The Puppet Master has gone completely insane.
1. Wide panel. Ben Grimm aka The Thing dangles, as if suspended by strings. His head is at an angle up contrary to the way the rest of his body rests, implying that perhaps he has control over it, and it alone.
2. Close up of Thing’s face. He has never looked sadder. A single tear rolls down his rocky cheek.
3. The Puppet Master is performing with one of his puppets, with the puppet of The Thing hanging from a stand, situated on a table. To the observant person, we can see that this is a puppet which the Puppet Master is making dance in front of the puppet Thing is of his daughter, Alicia Masters. The puppet’s head hangs at a disturbingly limp angle. The Puppet Master is laughing manically.
4. The dead body of Alicia Masters dances before Thing. It is a horrifically disturbing panel.
5. Another close up of Thing’s face. The original tear has neared the end of its journey on Thing’s cheek, with a new tears pooling at the edge of both eyes. The sadness that previously resided on Thing’s face is now replaced with pure, unhinged rage.
THING (in a much smaller font, so it’s almost a whisper)
Its. Clobbering. Time.
Its. Clobbering. Time.
Oh, dear lord, you have issues. Awesome issues.
ReplyDeleteThis pages doesn't need the set up, is actually stronger without it, we just get a gruesome punchline. Nasty.
I would double dare Marvel to publish this one, ha.
The only problem I have with this, is that you haven't given any reference/description of location. Where are these panels happening?
ReplyDeleteOutside of that, I love how disturbing this is! My kind of story :)
Thanks guys.
ReplyDeleteI still can't shake the image of the corpse of Alicia Masters danging about with a snapped neck. What the hell goes on in my head?
@Danial - Believe it or not, I didn't put a location in for a reason. It makes the page already feel uncomfortable, puts the reader on edge. So when they reach the part with the dancing corpse, the reader is completely horrified. It was a way to make people feel at unease.
Having said that, an artist would have no idea what to draw in the background, which makes for a pretty lousy script. So I'm just going to say "An abandoned factory".
Guess I need to decide if I'm going to write these scripts as I would for an artist, or in order to evoke emotions from readers.
Ben... there's nothing wrong with the writing, which is powerful and moving... for me though, this crosses a line for the FF. When Ryan says he'd dare Marvel to publish it... I don't think they would, purely because it's too dark for the FF. This is, I think, the most disturbing script I've read on TBs, but I don't think it'd be quite as disturbing if the premise was based around another character. Maybe I just have too emotional a connection with Benjy... but man, that hurt.
ReplyDeleteI still think you need something. Even as a reader, not an artist, I still need to know where they are. Even saying something like, "there is nothing behind him but blackness" is still a description...
ReplyDelete@Rol - good point, and I'm glad I could evoke an emotion like that. I didn't want to hurt Mr Grimm, but once I got that image in my head, I thought it would be a huge test of character to The Thing.
ReplyDelete@Danial - a very good point.