ASTONISHING X-MEN 25: Some Script
July 22nd, 2008 | Work
To this day, people still bug me about seeing script, even though I’ve released loads into the wild over the years (Google is your friend). So today I’ll show you a snippet of stuff. The formatting from script to web doesn’t retain — I use Courier New for description and Times New Roman for dialogue, a trick I think I learned from Kurt Busiek, and the dialogue is separated from the speaker by tab spaces, which I took from John Wagner, rather than as it appears here. But it gives you a rough idea. And in comics, format is less important than content — there is no single way to format scripts, as there is in (say) screenwriting.
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PAGE ONE
Pic 1
Let me start with a strip of dead white space across the top of the page, just deep enough to contain a Twitter send. Twitter is a phone service that’s big in San Francisco right now - attached to this will be a shot of what a Twitter send looks like. The photo space will have a shot of HISAKO’s face, and her Twitter name will be XgirlA.
TWITTER-SHOT
XgirlA: srsly, I need a better x-name. Magical Armor Girl X?
Pic 2
GOLDEN GATE PARK, at dawn: BISON sleep on the grass under a broad-branched tree. LOGAN sleeps stretched out on one of the branches — like a leopard on the African veldt, one arm dangling down. This is the big pic on the page.
DISPLAY LETT
GHOST BOX
Pic 3
The MARIN HEADLAND, at dawn: fog rolling in off the Bay. And HENRY, standing with a large mug of coffee (handle adapted for his paws), collar on his jacket turned up as the mug steams and he looks out over the early-morning bay towards the Golden Gate Bridge. On profile, maybe? Go wide with these images, push them out to bleed at both sides of the page.
HENRY (SINGING)
BLUES AIN’T NOTHIN’ BUT THE EASY GOIN’ HEART DISEASE,
HENRY (SINGING)
BROTHER STOP YOUR MOANIN’
PAGE TWO
Pic 1
And then pull back, to show him outside one of the entrances to the Marin bunker system they’re now apparently all living in (this is what I get for saying "put them in a fucking bunker, then" to Nick and Axel) — and him turning away from the view towards the open door of the entrance.
HENRY (SINGING)
BLUES CAN’T MAKE YOU WARMER IF YOU’RE BOUND TO FREEZE
HENRY (SINGING)
SISTER STOP YOUR GROANIN’
Pic 2
CUT TO: in near-darkness, in tight close-up, a man screaming as another man’s fingers punch through his neck and throat, FIRE crackling around the punctures, blood everywhere. We can’t see the killer’s face.
SCREAMING MAN
UUAAAAA
KILLER
YOU DESERVE IT. DON’T YOU? NOD YOUR HEAD OR IT’S GOING TO HURT A LOT WORSE BEFORE YOU GO, YOU FILTHY, DISGUSTING FAKE –
Pic 3
CUT TO: Henry walking through the corridors of the bunker (bare concrete floors?). Aerial view…
HENRY (SINGING)
WHY DON’T YOU RISE AND SHINE
HENRY (SINGING)
TAKE DEM BLUES RIGHT OFF YOUR MIND
Pic 4
…zooming out in a CUT-AWAY that shows the corridor Henry’s in, Henry reducing to a little blue dot, as the layout of a whole chunk of the Headlands base is revealed - a maze of corridors, hangars, storage areas, operational centers…
VOICE (NO TAIL)
DR McCOY, ARE YOU SINGING AGAIN?
PAGE THREE
Pic 1
HISAKO is poking her head around the corner of the corridor. She does not look impressed.
HENRY
I AM INDEED.
HISAKO
AND WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT THE SINGING?
HENRY
YOU SAID YOU’D WAIT UNTIL I WAS ASLEEP AND THEN SHAVE JAPANESE OBSCENITIES INTO MY FUR.
Pic 2
Hisako, in pyjamas and immense fluffy slippers that look like monster feet, stomps out to face an amused Henry.
HISAKO
AND?
HENRY
AND I FIND I NEED NO MORE THAN TWO HOURS SLEEP A NIGHT. ALSO, I AM BLESSED WITH INCISORS THAT COULD SNICK OFF YOUR LITTLE HEAD. WHY ARE YOU AWAKE, HISAKO?
HISAKO
OH, I COULDN’T SLEEP. I NEED A NEW X-NAME.
HENRY
THIS AGAIN?
Pic 3
He puts his arm around her shoulders, and she leans her head into his side as they walk. She really is tired, and miserable.
HISAKO
LOGAN KEEPS MAKING FUN OF “ARMOR.” I’M REALLY TIRED, DR McCOY.
HENRY
WE’LL GET YOU SOME COFFEE. AMD YOU REALLY MUSTN’T PAY ATTENTION TO LOGAN.
HISAKO
HE SAYS THAT IF MY NAME’S “ARMOR” THEN HIS NAME IS “CLAWS” AND MS FROST’S NAME IS “BRAIN” AND MS ROGUE’S NAME IS “SUCK.”
HENRY
YES. WELL.
Pic 4
CUT TO: the Golden Gate Bridge from another angle, through the broad window of a hotel room very high up in central San Francisco, as dawn light beams through the glass…
FROM OFF
OUCH.
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