I have to agree with TNH here. The Bulwer Lytton contest is just not as funny as the real stuff. I've been in workshops, I belong to a critique group, I've seen the real thing.

Drunk it even.

But these . . . these are genuinely funny. And I can just see some schmoe starting his story like that, and not even realizing he's that clueless (no relation) and sending it in to an honest-to-god editor.

Not that I've ever read dreck. Oh, no.

Or written it.