, isn’t that weird.” Kind of humor than knee-slapping, vaudevillian, drug-addled crazy time. The show follows one Georgia Lass, who I love. Not the actress. I mean, she’s good. But the character is...well, like me. If I were an attractive girl instead of a fat, ugly man. And also if I were killed by a flaming toilet seat from outer space.

Oh, did I forget to mention that part? Right. Well. Georgia Lass is a reaper. She reaps. Also, she works part time for a large company. But that’s not where most of the office in the office comedy comes in. No, her real office is Der Waffle Haus where her sourpuss boss (played by Mandy Patinkin distributes Post-it notes containing a name, time, and address that the reapers need to be at to relieve dying bodies of their souls. Despite Georgia being 100% green and being a disenfranchised, cynical young idealist, none too keen on the rules of the game, she’s actually one of the better reapers. When your associates are an excessively violent meter maid, a British drug addict who died by drilling a whole in his head while tripping, and a self-important B-Actress of the early days of the cinema, who is always, always always Daisy, Daisy Adair and never JUST Daisy, you don’t have much choice but to step up. Add to this the fact that Georgia barely had a chance to live, her younger sister’s deep emotional trauma regarding the death, her parent’s crumbling marriage, and the menacing gravelings who raise holy hell if she so much as tries to delay the inevitable death of innocent children and you’ve got…well, you’ve got enough hamhanded drama for a soap opera. But there are dead people. And post-its. In a waffle house. Yeah. Yeah. Think about that. Then check the show out.

Objectively it’s not top tier but subjectively? It’s surprisingly effective at keeping your attention once it has it. Which it might have trouble getting since the first few episodes (including the very long pilot) are really setting the situation and don’t really highlight the show’s more unique aspects.

Also, I have decided that this and yesterday's subject are made for each other. Even now, my crack team of humorologists, Phil and Lem…oh no wait. I mean, Travis and Eduardo, are hard at work at the two hour TV-Special cross over extravanganza Ted Like Me. I don’t want to give too much away, but suffice to say that an enormous, life threatening crisis resulting from what should have been a harmless experiment causes Veridian Dynamics (Better off Ted) to be locked down while the reapers, who are there in force due to the size of the impending incident rush around trying to figure out who is who and getting lost in the insane personal dramas of Veridian’s staff while Georgia faces a difficult decision: Save them all and face the graveling’s wrath, or step up to her new responsibilities as head reaper (which she earned in a special that wraps up Dead Like Me, made several years after its cancellation.) In essence, what I’m saying is… crossovers are really easy to write. All you have to remember is that you’re desecrating not one, but TWO worthwhile franchises. If you can keep that in mind, it’s a snap. Well, if you’ll excuse me, I need to spoon feed some bullshit to idiot executives who cancel good shows but can probably be cowed into making cheesy TV specials after the fact to appease vocal fans(To quote Wikipedia: “A direct-to-DVD movie titled Dead Like Me: Life After Death was released on February 17, 2009,[1] with an option to restart the series.[2]”). Speaking of which- anyone seen the new season of Futurama? Jus’ sayin’. Although to be fair, that show came back with A material. I guess after years off the air, they’d accumulated a ton of good ideas.

Anywho, join me next time as I review Archer, which I can only describe as the bastard child of The Man Who Knew Too Little starring Bill Murray, and the absolutely tasteless (but funny in a disturbing way) animated spoofy sitcom Drawn Together. If you don’t know what that means… consider yourself lucky. Because tomorrow, your innocence will be mine. MUAHAHAHAHAHA.

Office Comedy Week Part I: Better Off Ted

Let’s start with one of the more “traditional” office comedies on my watch-it-or-suffer-my-wrath-because-these-shows-are-all-that-keeps-what-little-faith-I-have-in-television-alive inspired wrath. So I guess the most “normal” of them is Better off Ted.

Better off Ted is a good show. And like many good shows, it struggled to get a second season and was canceled after that despite solid ratings. Apparently five million viewers and critical acclaim when the show got no promotion just isn’t acceptable for a second rate Network like ABC. And you know, when they put Castle on the air I thought they were genuinely trying to rise above their pitiful past. Apparently I was wrong. The good news is that the show is available in its entirety through numerous digital means including but not limited to Netflix. Uh. As are all the shows I’m going to talk about actually. Turns out that I can bypass my usual hatred of television by using Netflix instead. If nothing else, it means it’s all there and I don’t have to watch the show piecemeal. Also gives the world time to separate out the chaffe. And let’s be honest. Most TV is chaffe.

So, BOT is about the titular Ted, a director of Research and Development for a Large, soulless, and generally evil corporation. His underlings like him because he’s merely amoral rather than outright immoral. Also because his underlings are batshit insane. His product tester/ love interest, Linda, vacillates wildly between sugar and spice and a rebel without a cause. Maybe if she had a cause she’d be better at it and stop stealing creamer or playing Linda Bagel- a game she invented which involves bouncing bagels off of one wall into a vent in the adjacent wall. His two best researchers are Phil and Lem, archetypal nerds who are without a doubt, the funniest things in an already hilarious show. Who else can make bullet proof dinner plates, lab-grown beef that tastes like despair, or invent an insult formula that will leave you saying “Dag, yo. I done been Philabusted and/or Lembasted.” Finally, there’s Veronica, his nearly sociopathic supervisor. Or as she would say “I’m different from other women, Ted. And by different, I mean better.” She’s played by the very funny Portia de Rossi (AKA Lindsay Bluth from Arrested Development). And on the off chance the show somehow bores you, bear in mind Portia’s married to Ellen Degeneres. So you can always picture her and Linda having a good time. I’m just saying is all. I was usually laughing too hard to think about it. Usually. But it was worth mentioning. And where most people would let tact get in the way of making such an observation public…I don’t. Because I’m different from other people. And by different, I mean better.

You too can be a better human being than the average. Watching this show’s a good start. In fact, I think the only problem with my strategy of avoiding actual TV and sorting it out once everything is already said and done is that I was unable to contribute myself as a statistic its producers could’ve used as they bleeted desperately to their corporate overlords as they begged for a third season. Which is pretty fitting since the show skewers corporate workings pretty well, with a hefty dose of absurd exaggeration to help the medicine go down. For instance, there’s the episode where the company installs cheaper light sensors that can’t see black people, forcing them to hire white people to follow around the black ones. And who can forget the episode that starts with a Spiderman (movie) spoof? “This story is about a girl. This girl. And like most stories about a girl, this one starts with gunplay.” The episode saw Ted halt his unbreakable dinner ware project, secretly funnel money to his product tester so she could actually deliver on the promises the company makes it its commercials to green their buildings, and has to cover his tracks by attributing the shifting funds to a “top secret” project called Jabberwocky. No one catches him only because no one- not even the highest executives are willing to admit that they’re too out of the loop to know what the imaginary project IS. Doesn’t that sound delightful? Well, get watching. Or you’re dead to me.