Today was a day of projects at the office.
I had nothing pressing that I had to do, no deadlines pressing down upon me (a rarity, that), so I decided to clear off some projects that were not priorities, that were things I wanted to do but simply had not had the time because of pressing deadlines on other things.
There were three projects. Two involved copious amounts of HTML code. One of those meant digging down into a database, too, a database which also happens to be impossible to search or filter.
The third meant writing about Muppets. And Sherlock Holmes. Because BOOM! Studios, a comic book publisher, is doing a series entitled, as you may have deduced, Muppet Sherlock Holmes.
The article on Muppet Sherlock Holmes I’d been wanting to write since before Memorial Day, and I would never get to it during the week, and I always intended to write it over a weekend, only I never did because other things, like Doctor Who or redesigning the website would impede the way.
Today! Today, however, I had the time to write what I wanted to write. I decided that the best way to write about Muppet Sherlock Holmes would be to write it as Watson would write it.
The premise of Muppet Sherlock Holmes, as you might have guessed, is that the Sherlock Holmes stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle have been recast with Muppets — Gonzo is Holmes, Fozzie is Watson, Kermit is Inspector Lestrade. The latter casting is a little subversive, if you thing about it; Lestrade is studious, officious, and also a bit dim. Gonzo, however, is perfect; Holmes is, frankly, a bit of a weirdo in Doyle’s stories, and no one does weird in the world of Muppets better than Gonzo.
Very few people will read what I wrote of Muppet Sherlock Holmes, so here’s a little piece to give some flavor:
“But, Holmes,” said I, “what of Inspector Lestrade’s role in the affair?”
“Well, he is quite the amphibious fellow,” said Holmes.
“You mean that he is a frog,” said I.
Holmes tutted. “Really, Watson, no need to be vulgar. The accident of his birth is hardly Lestrade’s fault. If he happened to have been born a tadpole and grew up in a pond, that it barely something to hold against him. I would no more chastise Lestrade from his ampibiousness than I would remark upon your ursine-ness.”
“Ursi-whatsis?”
Holmes frowned. “A bear, Watson. You are a bear.”
“Oh, quite so, Holmes. Quite so.”
The first issue is due in comic shops August-ish.
I had a lot of fun writing the article. “The best and wisest weirdo I have ever known,” I wrote, echoing Doyle’s line from “The Final Problem” where Watson waxes philosophic on Holmes, dead at the bottom of Reichenbach Falls.
A productive day, all around.