Fiction Factions: Heroes of Horror, Masters of Macabre

Last night I attended the best live show I've seen so far this year. It was called Fiction Factions and was a competition between Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft and some other author who's books I haven't read (that would be you H.G. Wells) embodied by JJ Webb, Stephen W.B. Blakley Mason and Tyler James Nicol in that particular order. They used every form of performance possible to prove they were tops (much like Poe's 12 year old cousin/bride) starting with the always lovely art of women taking their clothes off to music. The lovely ladies who danced their arses off for the authors were Sherry Hymen (crystal egg themed performance), Voodoo Pixie (Dagon, culty tentacle themed) and Melody Mangler (macabre, Victorian tell-tale heart themed). Is it just me or is burlesque infinitely better when it's dark and sinister?

Anywho after the ladies vacated the stage we had a lovely reading of Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven, with a little editing by H.P. Lovecraft, performed by David Quast. Mr. Poe was not pleased with the performance.

Quote Cthulu "Nevermore"

H.G. Wells then used War of the Worlds to teach his colleagues about Twitter and the art of hashtags. Eventually it all turned into tripod porn so Mr. Wells strategy didn't work out quite as well as planned. When Lovecraft's turn came, rather than sharing his literature he ripped open a portal to another dimension, provoking the wrath of a monstrous being he referred to as a god. If we all die by gruesome terrors within the next couple days, he is to blame.

Now since H.G. Wells organized this event he brought in some videos of celebrity endorsements to try and prove his coolitude. Well the cast of The Carrie Diaries and one of the actors from Stargate Universe all seem to feel Edgar Allan Poe is the champion. Then there was what Wells expected to be a song about himself, instead he got this:

After a brief intermission we were treated to Poe's friend Alistair Crane performing some magical "experiments" leaving a little piece of himself on the stage. I didn't know humans could produce anything that blue. Then Wells tried to educate us in science by bringing in an actual scientist who was going to describe what the future for mankind would look like. There were no morlocks in his prediction, just giant roaming balls of dicks and anuses. Science. Finally it was Lovecraft's turn to sell himself. Instead we got a terrifying rendition of one of the most demented songs imaginable. Just trying to remember the title is causing convulsions and madness in me so I will spare you the torture I now feel on a daily basis.

What really made this show comedic gold though was the book burns the authors threw at eachother, which ended up providing a bit of a literature lesson in my case. For instance I didn't know that H.P. Lovecraft was a racist, even towards other white people. Clearly I haven't read those short stories yet. I also learned that H.G. Wells wrote The Invisible Man (I only knew that that was originally a book because of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comics). This combination of fact and funny made my week and I hope there is another Faction show this time next year so I can both laugh and learn all over again (apparently last year there was Science Factions which featured Nicola Tesla and Thomas Edison).