Finally recieved my copy of Issue 5 of Plan B. Only had chance for a quick skim, but looks like yet more good stuff. The cover feature about the Arcade Fire is particularly well-timed. Only a few small pieces by me, and probably stuff of more interesting for the games heads in the audience (Take a test run through some sex and The Sims rambling which I plan to expand to feature-length at some point).

It's a beautiful magazine, and I'm still amused, pleased and amazed to be involved.



Plan B arriving also pushed me towards posting the following. It's a comics script fragment which I wrote this morning in an effort to get my brain starting working. Its the sort of thing that while not actually part of any of McKelvie and my PHONOGRAM I have planned, is clearly from the same narrative place. The spoken words=computer lettering sung words=hand lettered trope certainly is one of PHONOGRAM's.

And I've given it a title, if only to keep in with THE ICE STORM tradition of comics inspired by music on this blog. And, for the pedants in the audience, it becomes a tradition when something happens more than once in my world.

THE CROWN OF LOVE

1.1
On The Girl, lying on a mattress on the floor of a house that exists on the boundary between an actual squat and just a particularly downbeat house. Behind her is an Arcade Fire poster, of the “Funeral” album cover, tattered and frayed towards the edges. Her hands are tied behind her back, and is obviously confused. Understandably, as she’s just come too after being drugged.

NO DIALOGUE

1.2
Line of sight from the girl. Crouching a couple of metres before her is The Boy. He looks at her, face solemn, and is quietly singing. Behind him we see the rest of the room, similarly dilapidated. A kitchen unit is on the far side, one drawer open. Since it’s a singing thing, hand lettering as usual. Tiny, crackled thing to try to show that he really hasn’t the voice.

They’re the lyrics from “The Crown Of Love” by the Arcade Fire.

BOY: THEY SAY IT FADES
BOY: IF YOU LET IT.

1.3
Pull back to show the pair in profile. The boy has turned away from the girl and is starting to walk away, hands swinging by his side. The girl is looking around. She’s probably less panicked than you’d expect as she takes in her situation.

His voice is raised a notch, the words with bolder lines.

BOY: LOVE WAS MADE: SO FORGET IT.

1.4
The boy holds onto the sideboard, one hand in the drawer. His eyes are closed now and he’s tunelessly shouting the words with all the passion he can summon. He’s singing them as absolute gospel, with no fear what anyone listening may think of him.

Frame should pay most attention to the face and the actual shape of the words, which are enormously warped things to show his crackled inflection. The “My Name” and “Your Eyelids” are particularly pronounced.

BOY: I CARVED MY NAME!
BOY: ACROSS YOUR EYELIDS!

1.5
On the girl’s face, her eyebrows narrowed. She’s picked up a mistake.

GIRL: NO. THAT’S WRONG.
GIRL: IT’S “CARVED YOUR NAME ACROSS MY EYELIDS”

1.6
The boy turns, looking surprised and somewhat quizzical at this new information. In his hand is a large kitchen knife, held at an oblique, casual angle.

BOY: OH REALLY?

//end//