Just putting the finishing touches to two strips for two very different target audiences. The first is a 'Laptop Lad' script for Sha Nazir. Sha's self-publishing this lovely little character whose head is shaped like a (you guessed it) laptop. I'd say it's 'PG' rated not by intention, but that's just the rating the character comfortably sits in. Although I've probably pushed that as far as it can go with a 'rabies/energetically brushing his teeth/causing lots of mouth foam' gag. Trust me it looks worse when you read it in isolation like that; works perfectly fine in the context of the story. Anyhoo the story is about a young overactive nephew running riot much to the amazement and despair in equal measure of his poor uncle. Good clean, hygienic even, family fun.
The other thing is a 'spec' script for 'Crossed' published by Avatar. 'Crossed' was devised and originally written by Garth Ennis; zombie-like infected taking over the world where the disease takes away all inhibitions. So a Crossed will make a gash in your body with a knife and then promptly - umm how can I put this delicately - make love to it! Impaling, Severed limbs, sodomy by blunt instrument - my spec script ticks all the boxes, but y'know I love zombie movies (the well-made ones anyway) and there's a thin line between the 'man's inhumanity to man' subtext and an excuse for good sick, filthy even, fun.
I'm reminded of Steven Spielberg who during the day filmed the holocaust horrors of 'Schindler's List' while at night edited the dinosaur romp 'Jurassic Park'. As a species we are fascinated by horror, but we only have the capacity to take so much of it. As Colonel Kurtz once so succinctly observed; where there is only horror in peoples' lives it consumes them body and soul. Maybe the world would be a better place if everyone stopped for a while, no matter what they were doing, and watched Gary Tank Commander.
