The real dilemma with Edna is about changing her name. Edna and Edwin are oddly close. Disconcertingly close, one might say. And it wasn’t a choice I made consciously. Perhaps I was just E-happy that day. But I’m loathe to change it. But what’s in a name. By any other name, Edna would still be an awesome character.

Edwin had spent the entire morning trying to explain to Lifto the magnificent why he shouldn’t rob banks.

“But that’s where the money is!”, Lifto protested, bursting into laughter as if he had said one of the most original things in the long-winded history of saying things. Lifto was disappointed when, instead of joining in the hearty guffaw, Edwin searched for a non-existent speck of dirt underneath his perfectly manicured fingernails.

Lifto did not know quite how to react to this. It was not the kind of response he was used to getting. In fact, this whole morning had been strange. Windsor had come highly recommended, but Lifto felt that something was a little odd. If he had the time, or the inclination, to think about anything other than himself, he might have begun to suspect that he was not wanted. And this suspicion would have been given birth by the woman in the lobby.

Lifto had entered the office and announced himself loudly. “Lifto is here!”

Edna said nothing. In fact, her face did not move at all. After a moment’s consideration, she gave a small sniff. As sniffs, go, it was the third most contemptuous sniff of all time.

You see, Lifto the Magnificent was not, in any conventional sense of the word, magnificent. He was squat, hairy and insisted on wearing a purple unitard everywhere he went. When he became excited (which he did often) his complexion grew a shade of deep red that can only be described as purple’s mortal enemy. He was a hideous creature, prone to fits of absurd melodrama.

When it was cold, like this particular morning, he would wrap himself in a fake leopard skin. But that was all pyrotechnics as far as Edna was concerned. She noticed two things. The slavic accent. And the lack of pants.

She quickly assumed that he was a savage.

“If you messed with my head like that, you be lucky if I didn’t dress up in a Tooth Fairy costume and pipe bomb your house.”

What about this one.

“What are you talking about. Sure, the devil may be the patron saint of all defense lawyers, but God loves me. I’m meek.” He leaned out the window to scream at a minivan. “Outta the way urinal puck! We’re not getting any younger!” When he pulled his head back in the car he continued as if nothing had happened. “That’s why I’m going to inherit the earth.”

Every single time I write him, he tries to take over the story.

Think the Hulk, but dumber. (Yes, I said dumber.) He’s so amazingly destructive and unstoppable that law enforcement has a standing rule to leave him alone. Whenever they attempt to stop him it only causes more damage.

]]> http://succeedinevil.com/2006/06/12/the-cromoglodon/feed/ 0 http://succeedinevil.com/2006/06/12/dr-loeb/ http://succeedinevil.com/2006/06/12/dr-loeb/#comments Tue, 13 Jun 2006 02:46:47 +0000 Michael http://succeedinevil.com/?p=21 A dilettant who dabbles in evil courtesy of a seemingly inexhaustible trust fund. He builds a giant underground layer and then puts a sign out front that says, “Secret Lair” What could Edwin do with such resources?

He sees the pieces of the puzzle and is no longer content to watch other people fumble around trying to make a edge piece fit in the middle.