Well that was real mature...

Well that was real mature...

Friday, February 28, 2014

A Football Field from International Waters

ADVENTURES IN PULP WRITER'S COMMENTARY

DICK RUBY AND THE CASE OF THE LITTLE GREEN MEN PAGE 8

            Funny story here: So I'm on vacation. In fact, I am about 100 yards from a ship that would be headed for international waters. Which means I'm about 100 yards from turning off the cell phone for three days. Matt calls. "I made a mistake. I got the Man in Black and the Alien backwards. But don't worry I added a line and fixed it." Now, my suggestion would be to simply swap balloons since they are both aliens. Panel 4 was going to illustrate that fact thusly: "The MIB is leaning over Ruby near Ruby's ear, with just his mouth transformed into the sharp alien teeth." But, to save the page, Matt took a slightly longer route. He pushed the "transmission point" balloon from panel 3 to panel 1 and he added the "impatient" balloon in panel 3. It works. The only thing lost was making it clear that all the Men in Black were shape shifting aliens. As you will see on the next page he took care of that in glorious fashion, so it was no big deal. Besides, he more than made up for it with the fantastic framing of panel 2. It was originally simply scripted as a separate panel but the way he positions it (like it magnifies a portion of panel 1) was, again, absolutely brilliant.  It really is the little things that thrills writers when the pages come in. Matt's great at the little stuff. Look at Dick's expression as his face is smashed to the ground. Priceless. We are still moving at a good pace, and I even manage to set up the climax sequence with a few lines.

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