Quick set-up: Virgil is sick, but he is insisting on going to school nonetheless. His mother will have none of it and insists that he stay home to get better.
Alright, let's see if I can explain what I'm imaging panelwise for this one. Four “rows” of panels. The first row takes up a quarter of the page. The third row takes up about half the page. The fourth row takes up the remaining quarter.
The second “row” is actually three panels that are kind of floating in the top part of the third row. The three panels increase in size, going from small to large. As I said, they are “floating”, so they don't touch each other either. Maybe it'll make more sense in the panel descriptions.
1 – A shot of the Hawkins' family kitchen. Virgil's mom on one side of the room and Virgil sits at the table on the other. Virgil's mom has her hands on her hips and is wearing a rather stern expression. Virgil is slouching and generally looks really tired and super sick. The background is going to sound really busy, but bear with me. Virgil's sister is looking at an iPad, it's screen visible to the reader. His father is preparing some breakfast – he's got eggs going on the stove, juice in the blender, and toast in the toaster. You also have stuff like a microwave, fridge, and so forth. Finally (and unrelated), for Virgil's dialogue, think a really big and empty word balloon, with his words written small and faintly.
JEAN: You're sick.
VIRGIL (weakly): I'm fine.
2 – Small panel. Virgil is about to sneeze. Cue the most ridiculous about-to-sneeze face you can. Go as wild on this one as you'd like.
Virgil: ah-!
3 – Middle sized panel. Virgil is still about to sneeze. Move in a little closer, showing mostly just his face.
Virgil: Ah-!
4 – Large sized panel. Virgil is almost there. Move all they way in to focus on his mouth (and maybe nose). We're just on the cusp of the sneeze, so things still look pretty silly.
Virgil: AH-!!!
5 – This is a big, black panel. There's nothing going on here except for the onomatopoeia representing Virgil's actual sneeze. In that vein, we get a huge “CHOO!” written as if it were electricity / lightning. Go really crazy on this one, having streaks fly out in all directions, filling up this otherwise blank panel. As mentioned above, panels 2 through 4 will be floating above most of this, but feel free to have the streaks go “behind” these panels.
SFX (Virgil): CHOO!
6 – Repeat panel 1. Virgil's mom has her arms crossed, one eyebrow raised. Virgil looks even more exhausted. His father and sister look super surprised. Everyone's hair is ridiculously frizzy, as if they've just been shocked. All of the electronic appliances are fried. The blender has exploded juice all over the place. The eggs have burst. The toaster is on fire. The iPad is dead. The microwave and fridge are sparking. You get the idea.
Virgil (weaker): I'm sick.
If they didn't know about his powers before, I'm sure they do now.
ReplyDeleteYeah, dude, talk your way out of that one! Another great Peter Parker moment,I thought.
ReplyDeleteGreat page with a nice steady build and a good payoff at the end.
ReplyDelete