An INCREDIBLE STORY
of POWER and CORRUPTION
LOVE and HOPE
DEATH and DISCO
…
LAURA CROFT
and her Willing Accomplices / Other Names
Part One: From Humbly-Bumbly-boobly-sloobly beginnings...!
This undeniably epic behind-the-scenes depiction of the Loolaa franchise begins extraordinarily simply; at the start.
The first edition of Laura Croft came about as the fevered dream of one Dr. Moustache III - a born Wessex nationalist who, dazed and confused upon returning from an expedition to German East Africa in 1906, fell terribly ill with cases of bone marrow rot, lientery, and advanced decomposition. He stated in a 1908 interview how these illnesses brought him to dream of Laura Croft:
"I was dreaming of little rabbits chasing bears when suddenly it came to me, a shining goblet from heaven, and imprinted upon the side of it was undeniably the figure of a horrendous looking sandwich. This image sickened me so much that I fell ill from Typhoid Fever, and a little morphew; I felt rather terrible! Oh my!"
Clearly, the Dr III was a genius, and returned home to London's Lower Shaftesbury Avenue to begin writing the first edition of a new adventure book, which he entitled 'Laura Croft and the Journey to the Underworld'. However, the Doctor's room-mate (and good friend) Michael Rosebud had been smuggling unbelievably large amounts of opium into the dorm; it was not long before the good Doctor was using a surprisingly large amount of it for his personal needs each day. This doubtlessly affected his judgement, but probably in a good way, as he explained to the press in this 1912 extract from The Times:
"Get out of my... Faces!"
Soon enough, the Doctor was dead, leaving behind an unfinished portal-esque type gateway into an unbuilt world of magical wonder and shining excellence. His son, Jankovich Twitch, a snivelling young thing, inherited his father's fortunes in the year 1913. Of course, Mr. Twitch could only enjoy this brief foray into the world of, as he put it, "actually having money," for a limited period of time before joining the British Expeditionary Force to Belgium in 1914. The experience brought Twitch into the same problem as his father before him -
"Give me my opium! My goodness! Woah! Wooh! What the devil is that thing sliding over there! Ooh!"
So, with a thunderously explicative smash of pen onto paper, the initial Laura Croft story was continued in 1915 by a similarly crippled mind to the one that had started it almost a decade prior. Jankovich, sadly, had sustained terrible recurring injuries during the war and, after having drafted one paragraph of writing, died. This left the third inheritor of the presently unfinished Laura Croft franchise the young and dashing Victor Twirch, a man whom sold the family housing in Shaftesbury Avenue and moved to the United States of America; there he purchased a ranch, believing it to be a source of income. He commented on his decision six years after making the move in 1927:
"This bunghole is the single least satisfying occupation I've ever had the misfortune of having to slog through each and every miserable rainy day of my life; why I've never felt so utterly misguided..."
This attitude, which he termed 'die' (a corruption of 'do or die'), led him to abandon the ranch and move to New York. Residing in the slums near the docks, he started writing the rest of the incomplete Laura Croft novel, inspiring himself with mysterious techniques that he appeared fearful to reveal.
Victor Twirch revealed the completed story to his closest friends on the 3rd January 1938, prompting them to, as he wrote in his diary, 'die of suffocation due to laughing too hard at terrible grammatical mistakes and plot inconsistencies'. He died of shame one day later, sending his belongings to his only son - Merk Twirch, a shoveller's apprentice living in the United Kingdom. Merk was illiterate, but realised the monetary potential of the story when he had his wife read it aloud to him. He decided to take the draft to the publishing firm of Tryndamere-Mordekaiser Ltd, who accepted the draft, creating 5,000 paperback copies of 'Laura Craps: The Revenge of the Salamander King' in 1940. They sold well, but the Second World War led to the destruction of Tryndamere-Mordekaiser Ltd; the book was left out of print for 34 years, Merk Twirch perishing due to bad luck in the war.
Part Two: It Just Doesn't Die
In the year 1974, Durk Twirch, the 22 year old grandson of Merk Twirch, discovered the original draft of Salamander King in the basement of the new family home in Bath. He sent it off to M-Industries Book & Magazine Publishings, Inc., hoping that it might source a little extra income for his growing family.
The reprint was a resounding success, making Durk several more pounds in monthly income than he would otherwise have. Buoyed by this apparent success, Durk tried his hand at writing a new edition of Laura Croft to capitalise on the success of the first. He named it 'Laura Windsow: II: Grave Raver Robber Extreme', commenting this on his choice of title:
"I decided on the royal association of 'Windsor' because it was a sign of my utmost respect for our masters in London... Somehow, nobody seems to understand this. I didn't even call her Windsor in the actual story anyway, so it doesn't matter. The cider took care of that sort of niggle. I thought about calling it 'Disco Fever 101 with Laura the Robbing Graveyard Mistress' but settled on the more gritty title because it was better, I suppose.'
Durk's clear (and uncommon) ability for rational thinking propelled the new Laura Croft short story to heights equal to and above that of the first, becoming an instant hit amongst gooey children and gooey old people alike (and those in between the threshold of 'dry and sticky', as Durk's interesting accounting books put it).
Real success only came for Durk in 1976 when he published the book in the United States and Japan. The Japanese translation of the two novels was so incomprehensibly garbled and nonsensical that it was received with wild acclaim, re-translated back into English and published in the United Kingdom as the famous Japanese Variant edition. The United States edition sold fairly well, and was picked up by the Hollywood director/producer Hamface Slamface, who announced in 1977 his intent on making a film adaptation of the two books to international audiences on television:
"I am proud to announce my choice to make these films here! Yeehaw! He he!"
The film was created on a budget of 1,000 USD; this led to it being one of the worst films in the history of filmography. Unbelievably to the public (and Mr Slamface) it made over one million dollars in ticket sales, propelling the franchise to hitherto unknown heights of popularity, selling over five million copies in the year 1978 alone.
This sudden pang of fame settled on Durk Twirch disastrously. Twirch began spending his fortune upon ever more ridiculous hobbies (such as dark magic, colonisation, and violins) until he reached an unparalleled level of mental instability; claiming to 'see the slump in his soul' he wrote the next instalment in the Laura Croft franchise – Looj the Tomb Stealer: III: Return of the Suls.
Return of the Suls harked back to his great-great grandfather's expeditions to Africa in the early 1910s (although the story itself took place in French Indochina due to Durk insisting that 'the Gods of jam tarts were looking at him' and that Africa was 'not really there') and his grandfather's experience in the second world war. Released in 1981 Return proved a box-office and sales success, and resulted in Durk's retirement from public life. He passed the franchise down to his daughter, Sally Twirch, who forged Lala Nuua: Episode No. IV: Terror of Tropics! one dark evening in the most haunted house in Wales. Published and filmed in 1985, Tropics became a reasonable hit, spawning a comic book and line of action figures. Sally, contented with this state of affairs, left the franchise to her grandson in 2001. Mannfried Granthrop Twirch-Bomstrox, 23 years old, was a talented lad who announced to the magazine PC Gamer his intention to release a new episode to book, film, and the new game industry:
"I know that the franchise is a little old, but I feel it's still got money to milk. Heh. Heh. Yeah, dude. Cool as."
The new edition was written by Mannfried in late 2001, and it was given to a number of seperate developers to make into a film, video game and book. Playing on the release date of the 1st January 2002, Mannfried decided to name the new instalment Loolves Crotch the Fifth: V: Emperor of the Groovy Gravy Tomb Realms Christmas Special Sing-Along. Needless to say, this new edition brought with it some degree of success, leading to just enough money to fund this documentary on the franchise – which means I'm getting paid! Yippee! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha-cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, c'oough! C'ouugh! C'oough! C'oough! H'oaark! H'oarrk! Huurgh! Hurrgh! Hurgh! Huh! Whooph! Huurph! Hurh! Hurh! Hooah! Hoooooph...!