TPG Week 214: Poncing Around

[Steven Forbes]

Welcome back, one and all, to another installment of the Proving Grounds! This week, we have a new Brave One in Alex Hutchins! We also have Liam Hayes in blue, and I'm the snarky one in red. Let's all see how Alex does talking about

Michael’s Wolf

Page 1

Panel 1: A man (Michael) is walking down the long corridor of a darkened hospital, we can only see the back of him. It is night time and the hospital appears abandoned. A large cobweb can be seen to Michael’s right at the first of two doorways leading off the corridor. The wall to his left is high and dark, almost over shadowing him. (The wall to his left is the same size as the wall to the right, surely? Unless this hospital is lopsided?) (Le wow! Talk about a sentence that makes no sense! Felix, what's wrong with this sentence, in context of everything that's gone before it?) A window at the end of the hospital corridor lets moonlight beam through it (the only light illuminating the panel). Michael wears a fine tailored suit, one hand in his pants pocket. His hair is pushed back, sleek and powerful, almost like he had fallen straight out of the television screen during an episode of Mad Men. We can only see the back of him here. (To be honest, I'm almost ready to set the Line of Demarcation right here. Wow.)

Caption: One million dollars by twenty-one.

Click here to read more.

[Schuyler]

Panel 5: A view of the creepy man looking shocked and terrified, trying to merge himself through the wall he’s cowering so emphatically. The shadow of the enormous, intimidating werewolf is thrown on the wall next to the creepy man. (Shadow being thrown? No. Schuyler, you didn’t think you were getting away, did you? Why is this impossible?)

I thought about this a lot. Then I went into my kitchen, where there is an overhead light. I think, most hospitals have over head lights. Now, we want that shadow to be enormous and intimidating, right?

Well, my shadow was always shorter than me. My kitchen does not have a tall ceiling, so the overhead light is pretty low to the ground.

My conclusion, is that the shadow could not be projected on the wall as enormous or intimidating, unless the light source was very low to the ground.

I say projected because that's how light works. It projects.

I don't know if this was what Steven wanted, but I sure had fun with it.

Somebody has to drop a flashlight in order for this to work. Not impossible, but would need to be written into the script in an organic way.

-Sky

[scrappy]

The most shocking thing about this TPG: that Steven has never seen Titanic

[Steven Forbes]

Originally Posted by Schuyler

I thought about this a lot. Then I went into my kitchen, where there is an overhead light. I think, most hospitals have over head lights. Now, we want that shadow to be enormous and intimidating, right?

Well, my shadow was always shorter than me. My kitchen does not have a tall ceiling, so the overhead light is pretty low to the ground.

My conclusion, is that the shadow could not be projected on the wall as enormous or intimidating, unless the light source was very low to the ground.

I say projected because that's how light works. It projects.

I don't know if this was what Steven wanted, but I sure had fun with it.

Somebody has to drop a flashlight in order for this to work. Not impossible, but would need to be written into the script in an organic way.

-Sky

Close!

Think about the setting again, and give it another shot.

You're on the right track, though.

[Steven Forbes]

Originally Posted by scrappy

The most shocking thing about this TPG: that Steven has never seen Titanic

And, I have no intention of seeing it.

Somehow, I'm going to continue to live. I'll muddle through.

[Schuyler]

Originally Posted by Steven Forbes

Close!

Think about the setting again, and give it another shot.

You're on the right track, though.

Oh, the hospital is abandoned. Right, got it.

No electricity in the abandoned hospital.

Flashlight still works, though.

[Steven Forbes]

Originally Posted by Schuyler

Oh, the hospital is abandoned. Right, got it.

No electricity in the abandoned hospital.

Flashlight still works, though.

Ding! And since there's no 'tricity, there's no lights, and with no lights, there's no way to cast a shadow the way it's being described.

Good work, Schuyler!

[Alyssa]

Hey, Steven! Your ending paragraph has broken links again.

Just so you know.

Plotz Gal shall give her 2 cents before bed, if she doesn't crash and burn earlier than usual.

[Alyssa]

Panel 3: Michael is holding the suit jacket folded neatly under his right arm and is now undoing his belt with his other unused hand. What we can see of Michael is in the background, the focus of the panel is the face of the creepy guy, now his face is turned to his right looking away from Michael, (There’s no space for this shot. He’s leant against the wall so the camera is going to be inside it.) almost as if the last statement slapped him, every crease in the creepy guys face is apparent. His glasses shine in the moonlight. Michael doesn’t look at the other man, he’s insignificant, Michael is just here to do a job. (What does he do then? What’s his expression?) (This panel cannot be drawn. Plotz-gal! Why not?)

Okay, I'm breaking this down to see if I catch what you're talking about.

What we can see of Michael is in the background, the focus of the panel is the face of the creepy guy,

My initial thought is that if Michael is in the background, we shouldn't be able to see the face of the creepy guy. They're facing each other, meaning that if someone is in the background, facing the reader, then we're looking at the back of the other individual.

now his face is turned to his right looking away from Michael,

Okay, so if his face is SUPER turned to the right, then we might be able to make out his face, but then Liam's point comes to the fore. If creepy guy is leaning up against a wall, and we have to be pulled back enough to see him from behind, we're going to be inside the wall.

almost as if the last statement slapped him, every crease in the creepy guys face is apparent.

Probably going to be hard to pull off, given that the room is lit only by a bit of moonlight. Also, the first part of this quote is prose-y, so I'm kinda vague on how Alex is wanting this drawn.

His glasses shine in the moonlight.

Creepy guy is sitting under the window, with his back to the wall. If his face is turned hard to the right, then his face is even closer to the wall, likely out of reach of any beams of moonlight. Or am I wrong?

Michael doesn’t look at the other man, he’s insignificant, Michael is just here to do a job.

Besides the fact Michael isn't looking at creepy dude, this is prose. I dunno how Alex wants the artist to show someone else's insignificance in Michael's face, or how to show that he's just here to do a job.

Close?

[Steven Forbes]

More than close.

Perfect.

[Kiyoko, Rin]

Panel 1: The view goes to where the creepy voice has come from, a spindly wiry man sits on the floor leaning his back against the wall, head looking up at the ceiling. He wears a white polo shirt tucked into dorky green trousers. He looks like a cliché creepy IT guy, complete with comb over and pens in his shirt pocket. His glasses are wire rimmed, as though he hasn’t replaced his glasses in twenty five years. A window above the creepy man lets moon light cast an eerie glow on the man sitting on the floor. We can see a full bright moon through leafless branches eerily stretched across the moons full pale face. (Let’s see… Let’s see… Let’s get a two-fer! Rin (because you knew it was comin’!) and Josh! Please rewrite this panel description. We’ve got 114 words here. Please keep it under 50.)

It’s not often Comixioner Gordon activates the Forbes Flare to summon the full roster of the Forbes Force to patrol Comix City. Holy prose-bloaty! An overblown panel description! Let me hop in the F-mobile (a Forbes Capri) to fix this fulsome fusillade of framing!

Panel 1: Creepy Man (a spindly, archetypal nerd with a comb over, wearing outdated wire rimmed glasses, a white polo shirt, dorky green trousers) slumps against the wall, looking at the ceiling. The full moon is shining past bare branches and through the window to illuminate him. Make the panel eerie . (49 words.)

(1. Not sure if “window above” meant “directly above” i.e. a skylight, which would make sense as that's where he's looking, or “adjacent-and-on-a-higher-elevation-than-his-head”, which would make sense re: tree branches being outside the hospital rather than looming above it. Plumped for the latter. 2. As I’ve never seen a polo shirt with a pocket - because, c’mon, who wants to ride around ON HORSEBACK, PLAYING POLO with stuff in their pocket that could impale them if they fell? – I ignored the note about pens. 3. According to Bette Midler, the script for Titanic could be summed up in two words:

“Jack?”
“Rose!”

There, Mr. Forbes. I’ve just saved you three hours of movie watching time.)

[gmartyt]

The one thing that boggles my mind is the fact that creepy guy intentionally brought attention upon himself.

It could have been that he was looking for help and didn't know what Michael was going to do, except that he seemed to already know what was going to happen.

It could have been that he knew what was going to happen and was ready to accept his fate, except he proceeded to beg for his life.

As it is, he essentially goes "Pssst. Hey. I know you're here to kill me, but please, for the love of God, don't!"

[SamRoads]

How do you know a guy is creepy-looking? Just wondering. Is it bad hair? TV generally equates good looks with heroicism and bad looks with villainy. Phrenology is still with us, I suppose.

The wall which over-shadows him. The light source is later stated to be from the window in the distance. For any shadow to be falling on him from the leftmost wall, it would require a light source beyond that wall.

However, I don't know what's weirder. That, or the left wall being 'high'. Maybe this is an odd way of saying 'the ceilings are high'.

But really I'm reaching. I simply don't understand.

Anyway, a grim script lovingly worked over by The Liamey and the King of All Editing. Thanks fellas.

[Alyssa]

I wrote an article on conflict in the stupid hours before the sun rose this morning. Steven told me to apply the same analysis to this script.

So, here I go.


PAGE ONE:

A man walks down an apparently abandoned, clinical-looking corridor. He's thinking about how rich and successful he is. There's a whisper from one of the doors, and his thoughts take a turn.

Yet now I’m basically a garbage man, a thirty year old fucking garbage man cleaning up the streets and taking out trash. Trash like this poor excuse for a human.

This could be the hint of conflict, but it's not well executed. Considering the flashy clothes, and him referring to himself as rich in the present tense, I believe that he's still well-off.

So not only does this line not contribute to the reader's sympathy for the character, it actively turns the reader off. He's a millionaire with everything he could wish for, what's his problem?

If he lost everything through no fault of his own, on the other hand, that might change the sympathy aspect, but there's still no real conflict here, that I can see.

No biggie, though. There aren't that many comics that begin conflict right on the first page.

PAGE TWO

The MC confronts a spindly little man- someone who physically poses no threat to the MC, and seems resigned to roll over and die, in any case. The MC undresses.

Well you can’t go around raping kids and getting away with it. The judicial system might allow that, but I won’t.

Not only is there no conflict on this page, the line of dialogue above cancels out the hint of a conflict on page one (that he doesn't like what he's doing). He's saying that his "taking out the human trash" is his choice. No conflict. What if the creepy guy wasn't a rapist but some upstanding citizen who still had to be killed? That would create more conflict than what's here.

PAGE THREE

Close up of the MC's wedding ring. The MC transforms into a werewolf. The spindly man is terrified.

The wedding band has potential to present conflict, but it's wasted. There's no conflict on this page. The man poses no threat to the MC in any way. He's not proving to be an obstacle preventing the MC from reaching his goal (and that goal is pretty empty... the MC simply wants to kill off this lowlife).

PAGE FOUR

Werewolf transformation completes.

No conflict here, either.

PAGE FIVE

Werewolf eats spindly man and howls.

As above.


I bought the horror anthology "In The Dark". There's a werewolf story, called "Set Me Free" (but Jody Leheup and Dalibor Talajic) that ends with a werewolf transformation and hapless victim.
There's conflict right off the bat, because the MC is trying to get home from a late shift at work before midnight of a full moon. He gets stuck in an elevator with some poor lovely older lady with an "unfair injury" (she has terminal cancer). The MC desperately wants to leave the elevator before he turns. He can't, though, and resigns to his (and the lady's) fate. He decides that the least he can do is bring the woman some inner peace before her end. He helps her come to terms with her husband's death, her daughter's distance, and her terminal cancer. Then he turns into a werewolf. Conflict, and resolution, with a tragic ending (because it's a horror).


Is this what you were looking for, Steven?

[Steven Forbes]

Yep!

Good work here, Alyssa!