Are these conscious decisions, to stay away from more teen-friendly, anatomical, gutter-style and populist comedy?
They are absolutely conscious decisions. When I started Arsenic Lullaby, having a “mature audience” label meant a whole lot of stores were not going to carry you. So I learned what the guidelines were and made the most despicable book within those guidelines. But also, this book is what I PERSONALLY find funny. Dick jokes, jerk off jokes…these things bore the crap out of me because I’m not in third grade anymore, and those jokes haven’t changed at all since I was in third grade. A fart joke is basically plagiarism…someone farted. End of joke. It’s been told a million times. If you consider yourself a comedy writer and you include a fart joke in something, go hang yourself. It’s 2009, we should be writing material that is BETTER than material from the past. Yet how many “comedies” will come out this year that are as funny as Ghostbusters, or Monty Python or THE FLYING DUECES FOR THAT MATTER. The suicide scene that Laurel and Hardy wrote for that movie is funnier than anything I’ve seen
