Chris Elliott, one of our favorite comedians, has published his first novel. It’s called “The Shroud of the Thwacker,” and it seems to be an historical novel about a Victorian-era serial killer named Jack the Jolly Thwacker. According to the Times today, it a spoof of sensational period mysteries. But part of the novel was accidentally nonfictional fiction, er, fictionalized nonfiction… uh, let’s try that again. Elliott unwittingly appropriated a character from another work of fiction. “Boilerplate” was supposedly one of the world’s first working robots invented in 1893 by a man named Archibald Campion, as described at a website called “Mechanical Marvels of the Nineteenth Century.” Elliott took it to be a period hoax when he made Boilerplate a character in his story. As it turns out, Boilerplate and his entire invented history are a contemporary creation of Oregon artist Paul Guinan. That put Elliot in a ticklish spot, legally speaking, but he came to an “understanding” with Guinan. As quoted in the Times, Elliott seems genuinely embarrassed by the unintended spoof within a spoof. Still, I have my doubts. He may not be the unredeemable prank that his prototype Andy Kaufman was, but I wouldn’t put it beyond Elliott to have prearranged the plagiarism. His ad hoc profit-sharing arrangement with Guinan is notable for one glaring error in concealment–no lawyers were involved.
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