Typographical Archvillain
Herb Kauderer
The punctuation thief began as an apprentice in a printing shop, but sneaking in illicit edits was not enough to satisfy his urges.
He escalated his attacks — leading a movement of minimalist poetry dedicated to the simplicity of language without periods and commas and apostrophes. But every movement has its dissenters and loses steam.
He moved on, and inspired a word-processing war on commas, but that left him dissatisfied, so he sought bigger targets.
His downfall came as he prepared to release the worst word-processing virus ever seen. While deciding whether to release it as ransomware or not, he made the mistake of checking the black market value of an Oxford comma, setting off alarms at Grammar Police headquarters. Within moments, he found himself surrounded by a SWAT Team.
In the end he received a twenty year sentence, with a period at the end for extra punishment.
First appeared in The Detective’s Ghost Oct 12 2017
Haha. A nice little commentary on modern publishing.