Comedy, parody and satire writers

In a conversation with a friend recently we were discussing what was the most difficult genre to write in. And we came to the conclusion it was humour.
Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, Tom Sharpe, P.G Woodhouse, and already I am running out of names. My friend was much the same, whereas we could rattle of scores of authors in other genres.
It seems successful comedy writing is the hardest of all writing. So in celebration of this a place to discuss writers of comedy.

I thought Pratchett was a good place to start as his comedy is fantasy based. His strength for me is asking and proposing big questions underneath all the fun and jokes. His imagined world, the Discworld, is a perfect mirror to comment on such things.
Here's a good example of what I mean from the adaptation of Hogfather- a book about the Discworld's version of Father Christmas as Death explains to his granddaughter (don't ask) why humans need to believe in the Hogfather and the tooth fairy.

Oh I love Pratchett, whether it's his comments on the fact that organised religion erodes belief (fifth elephant) or the way folk want to believe the fairy story (carrot or Weird sisters) or his poking fum at science (with a world that is all magic and mystical creatures), there is always something that has me hooting out loud!

"whether it's his comments on the fact that organised religion erodes belief (fifth elephant)"-Kafria

I think he is at his best when he touches on big issues like religion. Small Gods is a brilliant example of that. With the one God Om and the Quistion, and of course their ludicrous belief the world is round!

Pettytyrant101 wrote:"whether it's his comments on the fact that organised religion erodes belief (fifth elephant)"-Kafria

I think he is at his best when he touches on big issues like religion. Small Gods is a brilliant example of that. With the one God Om and the Quistion, and of course their ludicrous belief the world is round!

It's small gods I was thinking of! love it's depiction of organised religion!

The mention of Wodehouse conjures up visions of a writer called Jack Vance, a favorite fantasy/science fiction/adventure writer of mine. It is hard to catergorize what genre he actually writes in. Though some find him a trifle sexist (a view I don't share) he is an extremely dry and witty writer who canvasses bigger issues without (overtly) playing it for laughs. You can see by now that I'm struggling to explain Vance. He is an acquired taste, no doubt about it, but worth trying. I know this is not quite the right thread to discuss him, but I do think as he is so very Wodehousian he deserves to be talked about on any thread where Wodehouse is mentioned:-Jane

Comedy is definitely hard to write if you think too much about it. For me,when I come up with ideas for cartoons, I don't over-think it. I just take the situation at hand, and let the joke write itself.

Mum has read nearly every Pratchett book, but I've only read a few. I love the one's with Death and his Granddaughter. I remember one vaguely which had a magic guitar in too. I agree that his humour definitely is often a sly poke at politics and religion. I really should read some more of him.

GB

A great bunch of Hitchhikers stuff. Share and enjoy!

Meeting the meat. (And yes Zaphod's second head is unbelievably awful).



This should solve all your problems with meat eating Ally!

I don't think it nice - or "right" - that lions eat those gentle gazelles... As to cabbages - what did cabbages ever do to us?

Petty Tyrant! Gandalf's Beard! Odo Banks!

It's so much fun to run into you! I completely lost track of you guys when I finally got a job. Last night I was searching the web for references to my book, and THERE YOU WERE.

One person that does comedy writing you might enjoy is James Finn Garner. He wrote the New York Times bestseller "Politically Correct Bedtime Stories" in the 1994. You also might enjoy his newest book, "Honk Honk My Darling: A Rex Koko, Private Clown Mystery." It's very high-concept, and very funny. You'll enjoy it if you like (or hate) clowns, circuses, mysteries, or hard-boiled detectives with huge feet. It's available from Amazon.com as an eBook.

-Paul

Welcome home! Glad you found us again. We tried to get in touch with as many members of the old forum as possible when the site got taken over but collectively those who were in contact outside the site didn't have contacts for everyone (see the Hobbit movie refugess thread for more info). Good to see you back again. I'm sure you will be glad to see we have not one but two dedicated threads for members own writings feel free to add a third!

Welcome back, Paul

Thanks! Great to hear from you, Ringdrotten!

You're inviting me to post Wobbit material here? That's like asking a vampire to come in and have a warm. Yes, I will!

The book is now on Amazon as an eBook, and I've sold a very small number of copies, but it's a start. Most have gone to friends and family, but I've somehow sold a few copies to Kindle users in the UK. Thanks, mates! (Did I do that right?)

I look forward to looking through the forum more thoroughly.

-Paul

Nice! No trouble with Tolkien estate, rights and all that then?

Welcome back to the forum, Paul! You were one of the people I was most disappointed we couldn't find when we were trying to get the gang back together. I'm glad we showed up on a search engine!

The rules on Parody are fairly clear. One has to avoid writing 1) mash-ups of Tolkien characters with ones from Harry Potter (for example), or 2) new stories involving Tolkien creations. And since there are already four Tolkien parodies in print (Bored Of The Rings, one Hobbit parody that was big in the UK but never made it to the States, and two Silmarillion parodies), I'm on pretty safe ground.

Thanks, Eldorion! Everyone on this site was an important source of encouragement for me during my initial writing.

It was fun to run into this site out of the blue. Like seeing a friend at an out-of-town airport.

-Paul

You'd never find me at an out-of-town airport, Mr Wobbit! (Apparently the eagles have fleas! )

How many times do the Eagles save the day? Twice in The Hobbit, three times in LOTR? If an Eagle had discovered the One Ring instead of Bilbo, Sauron would never have had a chance.

Good to hear from you, Odo!

-Paul

Been watching Sky One's verion of Terry Pratchett's Colour of Magic- odd adaptation. It stars Sean Astin, who is completely miscast as Twoflower the Discworlds first tourist (in the book he is a rift on the stereotypical Japenese tourist, in the film they opted to make him a play on US tourists) and David Jason (UK acting treasure, probably one of the most repspected and talented charcater actors in the country not be world famous) as Rincewind, despite being about 40 years too old for the part (a testimony to how good an actor he is that somehow he still makes the part work). But the one character they do get spot on is the Disc's Greatest Warior, a lifetime in his own legend, Cohen the Barbarian.

It is one of my summer's vows to read Discworld this summer! If it wasn't for Harry Potter I would have certainly read them earlier, but I spend most of the early 2000s only reading (and listening to people read) Harry Potter. Well I say early 2000s. It basically carried on until 2007. Though to be fair I also read LOTR a fair few times.

I may watch the DVD first though- I've been looking for something to watch until A Game of Thrones comes out on DVD Boxset!

Oh, and talking of Terry Pratchett, did anyone catch his documentary on assisted suicide? Personally I thought it was excellent, though definitely not an easy watch.

Yeah it was a good documentary, not an easy watch for most folks not used to seeing people die, but nor should it be. It came up for discussion on the BBST.

A summer reading Pratchett. Sounds good to me. I was trying to think if there were any in particular ones I would recomend, or whether to suggest you just read them all in published order. Thing with Discworld is some follow on from one another with characters, some characters cross over to other seperate books and there seems to be some sort of histroic development too (its quite medeival -or earlier- in the first books and by the time say of 'Going Postal' its sort of Victorian and they've invented the clacks for communicating. So complicated!)

Personal favourites include any of the Witches ones, any of the Guards ones. Those are all connected ones and best read in published order (although its not strictly necessary it is easier).
For stand alone ones I love Small Gods and Mort of the top of my head. Sadly the latter books are the poorest, co written as they are because of Sir Terry's growing dementia.

I would also highly recommend the Science of Discworld books by Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen, not as they might sound about the fictional science of the Discworld but books about real science using the Discworld as a sort of thought experiment to compare with our observable universe- sounds odd but they are a great read. You get a chapter written by Pratchett which is a Discworld story, and then a chapter of science, and so on.
It sounds silly but they were well received critically by both the literature crowd and the science lot.

As well as Colour of Magic Sky have also made Hogfather;



and Going Postal;



There are also at least two animated features. Wyrd Sisters and Soul Music. And some very good BBC radio plays of Wyrd sisters, Mort, Small Gods, Guards Guards! and Nightwatch.



And there's also a fan film being made in NZ called Troll Bridge based on a Discworld short story and is about Cohen.



And if its games you prefer I'd recommend Discworld Noir, not only the best discworld game but a classic of the point and click genre. (might be tricky to find and even trickier to get running on a new machine, worth the effort though. Great plot, genuinely intriguing and some brilliant dialogue and original characters created for the game as well as a supporting cast of Discworld regulars).

Small Gods, the BBC radio adaptation. Excellent stuff.

This was the closest thread I could find for this sort of thing. Americans mastering irony, satire and all sorts of stuff generally considered beyond that nations ken! (Sorry Eldo- I know there are exceptions to that rule). Onion News. (Stick with it past the ad, it suddenly becomes genius)

http://www.theonion.com/video/cias-facebook-program-dramatically-cut-agencys-cos,19753/