From Tucker’s pocket, Frank snatches a protruding graphic novel, with the idea of using it as firewood. Betty Anne intercepts the item as an introductory story prop. Just where do they get the ideas for these things? What if it's something more than, as Sam suggests, anchovy pizzas before bed? What if somewhere, somehow, muses Betty Anne, the stuff of fantasy might actually happen? Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, she calls this story "The Tale of the Ghastly Grinner".
Aspiring comic artist Ethan Wood, by post, is invited to the grand opening of Comic Books Ink.
From behind a display of comics pops shopkeeper Frankie, who asks to see his drawings. In hushed admiration, she compares his emerging style to one of the greats - Sylvester Unkiss.
From behind the counter, Frankie retrieves a leather case, which contains the first issue of The Ghastly Grinner: a yellow-skinned jester, from whose maniacal leer drip gobbets of blue ooze. Unkiss could only bring himself to draw one issue about this fiend - whose laugh would reduce his victims to giggling insanity. As part of the grand opening, Frankie presents this sole copy, free of charge, to Ethan.
In Physics class, Mr Wrightson quizzes the class on the science of microwaves. Ethan, behind an upside down textbook, stares at the vacantly maniacal laughter of the Grinner’s victims. Mr Wrightson snatches away the comic, and drops it in the fish tank. Hooper Picalarro gives Ethan a sympathetic look.
At home, Ethan dries the soaked comic in the microwave. In his basement bedroom, he takes a phone call. While Ethan's mother prepares to use the microwave, Hooper, on the phone, condoles the destruction of Ethan's comic.
Up in the kitchen, the unattended microwave beeps rapidly. From inside the device, the sound of a small explosion roars through the house. The microwave door swings open. Inside glares a blaze of yellow light.
Aghast, Ethan lays down the receiver. In the kitchen, the comic's middle has been hollowed with a circular hole. What's more, the far door of the kitchen has been damaged with a hole in the neat shape of a caped, leaping figure. With an uproarious laugh, his mother giggles maniacally. From her mouth oozes some kind of blue gunk.
Ethan's father, similarly, sits giggling on the couch.
Outside, Ethan consults the comic. The latest panel depicts the scene he just underwent in the living room. Hooper arrives. Ethan shows her the comic, and confides his fear of having brought its fictional fiend to life.
Ethan and Hooper get a bus into town - maybe Frankie has some answers. In the comic, they find illustrations of themselves seated on the bus, as they are now. Just then, the head of the bus driver twists entirely around to face them. He laughs maniacally, slavers blue gunk, and floors the accelerator.
The bus flies lethally across the thankfully deserted road. Ethan manages to grab an emergency break. The bus jolts to a halt. The crazed driver slumps in his chair, giggling vacantly.
At Comic Books Ink, Ethan quizzes Frankie. Sylvester Unkiss, she says, believed himself, with his comics, to have been chronicling other worlds. Having drawn the attention of the Ghastly Grinner, Unkiss set about drawing the character's death - but before he could finish, vanished without trace.
Sylvester Unkiss, Frankie explains, was her father. Having noticed Ethan’s artistic touch, she sent him the invitation and gave him the comic - he must be the one to finish Unkiss's work.
Since a microwave summoned the Grinner, suggests Hooper, perhaps one can be used to banish him. The three look up - to find, standing atop a shelf, the flesh and blood Ghastly Grinner. He bellows with laughter, and lifts Frankie by the throat. Ethan and Hooper flee.
In Mr Wrightson’s empty Physics classroom, they set up the microwave dish. Mr Wrightson arrives in stern demand of explanation. From behind him emerges the maniacally laughing Ghastly Grinner, who lifts the teacher by the lapels. Ethan hurries to the microwave dish, and switches it on. However, the flashes of blue light have no effect on the Grinner, who happily reduces Mr Wrightson to giggling lunacy.
Hooper and Ethan run back to Comics Ink. Hooper realises microwaves still to be the answer - but not in this world. In Unkiss's unfinished comic, Ethan must draw the Grinner’s weakness.
Ethan sets to work.
As he nears completion, Hooper paces the shop. From beside a displayed cutout of Dracula, the Grinner lurches to life. He advances upon Hooper, seizes her plaits, and bellows his mind-bending laugh - which, due to Hooper's lack of a sense of humour, is ineffective.
From the counter, Ethan challenges the Grinner with a newly finished comic strip: star of which is a caped, heavily muscled Ethan. As the Grinner advances, Ethan charges with the newly drawn comic. On collision, the two vanish in a flash of yellow light. The comic pages fall to the floor.
From somewhere out of sight, Hooper hears the Grinner's laugh. In one panel, Super Ethan gives the Grinner a hefty punch. In the next, Super Ethan, Frankie, and a grey-haired man, Sylvester Unkiss, run forth. As Hooper reads the dialogue, she hears it spoken by the disembodied voice of each figure.
In the next panel, Super Ethan activates the newly drawn microwave dish. The vanquished Grinner yells in dismay. As Ethan ponders how to return home, a subsequent panel shows the not-quite-defeated Grinner sneak up behind him.
Hooper hurries the panel to the counter, and produces a secret weapon: a huge eraser. As she scrubs at the gloating Grinner, the page exudes a dazzling white flash. Hooper falls to the floor.
She rushes to the newly returned Ethan. With a shared laugh of relief, they hug. A euphoric Frankie introduces the two to her father, Sylvester Unkiss.
Some time later, the shop bustles with custom. While Ethan's parents happily take an interview, Hooper gradually ushers spectators to a desk, where Ethan signs copies of his work.
Sylvester Unkiss, closes Betty Anne, drew no more comics, having had his fill of excitement. Ethan, meanwhile, found himself at the start of a promising career.
This episode provides examples of:
- Affectionate Nickname: Frankie addresses Ethan as "Cakes."
- Ambiguously Human: While the Ghastly Grinner appears human, his yellow skin, hypnotic powers, and teleportation ability suggest a supernatural lineage.
- Author Avatar: In-universe, Ethan draws a superhero version of himself to challenge the Ghastly Grinner.
- Bond One-Liner:Ethan: Joke’s over.
- Chekhov's Gun: Hooper keeps an enormous eraser, which later comes in very handy.
- Chekhov's Skill: Or rather immunity; Hooper’s lack of levity shields her from the effect of the Grinner’s laugh.
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Ethan’s initial impression of Frankie’s dreamy enthusiasm.
- Dean Bitterman: Mr Wrightson, on finding Ethan secretly reading a comic in class, drops the comic in the fish tank.
- Eldritch Location: The realm of the Ghastly Grinner, channelled by the artistry of Sylvester Unkiss, and later, Ethan, seems beyond the dimensions of the material world.
- Fantasy-Forbidding Parent: Teacher in this case, but Mr Wrightson scorns Ethan’s love of comics. While not as ardently, his mother considers the preoccupation unwholesome.
- Laughing Mad: The Grinner reduces his victims to fits of crazed laughter.
- Mad Artist: Subverted; Sylvester Unkiss, while neither malicious or unhinged, channelled, through his comics, other worlds - one of whose inhabitants found a way into our world.
- No-Sell: The Grinner's power has no effect on someone as straightlaced as Hooper.Ghastly Grinner: What's the matter kid, don't like to laugh?!Hooper: Sorry, I don't have much of a sense of humor.
- Practically Joker: While he recalls The Joker’s malicious mirth and infection of others with crazed laughter, the Grinner, rather than a criminal mastermind, is a superhuman fiend who warps people’s minds seemingly for the fun of it.
- Reality-Writing Book: Subverted with Sylvester Unkiss having channelled, via his comics, the events of other worlds. However, depiction of his Ghastly Grinner comic of recent and current events is later weaponized by Ethan against the Grinner.
- Refugee from TV Land: The Grinner, an entity actualised in comic form, reaches the material world via a microwave.
- Trapped in TV Land: Sylvester Unkiss, daughter Frankie, and Ethan, having entered the realm of the Ghastly Grinner, manifest as aspects of his comic.
