Finally! said the figure. Now we can talk.

“Oh,” I said. “Okay. Hi.”

I gave it a little wave. The figure stayed motionless, and though I saw no eyes, no facial features at all, I knew it was studying me.

“So. What did you want to talk about?”

It waited a long moment before answering. It is strange, it said eventually, to see the focus of our hatred. To finally meet the creature that has brought upon us such misery.

“Uh,” I said. “Beg pardon?”

The second the words left my lips, the candles behind the figure all went out, as though blown out by a gust of wind. Suddenly, the walls of the room darkened as shadowed figures rose from the ground. I thought at first they were solid, 3-D like the one in front of me, but no. They were flat and trapped…

We're in Gotham City, this time stylized as late 1970s/early 1980s New York City with the 1968 Sanitation Workers Strike thrown in for foul measure. A profoundly disturbed, not especially likeable man get beaten down by even less likeable men. He's attacked in the streets and mugged on the subway. His boss fires him. He wants to be a comedian. "When I told everyone I was going to be a comedian," goes his best joke, "everybody laughed. Well, who's laughing now?"

Actually, he is.…

Gripe water is a "medicine" used to treat colic in infants. To be clear, there is no scientific evidence that it works, and some variants may contain activity harmful substances. To be very very clear the original formulation, below, is just pain bad, and currently illegal in both the US and the UK.

Gripe water is not a traditional remedy, despite what many sources would have you believe. It was invented in 1851 by English pharmacist William Woodward, who noted that certain…