Friday, July 9, 2010

Spider-Man -Tribute - Matt Duarte

The Tenacious Spider-Man in “Tribute” by Matt Duarte

This page is to be set in six different panels. The first three are one third of the page, small and next to each other. The fourth one is a big wide one, one third of a page. The last two are at the bottom, of equal size.

Panel 1

Mephisto is standing in the middle of an empty road, somewhere in the middle of the desert. His red outfit and skin stick out sorely against the night sky and darkened road. He is pointing directly at the reader.

MEPHISTO: Play the best song in the world...

MEPHISTO: Or I’ll eat your soul!

Panel 2

Spider-Man is standing in the same empty road, he is wearing his outfit, though his mask is pulled back a bit so we can see his mouth. He is awkwardly holding a custom Fender Stratocaster guitar, with a drawing of his logo/face on it.

SPIDER-MAN: OK, but I’ve never been a music kind of person, you know?

MAN (a character off-panel): Don’t worry Spidey, we’ll help you!

Panel 3

Shot from behind Spider-Man’s back, and in front of him stands Mephisto. Spider-Man is looking back, at the person that just spoke, though we still can’t see who it is, but who has his hand on one of Spider-Man’s shoulder, as if reassuring him.

SPIDER-MAN: Be you angels?

MAN (off-panel): Nay, we are but men.

Panel 4

Spider-Man stands next to two other men. One of them has mid length brown hair, and a full beard, he is wearing jeans and a plaid shirt open, underneath there is a huge beer belly. He is dramatically singing. The other person is also a fat man, with a plain white tee shirt and jeans, balding, though with a friendly Buddha like face. He is intensely focused in playing an acoustic guitar he is holding. Spider-Man is also playing the guitar he was previously holding. Coming from all of them, there is a huge Kirby crackle of energy, shooting directly at Mephisto, who is holding up his arms, attempting to shield himself.

SFX (in big, colorful font): ROCK!

Panel 5

Peter Parker is sitting in an uncomfortably looking bench inside a Laundromat. He has just woken up from an impromptu nap and he looks slightly confused. Behind him, in one of the washing machines, there’s some familiar red and blue clothes. Up on the wall there’s some speakers where music is playing.

PETER PARKER (CAPTION): Wha... just a dream? That felt very real. Except for the part where I was playing guitar.

SFX (music): This is not The Greatest Song in the World, no. This is just a tribute.

PETER PARKER (CAPTION): Ugh, I need to find a laundry place that plays better music.

Panel 6

Shot from outside the Laundromat, though we can still see Peter through one of the windows. The Laundromat has a neon red sign with the name “One More Laundry Day”.

PETER PARKER (CAPTION): Or maybe someone to help me with the laundry. Yeah, that sounds better.

The End.

7 comments:

  1. This was fun, Matt, Jack Black we be proud.

    And then - you went for our heartstrings in that final panel. Wonderfully unexpected.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I am if nothing, happy to take potshots at One More Day all day long. So when the opportunity presented itself in the last panel, I happily took it.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The Tenacious Spider-Man, love it. The D would definitely be happy with this, it even reads like one of their little fanfic pieces.

    That last caption really does have that more heartfelt meaning when juxtaposed with the name of the Laundromat. Nice one.

    But what you're really saying is Dave Grohl should play Mephisto and I can back that.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh Matt, now I can't get out of my head the "Fuck you softly" video, with Mephisto replacing the devil. Well done!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I love Tribute and this is a fine tribute to tribute. There are so many levels of irony it hurts my head, but I could imagine this as a great little bonus in a graphic novel.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Two thumbs up from me. Great stuff Matt. Gave me a chuckle.

    The "Rock" SFX is fantastic.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thanks for the kind words.

    Fun fact, this started off as a Maphisto script for when we had that character a couple of weeks back, but considering it had very little of him, I saved it for whenever we had Spidey. I didn't know it was going to be this soon, haha.

    Also, ever since writing this, I have had Tribute stuck in my head.

    ReplyDelete

Feedback is what every good writer wants and needs, so please provide it in the white box below
-OR-
If you want to play along at home, feel free to put your scripts under the Why? post for the week.