RMichael
07-24-2006, 10:57 AM
A little background on myself first, as I'm newly registered here... I'm a writer based in Perth, Western Australia who has worked in and around the .au film and television industry, have penned a decent amount of screenplays with two now in production and another one just finished screening, first novel to be published later this year, and various other print stuff too miniscule to mention. I have always worked in those fields with an aim toward writing comic books (childhood dream and all).
The best thing I can really do to give you an idea of the work involved would be showing you a sample of the writing (see below). The following seven scripted pages would actually be the pages used in the submission to Image Comics, the pitching part will involve only seven sequential pages, the completed issue one script (which any interested parties can email me for, it's twenty-two pages long--ie standard comic book length), and a plot outline for the planned four-issue mini-series, with the goal being several series done in this format.
While the pitching part is obviously unpaid, I am willing to negotiate with the artist a generous percentage in creative rights to the book, and thus when it comes to the actual paid work(22 pages/month)--which with Image Comics remains entirely creator-owned--all rights would belong to myself and the successful applicant. All original art would belong to the artist.
Besides the completed Issue #1 script, I am also happy to email character design sketches to give you a rough idea of the style I'm looking for--I am in fact an artist myself, but more of a doodler. I lack the consistency to produce sequential art at a professional level, which is what the artist of the book, titled Passenger, will need in order to have the project greenlighted.
How likely is it that the project will be greenlighted? The submissions editor will make that decision based on the following seven pages, so really, if you think you could turn the following into seven eye-catching, quality pages of comic book art, you should drop me a line at rmichaelh@gmail.com --COLORED ART IS NOT IMPORTANT, although having worked with watercolors and/or Photoshop would be an advantage.
page one
Establishing shot. The sun sets over a pristine scene of nature untouched by human industry.
CAPTION
If you can read this, it’s not too late.
I don’t know where this care package ends up.
I don’t know when.
But if you guys found it, if you know what’s happened, then you still have time.
If by chance you’re a caveman, or know a guy named King Arthur, put this back the way you found it and pray that your children’s chlidren’s grandchildren pass the message to someone who matters.
High above one of the grassy hills, a hyperspace singularity appears as a man-sized hole in the sky. Light ebbs from it, unnaturally slow—more gas than particle wave.
CAPTION
For serious though, you’re going to want to fire Klein.
I cannot stress enough, how important this part is.
Put someone else in charge of Columbia, and don’t let the man within three continents of the building.
He means to undermine forty years of work.
He’s trying to shut you down.
Doctor Klein has gone rogue, and he’s coming after every one of us in turn.
I’m not making guesses here, dudes. Klein killed you all once already.
This? Is your second chance.
page two
Special agent DELMART GARFIELD falls through the singularity headfirst.
CAPTION
People are always asking me, “What does time travel feel like?”
CAPTION
At least, I’m sure they would if I could talk about it.
Del tumbles down the grassy hill, barely avoiding rocky outcrops.
CAPTION
And I tell those people—that is, would if I could—It feels exactly like taking dissociative drugs.
CAPTION
For what may be eternity, but probably just a moment, your ego is torn completely away, consciousness popped free of its shell.
CAPTION
It occurs to you right away, out of the sheer nothingness: This is more real than anything I ever felt. And somewhere primal, you know it’s true.
CAPTION
So here you are, infinitely large, temporarily omniscient—touching the void and all, aware on some basic logic level that time and space exist only back in your physical mind. The universe resonates at an angelic hum that you could always feel, but somehow tuned out until now. It’s just about perfect, here in four-dimensional space.
CAPTION
Then snap, you’re ragdoll-tumbling down some frozen mountainside, completely reborn, unable to even scream… stiff everywhere with shock.
page three
CAPTION
Remind yourself to breathe just once, and your body takes over again at last.
Del tumbles to a halt at the foot of a dying tree, sprawled out on the grass, looking up at the evening sky.
CAPTION
You tangle in tree roots and jerk hard into reality—best as you know it—your heart pumping inner warmth to numb extremities.
Del blinks hard as the dust settles, confused.
CAPTION
A cloudless sky stares back, reflecting your own sudden emptiness.
Del’s POV of the cloudless evening sky.
Wide on Del laying on his back in the middle of nowhere as night sets in.
CAPTION
Minutes will pass before you remember why you’re here.
page four
Inside a specially-modified storage warehouse, a four-axis gyroscope that fills half the room winds down, steam wafting from within its arms.
When the steam clears, Del—now with beard and longer hair—is kneeling inside the arms, doubled-over, vomiting on the steel grate beneath him.
From the other side of the room, one of three TECHNICIANS—DR. KALIENTE—steps forward from the bank of holographic instrument panels they man.
KALIENTE
Welcome back, Del.
HERNANDEZ
Hey Del.
Del descends from the gyroscope’s platform on steel steps, confused again.
DEL
Kaliente… where are we? What happened to the hangar?
KALIENTE
You’ve been evacuated to an MoD fallback facility—a blister in the quantum field located within physical space but outside of time’s influence. We’re a skeleton crew here, in fact the last people on Earth who remember that there once was something else.
DEL (wide-eyed)
Oh God… what happened?
HERNANDEZ
We think it was Klein. Again.
KALIENTE
We can’t be sure who did this yet.
page five
Del walks past Kaliente, eyes darting between the displays.
DEL
What happened to the, what do you call them, difference engines?
HERNANDEZ
They’re online, but it takes time.
DEL
I was under the impression you guys are kind of a whiz with that time stuff.
KALIENTE
It’s complicated. But to dumb it down for you, the engines compare detectable timelines and identify divergence points, tracking cascade inconsistencies and logging any temporal difference. Now I know you grew up in the age of quantum networks and wideband feed, but trust me when I say that the processing power required is slightly beyond the equipment housed in a two year-old emergency facility.
Del scratches his beard, looking around.
DEL
So what’s it like out there? Back on our rail?
KALIENTE
Undefined. It seems that the changes we experienced were the ramping up of a domino effect that’s still cascading backward through ours and other event histories. As best we can tell, several timelines are competing to fill the empty space, but we assume that will change as things solidify in the past.
DEL
Guy, you… are hurting my brain. I’m gonna shower and shave. We do have crew facilities here, right?
KALIENTE (pointing)
That way.
Del goes to walk away, but stops, turning back to them.
DEL
The worst thing about all this? It’s not even the first time it’s happened to me.
page six
A modern BMW weaves between traffic at high speed on a city-bound ten-lane uberhighway.
CAPTION
Nine days ago.
CAPTION
Pepsi’s twenty-one neighborhood.
Ontario region, North America. 09.18.2105.07:01
A behemoth JUMPSHIP swoops down from above, barely avoiding a skywalk, degaussing a row of holographic billboards.
CAPTION
As the jumpship comes in low under skywalks and air traffic I can see corporate-spec weapon systems fitted to hotswaps on its hull.
Inside the BMW, Del leans over its steering column, looking up at the ship. Instrument displays are projected on the windscreen’s interior.
CAPTION
My BMW shudders in the ramjet wake, losing traction briefly before finding speed in the sudden vacuum.
CAPTION
HUD says I’m doing 310.09KPH, but that’s just to fool the safety overrides. In truth, it’s more like 550. Ask me about this simple vehicular hack some time when my safety isn’t an immediate concern.
page seven
Up ahead the traffic slows to a halt at the entrance to a tunnel carved into the side of a mountain—most of the company’s large buildings and sky cities built into and around the mountain-range.
The ship pulls up, breaking away to the right.
CAPTION
It peels off to avoid traffic at the tunnel entrance, lumbering skyward again, rounding the mountain to take another run at me.
The BMW swerves across lanes, headed for the dividers and a series of clear glass toll booths that separate it from lanes exiting the city.
CAPTION
While I’ve never seen a ship this large up close, I know for certain that it didn’t roll off the production line with offensive capabilities.
CAPTION
In fact—and the irony really strikes me all at once here—it’s more than likely these people purchased their air-to-ground weapon systems from me.
Del’s car plows through one of the toll booths, headed for the tunnel going against traffic. Its lone attendant leaps to safety while the glass shatters around him.
Cars up ahead flash their lights as the BMW comes at them head-on.
CAPTION
At the toll gates I swerve into oncoming traffic, entering Five Mile Tunnel against the grain.
The best thing I can really do to give you an idea of the work involved would be showing you a sample of the writing (see below). The following seven scripted pages would actually be the pages used in the submission to Image Comics, the pitching part will involve only seven sequential pages, the completed issue one script (which any interested parties can email me for, it's twenty-two pages long--ie standard comic book length), and a plot outline for the planned four-issue mini-series, with the goal being several series done in this format.
While the pitching part is obviously unpaid, I am willing to negotiate with the artist a generous percentage in creative rights to the book, and thus when it comes to the actual paid work(22 pages/month)--which with Image Comics remains entirely creator-owned--all rights would belong to myself and the successful applicant. All original art would belong to the artist.
Besides the completed Issue #1 script, I am also happy to email character design sketches to give you a rough idea of the style I'm looking for--I am in fact an artist myself, but more of a doodler. I lack the consistency to produce sequential art at a professional level, which is what the artist of the book, titled Passenger, will need in order to have the project greenlighted.
How likely is it that the project will be greenlighted? The submissions editor will make that decision based on the following seven pages, so really, if you think you could turn the following into seven eye-catching, quality pages of comic book art, you should drop me a line at rmichaelh@gmail.com --COLORED ART IS NOT IMPORTANT, although having worked with watercolors and/or Photoshop would be an advantage.
page one
Establishing shot. The sun sets over a pristine scene of nature untouched by human industry.
CAPTION
If you can read this, it’s not too late.
I don’t know where this care package ends up.
I don’t know when.
But if you guys found it, if you know what’s happened, then you still have time.
If by chance you’re a caveman, or know a guy named King Arthur, put this back the way you found it and pray that your children’s chlidren’s grandchildren pass the message to someone who matters.
High above one of the grassy hills, a hyperspace singularity appears as a man-sized hole in the sky. Light ebbs from it, unnaturally slow—more gas than particle wave.
CAPTION
For serious though, you’re going to want to fire Klein.
I cannot stress enough, how important this part is.
Put someone else in charge of Columbia, and don’t let the man within three continents of the building.
He means to undermine forty years of work.
He’s trying to shut you down.
Doctor Klein has gone rogue, and he’s coming after every one of us in turn.
I’m not making guesses here, dudes. Klein killed you all once already.
This? Is your second chance.
page two
Special agent DELMART GARFIELD falls through the singularity headfirst.
CAPTION
People are always asking me, “What does time travel feel like?”
CAPTION
At least, I’m sure they would if I could talk about it.
Del tumbles down the grassy hill, barely avoiding rocky outcrops.
CAPTION
And I tell those people—that is, would if I could—It feels exactly like taking dissociative drugs.
CAPTION
For what may be eternity, but probably just a moment, your ego is torn completely away, consciousness popped free of its shell.
CAPTION
It occurs to you right away, out of the sheer nothingness: This is more real than anything I ever felt. And somewhere primal, you know it’s true.
CAPTION
So here you are, infinitely large, temporarily omniscient—touching the void and all, aware on some basic logic level that time and space exist only back in your physical mind. The universe resonates at an angelic hum that you could always feel, but somehow tuned out until now. It’s just about perfect, here in four-dimensional space.
CAPTION
Then snap, you’re ragdoll-tumbling down some frozen mountainside, completely reborn, unable to even scream… stiff everywhere with shock.
page three
CAPTION
Remind yourself to breathe just once, and your body takes over again at last.
Del tumbles to a halt at the foot of a dying tree, sprawled out on the grass, looking up at the evening sky.
CAPTION
You tangle in tree roots and jerk hard into reality—best as you know it—your heart pumping inner warmth to numb extremities.
Del blinks hard as the dust settles, confused.
CAPTION
A cloudless sky stares back, reflecting your own sudden emptiness.
Del’s POV of the cloudless evening sky.
Wide on Del laying on his back in the middle of nowhere as night sets in.
CAPTION
Minutes will pass before you remember why you’re here.
page four
Inside a specially-modified storage warehouse, a four-axis gyroscope that fills half the room winds down, steam wafting from within its arms.
When the steam clears, Del—now with beard and longer hair—is kneeling inside the arms, doubled-over, vomiting on the steel grate beneath him.
From the other side of the room, one of three TECHNICIANS—DR. KALIENTE—steps forward from the bank of holographic instrument panels they man.
KALIENTE
Welcome back, Del.
HERNANDEZ
Hey Del.
Del descends from the gyroscope’s platform on steel steps, confused again.
DEL
Kaliente… where are we? What happened to the hangar?
KALIENTE
You’ve been evacuated to an MoD fallback facility—a blister in the quantum field located within physical space but outside of time’s influence. We’re a skeleton crew here, in fact the last people on Earth who remember that there once was something else.
DEL (wide-eyed)
Oh God… what happened?
HERNANDEZ
We think it was Klein. Again.
KALIENTE
We can’t be sure who did this yet.
page five
Del walks past Kaliente, eyes darting between the displays.
DEL
What happened to the, what do you call them, difference engines?
HERNANDEZ
They’re online, but it takes time.
DEL
I was under the impression you guys are kind of a whiz with that time stuff.
KALIENTE
It’s complicated. But to dumb it down for you, the engines compare detectable timelines and identify divergence points, tracking cascade inconsistencies and logging any temporal difference. Now I know you grew up in the age of quantum networks and wideband feed, but trust me when I say that the processing power required is slightly beyond the equipment housed in a two year-old emergency facility.
Del scratches his beard, looking around.
DEL
So what’s it like out there? Back on our rail?
KALIENTE
Undefined. It seems that the changes we experienced were the ramping up of a domino effect that’s still cascading backward through ours and other event histories. As best we can tell, several timelines are competing to fill the empty space, but we assume that will change as things solidify in the past.
DEL
Guy, you… are hurting my brain. I’m gonna shower and shave. We do have crew facilities here, right?
KALIENTE (pointing)
That way.
Del goes to walk away, but stops, turning back to them.
DEL
The worst thing about all this? It’s not even the first time it’s happened to me.
page six
A modern BMW weaves between traffic at high speed on a city-bound ten-lane uberhighway.
CAPTION
Nine days ago.
CAPTION
Pepsi’s twenty-one neighborhood.
Ontario region, North America. 09.18.2105.07:01
A behemoth JUMPSHIP swoops down from above, barely avoiding a skywalk, degaussing a row of holographic billboards.
CAPTION
As the jumpship comes in low under skywalks and air traffic I can see corporate-spec weapon systems fitted to hotswaps on its hull.
Inside the BMW, Del leans over its steering column, looking up at the ship. Instrument displays are projected on the windscreen’s interior.
CAPTION
My BMW shudders in the ramjet wake, losing traction briefly before finding speed in the sudden vacuum.
CAPTION
HUD says I’m doing 310.09KPH, but that’s just to fool the safety overrides. In truth, it’s more like 550. Ask me about this simple vehicular hack some time when my safety isn’t an immediate concern.
page seven
Up ahead the traffic slows to a halt at the entrance to a tunnel carved into the side of a mountain—most of the company’s large buildings and sky cities built into and around the mountain-range.
The ship pulls up, breaking away to the right.
CAPTION
It peels off to avoid traffic at the tunnel entrance, lumbering skyward again, rounding the mountain to take another run at me.
The BMW swerves across lanes, headed for the dividers and a series of clear glass toll booths that separate it from lanes exiting the city.
CAPTION
While I’ve never seen a ship this large up close, I know for certain that it didn’t roll off the production line with offensive capabilities.
CAPTION
In fact—and the irony really strikes me all at once here—it’s more than likely these people purchased their air-to-ground weapon systems from me.
Del’s car plows through one of the toll booths, headed for the tunnel going against traffic. Its lone attendant leaps to safety while the glass shatters around him.
Cars up ahead flash their lights as the BMW comes at them head-on.
CAPTION
At the toll gates I swerve into oncoming traffic, entering Five Mile Tunnel against the grain.