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hithereeveryone
08-09-2006, 12:32 AM
This is a comic script I whipped up from one of my short stories. Please let me know what you think, good, bad and ugly. I know I kind of punted on the fight scene and the page of freaking out in the dark, but those are so up for interpretation and style that I figured that whatever I put down would be scratched by the artist.

Hope you like it, but let me know if it's crap.

Peace.

-HI

Title: Lenny gives an alien the finger

Note: Layout is for suggestion and pacing proposes only. I'm really not trying to set up an actual look as to control pacing.

Page 1 : four panels in three rows, first row is one complete panel, second row is cut in two, last row is biggest and is one nearly square panel at the bottom.

Panel 1: Lenny approaching the cave.

Lenny : So remind me again why I'm not in my nice safe lab watching one of you guys do this?

Carol :com: You're the Exo-biologist, Lenny. We got critters, they are yours. Aren't you curious?

Panel 2: Lenny coming towad us in the cave

Lenny : Sure, but I only need a small sample. I can make observations from your suit cam's just fine.

Burt : com : But you know there's nothing like the real thing, baby. Besides, it's well past your turn.

Panel 3: Lenny going away from us in the cave

Lenny : Fine. I just hate space suits.

Panel 4: Burt and Carol side by side at a console

Lenny : com : Not to fond of space in general, really.

Carol : Then you really picked the wrong profession, Lenny.

Burt: And it's a little late to bitch about it. Just get your sample so we can stop listening to you whine.

Page 2 : full page illustration of Lenny, in his space suit, looking at a green blob creature on a stalagmite in the foreground.

Lenny : I wasn't whining. I was complaining. Trained scientists don't whine.

Burt: com : Whatever, Lenny.

Lenny : Lets see, It's green, which may mean chloroplasts and looks like a blob. Might be an extremophile plant or a colony of single celled organisms. I wonder what it eats. It appears to be surrounded by a membrane of mucus. In its natural environment it seems to be rippling. This may be a reaction to the intense light.

Burt :over com: Again, whatever. I don't want you out there long enough to freak out. Grab your snot and get back.

Page 3 : Page with five panels, four at the top 2x2 and one landscape one at the bottom.

Panel 1: Lenny getting a tool out of his belt pouch

Lenny: Getting the sample collector. Using a number nine scoop-scalpel to perform a biopsy.

Panel 2: Lenny looks at the sharp scoop at the end of the sampling tool. It kind of looks like a little melon baler with a long handle.

Lenny: Now, Mr. Blob, You may feel a bit of a pinch, but I promise there is a lollypop in it for you.

Panel 3: Lenny extends the sampling tool out to the green blob.

Panel 4: Same panel as panel 3 but with the lights out. Everything is in deep shadow.

Panel 5: Lenny : Oh Crap! Burt? Carol? I'm starting to get cold. Hello! Do you hear me? Come in.

Lenny: small print: hello?

Page 4 :Free form almost dark page. He's freaking out in the dark and cold.

Lenny: *huff* , *huff*

Lenny : Come on, man. Get a grip. It’s just a power failure.

Lenny: *huff* , *huff*

Lenny :A power failure in multiple, triple-redundant devices.

Lenny :I’m sure it happens all the time, in some parallel universe where the nature of probability is completely different.

FX: Swish

Lenny :What was that? Something moving!


Page 5 :Page with four panels Two on the first row and two landscaped on their own rows.

Panel 1: Lenny's booted foot stepping back.

Lenny :off panel :I’ve got to get out of here.

Panel 2: The lights of Lenny's suit turn back on.

Lenny: Eeep!!

Panel 3: Burt and Carol back at control. Carol is laughing.

Burt: Excuse me, Lenny, I don’t think I copied that. Did you just yelp like a little schoolgirl?

Lenny: com : Everything went black here when I touched it. Didn't you notice?

Burt: Sorry, Looked like nothing from here. Just a hiccup.

Carol: Lenny, can you do a spot check, I am reading a drop in your suit pressure while telemetry was down.

Lenny: com : Hiccup sweet aunt…

Panel 4: Lenny looking at his hand, missing a pinky finger. A form of goo covers the hole.

Lenny: AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Page 6 :Another page like page three but with three panels across the top two rows.
Panel 1: Close up of the stump

Burt: com : What?

Lenny: My Pinky is GONE!

Panel 2: A full face of Carol, apparently looking at the screen. You may want to try the face with the screen superimposed on it, like in 80's sci fi movies.

Carol: How can that be?
Carol: You aren’t loosing any more air. And a hole in the suit that size would have killed you.

Panel 3: Over Lenny's shoulder, at the empty stalagmite.

Lenny: The hole in the suit is plugged by some kind of goo, but MY PINKY IS GONE!

Lenny: The Blob! It's gone too!

Panel 4: Lenny looking pissed and looking around for the blob. If you can fit the stalagmite is in the background, that would be cool. This is a dramatic 1/2 to 3/4 shot of Lenny

Lenny: It took my Pinky!

Panel 5: Another panel much like the panel 2, full face, but this time it's Burt's face

Burt: Dude, It's just your pinky. Stay out there with a broken suit and you die. Pull it together. Screw the sample and get out of there. You are injured.

Lenny: com: Injured hell, I'm maimed!

Panel 6: The blob retreating deeper into the cave with the pinky.

Lenny : off Panel: Hey!…

Panel 7: Lenny in his space suit diving at the blob. The finger is resting on top of it, still in the glove.

Lenny: … Give me back my finger!

Page 7 : The top half is artist's choice. We're talking fight scene, so do what you're going to do with the panels.
You must leave room for the following three panels:

Panel 1: wrenches something free from the blob.
Lenny : Ha! Gotcha!

Panel 2: large shot of the gloved hand in the foreground with the face looking smug in the background

Panel 3: Large shot of the gloved hand, now open revealing an empty glove finger with no actual finger in side. The face now looks very sad.

The bottom of the page is dominated by a figure of Lenny shouting NOOOOOooooooo in great despair. The top half is Lenny looking anguished, on his knees from above

Page 8 : This is now from the point of view of an alien blob and I thought of it having curvy panels, either like bubbles or something to show the free form nature of the alien mind. Whatever looks best, but I'd like to see a change in formatting.

Panel 1: The blob slithers through a crack into a shiny and round world. He leaves the outer mucus coating blocking the crack.

Blob: Whew! That was interesting.

Panel 2: It disgorges itself of the round dark object

Blob: They are just full of energy in that exo-skeleton. Luckily, I had an energy blocker field in my biometric load out.

Panel 3: it disgorges the finger and puts it in a smooth bowl.

Blob: This must be a new, as yet un-discovered life-form form the wild cave outside of the enclave. Imagine something that big existing on the surface of this planet! Amazing.

Panel 4: it picks up a weird set of bio-chemical looking devices in a rack by pulling a rod they are attached to through his outer membrane.

Blob: I can't wait to study its properties. I wonder why it kicked up such a fuss about me as I was getting away. After all…

Panel 4: Close up of the finger in the bowl.

Blob: … It was only a small sample.

Hyenadoc
08-09-2006, 02:03 AM
A sci-fi story with a twist ala Future Shock. Very nice! Your dialogue is quite solid, but you need to firm up your panel descriptions. While they were somewhat better near the end, they were still too skimpy. It can be a thin line between giving the artist their space and giving them what they need to convey the effect you're looking for.

Hope that helps!

hithereeveryone
08-09-2006, 08:42 AM
Thanks Hyenadoc (interesting name) I'll do a little more on the descriptions after work, so anyone looking at this before 7 pm Eastern on the ninth, just know that you are cheating yourself. :)

The panel description thing is quite the debate topic, though. There is such a continuum between very scant and Allen Moore. The last artist I worked with started by chucking my frames and the piece was WAY better for it. Based on that experience I probably went a little too far.

Thanks again. Glad you liked it. By the way, the prose story is on line here: http://www.thereadersretreat.com/science_fiction_starter_1.html

Peace

-HI

T.J. May
08-09-2006, 09:11 AM
The panel description thing is quite the debate topic, though. There is such a continuum between very scant and Allen Moore. The last artist I worked with started by chucking my frames and the piece was WAY better for it. Based on that experience I probably went a little too far.

In my experience you are better too err on the side of the long-winded Moore-type script if you are:

a) working with someone for the first time.
b) working with someone whom is very inexperienced.

I've run into this myself. Working with Jason (my brother and partner at SUMM), I can be scant because he knows what I want. He'll put stuff in that I imagined, but did not put it in the script. Working with an outsider, I have found that if I don't put it into the script it ain't gonna show up on the finished page. There isn't that relationship.

Now, as time goes on with a creative team your descriptions can get less and less because your partner will have a feel for your style, tastes and wants.

And I liked your story :)

T

hithereeveryone
08-09-2006, 04:50 PM
Thanks T.J. May. Glad you liked it. As I said earlier, once I unshackle myself from my day job, I'll put in some more description, but I think I'll still strive for mood rather than a mechanical description of the picture since I don't have a strong vission of those early pages/panels.

Peace

-HI

kamikaze
08-12-2006, 07:19 PM
I gotta admit, the title drew me in, classic! I dig the script but I would also agree with the panel description issue. I've had that debate many times with myself about how much to put in. I want to do it myself so I know how much to put in, but everyone has their own thing about descriptions.

hithereeveryone
08-13-2006, 12:42 PM
Thanks for the input kamikaze. By the way, your sig is about as true a thing as has ever been said.

I've already gotten an artist interested in doing this, and the guy is local, so side by side work is possible.

One other quick thing is that this comes from a short story (1000 words) that already has a lot of description in it. Still, I hear everyone and will try to pump up the visuals a touch.

Oh, and the title is intentionally provocitve, though I might change it when we actually make the comic because the interior is PG.

Thanks again for all the feedback.

-HI