In Which We Question Writer David Court Before It's Too Late

As part of promoting the newly-released-to-Kindle and soon-to-be-print Strangely Funny III, I sent the editors Sarah Glenn and Gwen Mayo a series of questions to pass along to the other writers published within that anthology so I can post their replies.

I got responses.

Foolish mortals.

First up is this fellow from a fantastical, imaginary place called the United Kingdom. The victim's writer's name is David Court, more about his surviving relatives him in a moment.

Question 1: What inspired you to write stories with a humorous bent?

I think humour and horror are ideal bed-fellows.  Both achieve a physical reaction from the reader or listener, which is what we're all trying to achieve really, isn't it?  Laughter or wincing, it's all good..!

Question 2: Which is harder, writing a horror scene or writing a humor scene?

I'm often told that my attempts at writing horror are hilarious, and my comedic writing is horrific - so clearly to my harshest of critics, both are hard to the point of impossibility.

Question 3: So was Mad Max Fury Road robbed of Best Picture at the Oscars or what?!

Never a truer word.  And how George Miller can get a best visual effects Oscar for a film about a talking pig, but not one features dozens of incredibly choreographed visually stunning car chases baffles me (and probably him) to this very day.  Fury Road was so good it almost erased my memory of Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome (tagline: One film enters; No good film leaves).

Question 4: If you had a choice between classic monsters - the vampire, the golem, the werewolf, the ghost, the gill-man - which one would you throw a coconut custard pie with whipped cream at?

Depends on the sprinkles.  Any monster-hunter worth his salt carries a pouch of pie toppings in case such an occasion should occur; Garlic salt for vampires, those little silver balls for werewolves, anti-algae pellets for gill-men.  For your typical Golem it's not the topping that is important but a good aim - as long as your shot can cover the leading 'e' in the Hebrew scrawling on its forehead (thereby changing the inscription from "truth" to "death") you'll deactivate that sucker. And pies are frankly wasted on ghosts - their ethereal nature puts paid to that.

Question 5: and why did that pie end up hitting Humphrey Bogart instead?

Due to decades of exposure, it's a scientific fact (citation needed: checked with a scientist) that the classic Universal monsters each have such a huge ego, that every one of them is capable of generating its own gravitational field.  Thus, any pie launched in their vicinity will slingshot around for some considerable time.  As a result of this, due to a combination of the positioning of them,  the time of day and bio rhythmic cycles, the ultimate target is scientifically next to impossible to predict.  In any case, the aforementioned ghost might have been Humphrey Bogart. 

About David Court:

David Court was born and resides in Coventry, UK with his patient wife and his three less patient cats. A few years back David achieved minor internet notoriety under the pseudonym FoldsFive for his animated GIFs telling the entirety of the Star Wars Trilogy, a fact that he's still jolly well proud of and insists on telling anyone at any opportunity. When not reading, blogging angrily on www.foldsfive.co.uk, drinking real ale, writing software for a living or practicing his poorly developed telekinetic skills, he can be found writing fiction.  His short stories "A Shadow Cast by the World" and "Undercurrent" were published in the horror anthologies "Fear's Accomplice" and "Terror at the beach" in 2014. His first collection of short stories - The Shadow Cast by the World was published in 2013 with Forever and Ever, Armageddon released a year later.