Interview with the Author.

 

HI everyone, I’m here with comedy author Des Parker

Who the hell are you?

I’m you. I have come to interview you.

I haven’t got any pants on.

So, you’re not a pantser? You don’t make your stories up as you go along?

I’ve got no pants on because I’m in the bathroom.

It doesn’t bother me.

You could have picked a better time.

It’s my bathroom too.

Fine. Get on with it.

Okay. So, you’re a comedy writer. First book  - zombies? Why?  It’s not like they can carry a joke - I mean, their arms keep falling off, so they can’t really carry much of anything.

Is that meant to be funny?

Yes. Clever wasn’t it!

I think you should leave the jokes to me.

Fine. Mister Smartass. – I’m so clever even my reflection can’t keep up, Mistrer know-it-all clever clogs author.

Thank you.

It wasn’t meant to be a compliment.

Listen, I’ve got my pants on now, so do you want to ask your questions or not?

Fine. Why zombies?

Because of Shaun of the Dead. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost did such a great job on that film. They made zombies funny. My book is a sort of homage to them. I even named the protagonists after them.

But their film made sense. Your book has zombie-killing goats.

Have you ever met a goat? They are the most stubborn, bad-tempered bastards on Earth, and they can kick you in the head from the other side of town. More than a match for any zombie.

And why would anyone want to read another zombie book anyway? There are lots of great zombie stories out there already. Take The Walking Dead for example. How can you bring anything new to the game?

I wanted to make zombies fun again. The Walking Dead should really be called “Everybody dies – why bother!” I also wanted to pay homage to the zombie films of old. The ones I grew up with – where the zombies shambled everywhere, and the humans had a much better chance of survival. 

But that’s boring, it’s not gruesome at all.

Excuse me; my book is just as gruesome.

How can your book be gruesome? It’s a comedy.

It still has its fair share of gruesome bits, but it’s also got jokes and it doesn’t take itself all that seriously.

Well it wouldn’t be a comedy if it didn’t have jokes, would it!

Are you trying to interview me or be a critic?

Both. An author’s biggest critic is always themselves, isn’t it?

Yes, but they don’t normally appear in human form while one is having a shower and stick a microphone in your face.

I’m being creative.

You’re being an ars –

An astounding judge of human character wrapped in a great big bubble of contemplative elegance, captured within the framework of an authorial intervention in the form of an interview.

Right, this interview is over.

But I haven’t asked the deep and meaningful questions about the hidden message of the book.

It hasn’t got a hidden message; it’s a book about bloody zombies.

Obviously there’s going to be blood, zombies are after all dead people. But what does the blood symbolize?

It’s blood. It symbolizes blood. People bleed when they die – and then they become zombies, 

Not if they blow up.

What!

If they blow up, there’s no blood, they don’t have time to bleed.

Close the door on your way out….