Panel One.
A public park. In the play area children are swinging, sliding, hanging from climbing frames, messing around on the roundabout and seesaw. A group of bored parents stand watching. One woman stands with a pram: the baby inside is squalling. Two dads are talking about last night’s game. A mother is smoking a cigarette, lost in her depression. Another woman is talking to a friend on her phone.
Dad 1: Defense was all over the place last night.
Phone woman: So I told him, if I catch him doing anything like that again, I’ll take him for everything he has.
Baby (unseen, from pram): Waaaaahhh!
Panel Two.
Two boys (7 / 8 year olds) have pushed a fat kid off the roundabout. The kid is snivelling on the ground, nursing a bruised knee. The bullies are laughing at him. In the background, the woman rocks her pram to try and calm her crying baby.
Boy 1: Goes much faster without you slowing it down, lardybutt!
Boy 2: Ha ha, lardybutt, lardybutt, ha!
Fat Kid (small letters in bigger balloon): I’ll get you, Garrett. One of these days…
Baby: Waaaahhhhhh!
Panel Three.
The sports talk has turned to an argument – the two dads are pushing and brawling with each other now. The woman with the baby frowns at them – this isn’t helping keep her little one quiet.
Dad 1: O’Neill’s got to go.
Dad 2: Whu--!? O’Neill’s the best player on the whole team!
Dad 1: Get out of here! Are you for real?
Baby: Waaaaaaah!
Mum: Shhhhh.
Panel Four.
The phone woman gets another call. She holds out her phone to see who’s calling, while still talking to her friend who’s on the line. Behind her, the depressed mum presses her cigarette butt into her arm. The baby continues to cry in the background.
Phone woman: Oh – hang on, Tru, I’m getting another call. Ohh – it’s Anthony! You remember, Friday night?
Phone woman: Gotta take this, Tru – a woman has her needs, after all.
Baby (off-panel?): Waaaaaaahhh!
Panel Five.
Main panel. The mum with the pram has had enough of all this commotion. She pushes the pram away, towards us. Behind her, the kids continue to bully (tormenting a little girl on the swings), the dads continue to argue, phone woman starts flirting, depressed woman starts to cry.
Although we’re looking straight into the pram, in the foreground of the image, we still can’t see the baby. All we can see inside the pram is darkness.
Dad 2: Like you know anything--!
Little girl: Get off! Leave me alone!
Phone woman: Hey, big boy – missing me already?
Baby: Wah-wah-waaaaaaah!
Mum: Hush now, Cthulhu, they’re not ready yet. Soon, though. Very soon.
So, it's the second coming of Cthulhu. The pram is creepy in a Rosemary's baby way. Nice.
ReplyDeleteI also like that you see a chick flirting as a sure sign of the end of days. Oh, Rol, you old gadabout.
Well, it's not so much that she's flirting... it's more the double-standard of condemning her husband's bad behaviour (panel 1) while indulging in her own.
ReplyDeleteBut yes, I am.
Very creepy page, Rol. Definitely has a very Omen feel to it, which I like.
ReplyDeleteVery creepy page that built a very distressing and foreboding atmosphere as it went along.
ReplyDeleteAn unusual angle (in subject and tone) for this weeks pick but very strong for it.
Super tight, well paced and dark page Rol. You made a selection of smaller quite normal events build into something very unnerving. Also, and this may just be me but the use of the word pram was key in the creepiness of the page. It conjured up images of a scene from the movie Battleship Potemkin in which a baby in a pram falls down a huge set of stairs. Great stuff.
ReplyDeleteWow, what a great page! Tight, slow build which is creepy as hell! Excellent stuff Rol.
ReplyDeleteAlthough, you don;t talk about sports a lot, do you? :P
Not if I can help it - I'd rather not be responsible for bringing about the end times.
ReplyDeleteReally great page. The build is incredibly well done. I didn't realize what was happening until it was too late. Wonderful stuff.
ReplyDelete