The Misery Loves Company began it’s life as a nerf gun movie in 2010. ‘11? Somewhere in that ball-park. We just had some nerf guns. It seemed like a good idea.
You can watch it below. You’ll find most of the familiars, Ahab is the defacto leader (Jason plays General Bloodstorm in the podcast) due to being the competent one, Clyde is the sniper with a mysterious past, Bernie is a degenerate moron who likes big guns and cigars. There’s someone akin to Bloodstorm but we never see him. No Kyrgan.
But the basics are there. We made a sequel, and it’s probably closer in tone to the episodic nature of the show as it exists currently. It fizzled out and we moved onto comics, drawn by Derek who plays Clyde. I thought it would be a cool new angle to have them be soldier of fortune in space— where they could go anywhere and do anything. No matter how stupid.
A lot of the dialogue and situations for the first few episodes are taken directly from this comic. The characteristics of each of the main company members was turned into a more direct physical representation. Ahab is crafty, over-sincere, but genuinely loves being a leader. Clyde, who hides himself from the world, is quite literally turned into a miasma, impossible to grasp unless he allows it, Bernie a thick goofball with a heart of gold that doesn’t melt even if drenched in the blood of the innocents.
After abandoning the idea of the comic, I began re-writing the scripts for this format, eventually building out a 15 episode first season with a few mini-arcs to lay out a strong foundation for a limited series. There is an end. It will come.
I hope you enjoy the journey with me. I hope the show makes you laugh and makes you believe in these 3 people the same way I do.