Previously, reporter JACK RYDER was given a lead on a conspiracy surrounding a new pharmaceutical company, chaired by two doctors who had hands in creating the CREEPER, and thought to be dead until now. RYDER's research is cut short when a deranged SHADE, THE CHANGING MAN, possibly sensing the reporter's own split sanity, separates the CREEPER from JACK, with the wrong mind in the wrong body.
Set-up: JACK, with the CREEPER's mind inside, chases SHADE up a fire escape and over Gotham's rooftops. The CREEPER, however, now inhabited by JACK's sane mind, balks at the first tenement ledge. He's considering going back down when a voice behind him tells him to stop, and that he is needed...
PAGE 4
Layout:
1122
1133
4455
Panel 1- We are looking over the CREEPER's shoulder at ANDREW BENNETT, who is standing on a rooftop steam pipe, the steam billowing about his feet. He is dressed in a duster coat, t-shirt, and jeans, hands in his jeans pockets and barefoot. He has a pair of military grade night-vision binoculars slung around his neck. Gotham's skyline is in view, the crescent moon has risen on a starless night and frames BENNETT's head like a broken halo.
BENNETT: My name is Andrew. I've been following the Changing Man, for far too long.
CREEPER: You mean the wacko in the technicolor dreamcoat? What's his story? Who's Kathy?
Panel 2- Profile, BENNETT looks through the binoculars into the distance, considering his quarry.
BENNETT: His "story" is that Shade is an interdimensional poet who can physically manifest madness through a vest he stole from another world.
BENNETT: Kathy is the woman he loves.
Panel 3- BENNETT steps down from the steam pipe to the roof, reaching into an inside pocket of his coat. The CREEPER stands arms folded as his skeptic-journalist self would, listening.
BENNETT: He believes that certain parties can help him access certain energies in the M-Zone to bring her back.
CREEPER: From where? Jersey?
BENNETT: The dead.
Panel 4- BENNETT holds the photos of Dr. Yatz and Dr. Skolos in front of his face. They are recognizable, bit the bits about the eyes and mouths are warped.
BENNETT: I'm not sure what these two are, really. But I've heard them called "necrologists". Supposedly they have mastered the clockwork of death and rebirth.
CREEPER (off-panel): And you know this how?
Panel 5- BENNETT smiles wide, his fangs bared, his eyes open, blank, and glassy. We see the nervous face of the CREEPER reflected in his eyes, as JACK realizes he's over his head...
BENNETT: Because I've been dead. And reborn.
BENNETT: And I myself have been torn in two directions too often to count.
...to be continued...
I think this is a formatting issue more than anything, but it's hard to follow everything that's going on. I started reading it, trying to get through, but it didn't take very long before it all felt like it was blending together into a giant indistinguishable page.
ReplyDeleteYeah, on second blush, this may be a case of too many ideas for a one pager. When starting this story, I took plenty of notes, but this may have run away from me...
DeleteWhen I continue next week, may have to tame it down...thanks for the guidance, MK.