I Read Stories: Show Goes On by Louis Evans

 

Show Goes On by Louis Evans in Fusion Fragment

Nicky Tremaine was a child actor in a sitcom, now he’s struggling. No one has turned up to this performance of his one man show in Los Angeles; he decides to go through with it anyway. Then Doctor Apocalypse appears.

Doctor Apocalypse is an enigmatic supervillain who has a triple-skulled face inside a spacesuit. Doctor Apocalypse follows his own rules, does his own odd things. He’s fought and killed God twice. He doesn’t hate people, he can be perfectly safe so long as you aren’t in his way. Nicky goes on with his one man show, the best performance so far.

He tells his roommate and they come and Doctor Apocalypse returns. Word gets about and people come. A superhero team try to take Doctor Apocalypse down, fail.

Nicky gets an opportunity, stunt cast into a sitcom. Rosario, another actor, takes him under her wing, coaches him, his career takes off. They get married, they divorce. Nicky gets regular work, gets into directing, has some success, gets into drugs, falls apart, puts himself back together. Rosario dies, he can’t make it to the funeral because Doctor Apocalypse is fighting God for the third time. All this time Doctor Apocalypse is doing inexplicable things, often malign in a tangential way.

SPOILERS

This story is a joke, in that it has a set up and a punchline. It’s also a long exploration of someone’s life and career, here Nicky Tremaine who acts, directs, writes and occasionally produces, with personal and professional triumphs and pitfalls along the way. It’s also an attempt to portray an inexplicable force of nature contained in a triple-faced screaming skull in a space suit. The absurd nature of the entertainment industry collides with the ridiculousness of superhero nonsense, colliding to send Nicky down a different path – at one point he can feel his obituary being rewritten in real time. And this, the full faced set up, the stories that would work on their own, the sheer length and effort, that’s where the joke comes in.

But the punchline is pretty good too.

END OF SPOILERS

Read This: An exploration of an event and how it turns a life and career around, and a funny, lightly superheroic future
Don’t Read This: This sort of thing should be short and, well, punchy
If You Don’t Get The Punchline: Maybe have a look here
Fusion Fragment: Is available for free but you do have to sign in to get an issue