Dead good

Dead Funny is a compilation of short horror stories written by comedians. With contributions from the likes of Richard Herring, Stewart Lee, Sarah Pascoe, Al Murray and many more, most of the authors are household names here in England, but are probably little known (if at all) State-side. That doesn’t matter though, given the talent on display.

As with any bunch of short stories, some are good, some are just OK, and some are fantastic. Surprisingly (to me, anyway), none of my favourites turned out to be written by my favourite comics – Stewart Lee got himself in the OK column – and three in particular have made me eager for their authors to write more. Robin Ince, who co-edited the book, gets the highest accolade from me thanks to the utterly fantastic Most Out Of Character, in which a man ashamedly (and hilariously) watches himself devolve into some sort of zombie. Phil Jupitus’ Anthemoessa was also brilliant, as a wannabe City trader gets himself ensnared by some sirens, and Michael Legge’s The Dream of Nightmares told of a woman who uses her husband’s clairvoyant sleeptalking to propel herself to national crime-solving fame. Meanwhile, Possum simply had me very concerned about Matthew Holness (of Garth Merenghi’s Darkplace) and convinced that he should be put on some sort of watchlist.

A quick and entertaining read, I’d happily pick up another volume of these should one be written. And now I’m looking forward even more to the other Robin Ince book I got for Christmas.