YOU TALKIN’ TO ME?

IN THE CROSSHAIRS THIS MONTH…

FILM QUOTES POSE AS QUESTIONS. FILM STARS TRY TO COPE.

That very much depends on the future tone of your questions. At this rate, no.

You’ve got to ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya, punk?

The question, rather, is do you feel lucky, punk? Because, believe me, junior, you should. I am the greatest, if not the only truly great horror writer of both the 20th and 21st centuries (plus the 19th and 18th, if you include my previous incarnations). Yet here I am, spending valuable time away from my writing and dreaming schedule to answer the second of these extremely vague and borderline insulting ‘questions’. I note, also, that you have failed to provide me with an answer to my question.

How much can you know about yourself if you’ve never been in a fight?

I’m unable to answer that question because I have been in numerous fights since birth. From before birth, in fact. When I was a sperm, I fought off a wild pack of rival sperms and eviscerated all of them. And I’ve been fighting ever since. I fought against oppression throughout my nursery years and battled logic and reason throughout school. I fought daily and nightly and oft betwixedly ’gainst a publishing industry which has attempted to silence my mind from the get-go. Therefore, I can’t answer you. Ask a better question.

Why so serious?

Why so frivolous? That’s another of my questions to you, by the way.

Aren’t you a little short for a stormtrooper?

I’m six foot three. Depends how tall stormtroopers are. If they’re generally in the region of six foot, then no, I’m about average for a stormtrooper. If they’re under six foot, around the five-foot margin, say, then I’m technically a little tall for a stormtrooper. And I’m not a stormtrooper, by the way, so this question, like so many others here, are irrelevant to the promotion of my new book, Garth Marenghi’s Incarcerat. And I don’t even know what a stormtrooper is. Plus I don’t care.

Have you ever danced with the Devil in the pale moonlight?

Yeah, I dance with the Devil nightly and daily, though do generally prefer it when he’s sporting a female form. As a horror writer, it’s part of my job to parry and parley with Old Nick. Truth ’tis, frequent bouts of satanic cut and thrust come with the territory, in case any of your readers are contemplating a career in horror publishing. The Devil is a trickster, mind, so watch your wallet, and above all else, wear one.

So what are you afraid of?

Apart from my tax bill? Heh heh heh. Not much, friend. I can’t afford to be frightened of my own visions, or I wouldn’t be able to write them down and subsequently earn a fortune from them. Yet there are a few things still capable of freezing my nuts in the dead of night. Twins (especially my own daughters); my wife Pam on perming day; my wife Pam in her new leathers; my wife Pam when reading my first drafts, and also the winds of change currently swirling through the horror industry and, more specifically, awards season.

You talk the talk – do you walk the walk?

Both, and frequently at the same time. Writing a novel generally adds over two stone to my overall body mass, so it’s important to generate a good amount of that wordage on the trot. Therefore I’ve rigged up one of my word processors to an exercise bike and use that for half an hour in the morning while shouting down to Pam to bring me up a decent breakfast.

What’s your favourite scary movie?

Garth Marenghi’s The Premonitioner, an adaptation of my own novel concerning precognitive doomsayer Tray Stichton, a man cursed with terrifying precognitive visions of his own terrifying precognitive visions, which themselves foretell the uncanny real-life playing out of said terrifying precognitive visions. It’s yet to be filmed, or written, but reviews are already in from the Institute of Psychic Seers, who all confirm that it’s a masterpiece.

We all go a little mad sometimes. Haven’t you?

Indeed I have, friend, briefly, during the writing of my latest book Garth Marenghi’s Incarcerat. I shaved myself from pate to perineum, locked myself in a toilet for two days and ate oatmeal. But I’m fine now.

My books are all essentially about ‘what ifs’… ‘What if a rat could drive a bus?

’ Funny. Go read the book and find out. SIMON BLAND

GARTH MARENGHI’S INCARCERAT IS AVAILABLE FROM 31 OCTOBER AND GARTH WILL BE ON TOUR ACROSS THE UK THROUGHOUT OCTOBER AND NOVEMBER 2023.

YOU TALKIN’ TO ME?