The Premise: It's all kinda in the title this time, isn't it. Moving on.
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A Few Pages In Or Something - 6 Panels
1-- All the current Teen Titans are sitting around a dinner table in Titans Tower eating a chinese takeaway. We've got (clockwise, in order) Superboy, Kid Flash, Beast Boy, Raven, Ravager and Wonder Girl.
SPEECH BUBBLE/WONDER GIRL - So... I guess we should talk about the elephant in the room while we're all in one place.
2-- Two-shot of Kid Flash and Beast Boy, who has transmuted his face into that of an elephant's. Kid Flash is choking on some noodles.
SPEECH BUBBLE/BEAST BOY - What about me, now?
SPEECH BUBBLE/KID FLASH - HORK! HURCH!
3-- Superboy is patting Kid Flash on the back hard to get him to cough up the food. Beast Boy is laughing.
SPEECH BUBBLE/SUPERBOY - C'mon Gar, be serious. What's the problem, Cass?
SPEECH BUBBLE/WONDER GIRL - Er, you. And your lack of costume.
4-- Superboy is reacting in shock to Wonder Girl as Kid Flash pants heavily, out of breath.
SPEECH BUBBLE/SUPERBOY - WHAT?! It's totally a costume! I've got a logo and everything. I mean if I don't have a costume, YOU certainly don't have a costume.
SPEECH BUBBLE[off-panel]/RAVEN - He's right, you know.
5-- We now look at Raven, Ravager and Wonder Girl at the other side of the table. Ravager is eating a large plate of food quite voraciously. Clearly she's a girl of some appetite. Wonder Girl is... Inspecting her outfit. Wait, that sounds wrong.
SPEECH BUBBLE/RAVEN - Maybe you should both get costumes, then there's no issue at all.
SPEECH BUBBLE/RAVAGER - Mmf! Mm Mrrburr!
SPEECH BUBBLE/WONDER GIRL - Well, I guess. If it gets Conner out of his "rough trade" look then I'll switch up to something proper.
6-- Motion blur abound as Kid Flash has moved Superboy and Wonder Girl at super-speed to the doorway of the room. He has his arms over both their shoulders, grinning from ear to ear.
SPEECH BUBBLE/KID FLASH - Then it's decided. You kids head off to... I don't know, a costume shop, and leave us to eat our food in peace. Ta-ta!
SPEECH BUBBLE/SUPERBOY - Suddenly I feel like they're just using this as an excuse to get us out of the tower...
[And from here we'd have two plots, one where Superboy and Wonder Girl talk out their issues and obtain real costumes, whilst the other Teen Titans get up to god knows what mischief around the tower.]
It's like the opening of any good sitcom, a dilemma that's not important that bleeds out into two solid pairings of characters and then all sorts of mischief and mayhem.
ReplyDeleteI like that yuo manage to give all the characters something to do and say, that's very nice of you.
If Superboy's new costume doesn't include a jacket, I don't wanna know about it.
ReplyDeleteNice stuff, Max.
It's a fun page (especially like the multi-panel bit with Flash's eating at the beginning, Ravager's 'ravenous' eating, and the fun uses of Beast Boy's powers), but one thing that sticks out at me is the last line from the description of panel 5.
ReplyDelete"Wonder Girl is... Inspecting her outfit. Wait, that sounds wrong."
I think I might get what you're going for, but it seems kind of pointless considering that most readers are never going to even know it's there. Personally, I think it would be better for the script if it were instead written in a way that "sounds right", so to speak.
Very fun page. I've never read Teen Titans (or any DC for that matter), but to me, this did feel like how teens would behave if left alone, so good job.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing that threw me out of the page was "rough trade", as I have no idea what that means. Is it local slang?
@MK you're absolutely right about that bit being pointless. I meant to correct it before publishing but it kinda slipped my mind. Besides, I'm sure it'd give and artist or editor pause to chuckle before chastising me for it ahahaha.
ReplyDelete@danial no slang, it means what it is. his outfit looks like he works rough trade. ya know, manual labour and the like.
That's funny, cuz when I did a search for it's meaning, it came up as being a gay reference :)
ReplyDeleteCheck it out for yourself on Wikipedia. You might feel the need to change your script :P
Here's the address:
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_(gay_slang)#Rough_trade
@danial SHH! I'm trying to sneak it into common language!
ReplyDeleteDang, but seriously, there's no need to change it. looking at the meaning it's only more relevant to Superboy's idea of a costume.
That and it's a HILARIOUS mistake
Really fun page, Max.
ReplyDeleteMan, I wish I could write humour the way a lot of our writers do... always seems to fall flat whenever I attempt it.
Yeah, rough trade means something completely different round these parts.
ReplyDeleteI don't see a problem with your humourous editorialising in the script, Max. No, in the real world it wouldn't get read by anyone other than the artist, but Thoughtballoons scripts are meant to be read by everyone, so a little bit of fun isn't going to hurt every now and then.
I wish the Titans (and DC in general) were a light and playful as you write them here... they might even getting me reading again.
I'm with Rol on this. Where has all the 'fun' in the 'funny books' go?
ReplyDeleteThat was probably the laziest thing I have ever written.
Aside, I liked this Max. You can put little notes to the artist there - if anything it will help develop your relationship by sharing jokes. Hell, I was just reading how Stan Lee and Jack Kirby used to write things to each other.
Thanks Ben. I've actually been keeping in mind the close relationships writers and artists can have and how the familiarity of a script can stop it just being a clinical partnership. relateable is the new professional.
ReplyDeleteThat's my excuse and I'm sticking by it!
I was *this* close to making a script that had a very similar setting to this one. Superboy, Kid Flash, Raven, and Robin eating in Titans Tower, just talking. I'm glad I went for something else.
ReplyDeleteAlso, it was going to be a parody of the first page of Scott Pilgrim, but that's something else entirely.