Panel 1 – A collection of shipping
containers are stacked, three-high, by the side of a rural train
track. It’s getting on toward dusk.
Panel 2—A massive flash flood of
sand-colored water (as high as second stack of containers) hits the
containers, setting them free in the fast moving, roiling water.
Other debris is visible in the water: tree branches, deck chairs,
etc.
SFX: KRASTSH!
Panel 3—The containers (some pitched
at an angle, others more-or-less righted) float through a flooded
town on the fast-moving, white-brown water.
SFX: WSSH
SFX: WSRUSH
SFX: WSRUSH
Panel 4—Medium shot of a teenage boy
clinging, precariously, to a high branch of a tree above the
floodwaters. He is watching the containers coming toward his tenuous
refuge.
Panel 5—Boy jumps onto the container
as it passes on the floodwaters beneath his tree.
Panel 6—Night has fallen. Boy rides
container—now separated from the others—through a flooded
landscape of rooftops and treetops. Upended cars, a dog on a rooftop,
mailboxes, etc can be seen in the dark waters.
Panel 7—Boy sees glaring halogen
lights of rescue boats surrounding a levee off in the distance.
Panel 8—Boy yells toward the
too-distant-to-hear rescue boats—his shipping container is moving
by too fast, carrying him away from safety.
BOY: Hey! Over here! Help!
BOY: No, no! Wait, I’m here!
Panel 9—Medium-to-long shot of boy on
shipping container as it is carried out into a flat, endless sea of
water. Stars shining above.
* Lyric from Charlie Patton, “High
Water Everywhere, Part 1”
There's a haunting, dreamlike quality to this page that gets me every time I read it. Everything that happens makes sense within the context of reading the page, but when you step back and consider the whole, it feels surreal - in a good way. Love the page, Colin.
ReplyDeleteMy one concern is that it might be hard to depict all the action you've got in panel 2 in a single panel, but I think the right artist (and perhaps some hinting in panel 1) could get that done up right.