After months of silence and the relative quiet of a Summer without Laughs, the Joker reappeared in Gotham with a crime that shocked the Theater Community to the Core. The Whole of Gotham’s Stage Actors Guild found itself without work and off stage in September when The Batman released a statement implicating “The Joker” in the deaths of Daliah Von Seraph and Timothy Risseraud, leads from “All Greeks And Crooks” which had just started it’s run in Gotham.
The two leads had been making headlines as masked clowns who fell in love while taking part in a Greek Tragedy revival, a Chorus, within a play. On that fateful night the pair had been deep in the show-stopping “We’re only clowns for money, we’re lovers forever” song when they both lost the tune and laughed until they bled from their eyes.
In the Audience that night was socialite Patron Bruce Wayne (Wayne Industries); approached for comment he suggested that this was murder and not just a simple mishap on stage. Dark Thoughts, but readers will remember that Mister Wayne’s life has been tied up in tragic deaths. Also present was Selina Kyle, who said she never missed seeing Daliah on stage, and was shaken after such a ‘vulgar, painful passing’.
It was less than 12 hours later that The Batman had reached out to the Gotham Community and asked them to please forego makeup and masks, or even close down production altogether.
Braver or More Foolish players went forth and The Joker’s second “trick” was played, and the whole cast of “The Tragedy of Isolade and Tristan” found their faces turned a death-pale white, their hair a deep, luminous green, their lips a lustrous red and their bodies a bloated, and rotting, dead.
GCPD took charge at this point and shut down every On and Off the street production, even going so far as to shut down every makeup house and fashion outlet. Soon Enough, the whole Entertainment Industry was closed, save for Stand-up joints, which were seeing a boom.
Hallowe’en came and the only Live entertainment in Gotham was someone standing with a mic and telling jokes. The city was full of Laughs.
The Joker appeared in a web video to say “You’re welcome, Laughingist City on Earth!” and he took a bow.
The Batman had him in hand by the next day, but you can’t help but wonder if the Joker just let himself be caught, since he’d had his Punchline.
Weeks of Reading
Published by NiteMayr on October 5, 2020Over the last few weeks the local Dollarama (a Walmart Company?) has been stocking massive piles of Trade Paper Backs (TPB) so much so that I’ve already overrun my bookshelves and storage. I have a pile of Books on my bedside table FOR STORAGE. Not for reading. I’ve also got a stack in the Bathroom and a bunch that have just sort of found a home in one of my short bookshelves.
Usually, I would just read through them. Start on “book X” and read all the ones that are in the same series until done.
I’ve been keeping myself slow on these, mostly to string them out as long as possible. I wouldn’t normally buy (for example) a series of Thor books, but because they were so cheap I bought a big stack of them. I read Thor off an on, because the writing for Thor can get a bit “much”
All of that aside, I have weeks of reading ahead of me. Months of stories and years of memories. The problem with all that being the stack of straight novels piling up and the years of movies and TV shows I’ve avoided.
I finished “Destroy all Humans” last night.
I have too much Passive Media around I think. Also, I just turned 45, you should see my Collection of Transformers!