Overqualified - Softcover

Comeau, Joey

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1550228587 ISBN 13: 9781550228588

Publisher: ECW Press, 2009

Synopsis

"Overqualified's cover letters are like a slap in the face, but the slap is hilarious, and you can't stop laughing, and as soon as it's over you want to tell all your friends about the slap. You know the kind?" — Ryan North, Dinosaur Comics

Cover letters are all the same. They're useless. You write the same lies over and over again, listing the store-bought parts of yourself that you respect the least. God knows how they tell anyone apart, but this is how it's done.

And then one day a car comes out of nowhere, and suddenly everything changes and you don't know if he'll ever wake up. You get out of bed in the morning, and when you sit down to write another paint-by-numbers cover letter, something entirely different comes out. You start threatening instead of begging. You tell impolite jokes. You talk about your childhood and your sexual fantasies. You sign your real name and you put yourself honestly into letter after letter and there is no way you are ever going to get this job. Not with a letter like this. And you send it anyway.

About this title

About the Author

Joey Comeau is the author of Lockpick Pornography and Too Late to Say I'm Sorry, as well as the popular web comic A Softer World. He lives in Toronto, Ontario.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Dear Paramount Pictures,

I want to write horror movies. When I was a kid, I was terrified of horror movies. I remember watching Pet Sematary four times before I ever saw more than a flash of the dead guy. I hid underneath a blanket every time anything happened, every time the music came up. I covered my ears.

I liked being scared, though. My grandparents owned a farm, and my brother Adrian and I used to sneak out to the barn in the middle of the night. My grandfather used that barn to store the tractor. It used to be a real barn, though. It was left over from when there had been a farm, not just a vineyard back there. It was old and broken down and perfect for us.

Adrian and I went in there with our flashlights, and there was a room underneath the hayloft. It was small and dark and slick and there were no windows. It was a room where your imagination became full of snorting stomping animals all wet with sweat. Even in the middle of the day, that room was black like horse eyes.

One of us would sit outside and the other would go in, without his flashlight, and see how long he could stand to be alone in that black room. It wasn’t the sort of game that anybody won or lost.

I’ve thought about this a lot, Paramount. I want to write horror movies that scare you, but leave you with the feeling that your brother is right outside the door, waiting, flashlight in hand.

Only, when you call out, there’s no answer. And the barn is empty, like your stomach.

Joey Comeau

About this edition

• Publisher: ECW Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1550228587
• ISBN 13: 9781550228588
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 96