The Premise: You'll get the gist of it over this page, but this is towards the end of a small story where Rick seems to just be a police officer again. I've only read like 1 volume and a bit of the Walking Dead (because, let's be honest, it just does nothing for me), so I don't know if anything like this has happened in the comic or if I'm even REALLY in character. So... Ya know... Suspend your disbelief.
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Page 22 - 5 Panels
1-- Rick Grimes (in uniform) is standing in the centre of a lush, beautiful field outside of Cynthiana, Kentucky. Everything is colourful as heck, with flowers, green leaves blowing by, and the town in front of him looking bright and cheerful.
SPEECH BUBBLE/RICK GRIMES - A'yup, life sure is pretty good around here nowadays.
2-- We're now viewing Rick from the front, gripping his chest in pain.
SPEECH BUBBLE/RICK GRIMES - NNGH!
3-- Rick's now on his knees, double over in pain. Colour is starting to wash out of the panel.
SPEECH BUBBLE/RICK GRIMES - ... Heart attack?
4-- Rick is looking at the hand he'd used to grip his chest, which is now covered in blood. The colour has washed out so much now that there's only a little bit of colour left in the panel, save for the blood, which is completely dark red.
SPEECH BUBBLE/RICK GRIMES - Blood? But... I'm not...
5-- Everything's now in black and white. Rick is lying on the floor of a desolate city, with a hole ripped in his chest, blood pouring out. His face is blank as he remembers the reality of his situation.
SPEECH BUBBLE/RICK GRIMES - Ah... Life's still awful.
CAPTION - THE END
I remember this pattern well enough... when we don't like a character, we do REALLY nasty things to them. There's something quite glib about this one, Max... but I guess you're entitled to be glib if TWD doesn't float your boat. I can't decide whether to love or hate that last line. I'm coming down in favour of the former.
ReplyDeleteThere's a good concept here but it's just not executed. I think it's the dialogue, a little too cornpone for my liking. The idea of the panel bleeds, and Rick's mind trying to trick him just before he dies, is a great idea but it doesn't work for me here. The last line either needs to be completely changed or just truncated to Ah... - that would have more impact. But Rick stating the obvious just makes it seem like it's almost comical, which you don't want.
ReplyDeleteSorry, I'm a bastard. I know.
@ryan oh man no don't say sorry, I WANT proper criticism like that, especially when I'm trying to do something tonally different.
ReplyDeleteAll taken on board man, I'll have to try to avoid these errors again in the future.
As for the dialogue, I totally screwed the pooch on that. I blame that on a combo on not doing enough research and struggling to know how to approach matching the strength of the concept.
Thanks for the criticism!
"A'yup" had me thinking of Goofy.
ReplyDeleteI think this would actually work better as a silent page (now that I think about it, I remember a lot of things from dreams, but not sounds) with Rick just waking up in his tent/car/house surrounded by zombies.
haha I thought the same thing, Matt, about the "A'yup" bit :)
ReplyDeleteMy question: would he even be able to talk in the last panel if he has a hole in his chest?
@dan - earn your no-prize! make it work!
ReplyDeleteBeing Northern English, I read "A'yup" as our local greeting. We spell it Ey Up! round these parts though.
ReplyDeleteAs for being able to talk with a hole in your chest - I think that's The Famous Last Words law of genre fiction. Even severed heads are allowed a pithy one-liner if it raises a smile.
I agree with Rol - Hell, Shakespeare had all of his characters mutter a line before shuffling off this mortal coil.
ReplyDeleteThis one confused me a bit - I may just be simple, but I really couldn;t follow it well and needed a couple of reads in order to 'get' what was going on.