How about the original Dark Horse "The Mask" comic books that inspired the film anyone read them? I never read them myself, but from what I've read on the net, the original Mask comic books were very different from the film. The comics were originally of a much darker and more macabre nature, albeit dark/macabre with a sense of humor, as the Mask drove whoever wore it insane with absurdly comically violent results. In the first few issues, the Stanley Ipkiss character (played by Jim Carrey in the film) is presented as a neurotic loser who buys the mask from a store as a birthday present for his girlfriend, Kathy; when he tries the mask on, it turns him into the familiar green headed character and he goes on a killing spree, massacring various people for petty grudges, such as the garage owners who constantly overcharge him. The news people in the Mask series actually call him "Big Head". After a while, the Mask starts to take an emotional toll on Stanley; he begins verbally abusing Kathy, and she kicks him out of their home; he breaks in to steal the mask and she shoots him in the back, after realizing that he was "Big Head". Kathy then took the Mask to policeman Lt. Kellaway and told him what happened to Stanley, but he doesn't believe he story and tries the mask on as a gag, and in turn he becomes "Big Head"; Kellaway initially means to use the mask to fight evil, but eventually realizes that he can't control the mask and he buries it with Stanely Ipkiss's corpse. However, the Mask would resurface and the main theme of the mask comics after that was the mask being passed around various locations, worn by different people and resulting in lots of chaos and mayhem.
When the Mask film was being made in 1994, the original idea was to do it as a more of a horror movie, albeit one with a sense of humor, but when Jim Carrey was asked to play Stanley Ipkiss, the film was rewritten to be a comedy vehicle suited to his particular schtick.