Top Cow Talent Hunt - Raymond Wonsowski

ok...fully aware this is breaking the rules a little bit...but the pieces all came together way late last night, especially this spread, and I really want to know if I'm on the right track...especially Tom Judge's voice, I'm not sure if I got him right...let me know...Note: page one has the embassy exploding, and this takes place roughly a year after...

PAGE 2 & 3

(double-page spread)

The left half of page 2 should be three panels, one on top of the other. Lower right hand corner of page 3 should be a small panel by itself. The rest is a giant splash.

Left Panel 1 – Checkpoint barricade. On our side, two Marines in full armor flak and rifles slung. One pushes his helmet back a little to get a better look at the Passport and FBI ID flashed by the man on the other side of the barricade, TOM JUDGE (dressed as usual: black suit, a robin's-egg blue shirt with his priest's collar undone). The other Marine is calling in on his radio. Note: No buildings, no trees, no background scene, only the light violet-grey sky.

CAPTION 1 – Most embassy incidents, whether criminal or terrorist, are usually handled by the State Department in-house by the Diplomatic Security Service.

CAPTION 2 – After Nine-Eleven, though, DSS started sharing the investigative workload. Incidents on embassy grounds get passed along to the FBI.

Left Panel 2 – TOM, now past the barricade, is walking (towards us), hands in his pants pockets. The bottom, and some of the foreground should be a faint purple-ish smoke, but the very bottom is pure white.

CAPTION 3 – Reading the initial redacted reports, I wondered why fly me down here. Scans like a terrorist attack, or local insurgents like the E.P.P. Except...

CAPTION 4 – Paraguay's a rinky-dink third world nation bullied by it's South American neighbors. And the “People's Army” can barely afford machetes. This kind of destruction's beyond them.

Left Panel 3 – TOM gets on one knee looking over the edge of the smoky white at the bottom of the page. He runs a single finger along the white.

CAPTION 5 – Then I saw the uncensored version, and why they sent their favorite "Father Spooky Mulder".

CAPTION 6 – Across the street was a National Police precinct house and a hospital.  The other side of the avenue had a politician's campaign headquarters. Presidential residence and a bank further down the road.

Splash – Aerial view, Asuncion, the vicinity of the Embassy, except (if you assume the Embassy was ground zero) there is now a white bowl about 3 kilometers wide, smoky violet dust rising from the center. Outside the bowl, trees, houses, and office buildings are toppled outwards away from the bowl on all sides. Note: Nothing is burning, so the destruction should be evident. In the distance, a military helicopter hovers above the scene.

CAPTION 7 – Traffic cops, newspaper stands, fruit sellers, windshield squeegiers.  Everyone and everything was obliterated in the blast. 

CAPTION 8 – No fire, no heat. But lots of light and noise. And the sheer force of the event.

CAPTION 9 – And one other detail...

Lower Right Corner Panel – Close-up, TOM sucks on the finger he ran along the edge of the “bowl”, his nose scrunches at the taste.

CAPTION 10 – Yup.

CAPTION 11 – Salt.