(under the cut to prevent stretched posts)
THE NIGHT-BORN
by Jack London
12-Page Comic Script
Last Revised 1/23/2014
CHARACTER NOTES
TREFETHAN:The older of the men.
MILNER: The
younger. Looks a bit skeptical of these stories.
LUCY: The
woman Trefethan meets. She is described as tall and Amazonian.
ART NOTES
Most of the art should be done
in heavy inks, with a watercolor wash.
PAGE ONE – ONE PANEL
PANEL ONE
Start with a scene of San
Francisco to establish the setting: windows are open, streets are crowded, etc.
PAGE TWO – SIX PANELS
PANEL
ONE
Now
we establish Trefethan and Milner, the characters speaking.
1. TREFETHAN: It
was in 1898--I was thirty-five then, Yes, I know you are adding it up. You're
right. I'm forty-seven now; look ten years more; and the doctors say--damn the
doctors anyway!
PANEL
TWO
Milner
nods and holds up his drink.
1. MILNER: You
certainly were, old man.
PANEL
THREE
Milner
leans back in his chair.
1. MILNER: I'll
never forget when you cleaned out those lumberjacks in the M. & M. that
night that little newspaper man started the row. Slavin was in the country at
the time, and his manager wanted to get up a match with Trefethan.
PANEL
FOUR
Trefethan
slams his drink down.
1. TREFETHAN: Well
look at me now!
PANEL
FIVE
Trefethan
stands up in his seat dramatically.
1. TREFETHAN: That's
what the Goldstead did to me--God knows how many millions, but nothing left in
my soul..... nor in my veins. The good red blood is gone. I am a jellyfish, a
huge, gross mass of oscillating protoplasm, a--a . .
PANEL
SIX
Trefethan
calms and looks into his glass.
PAGE THREE – TWO PANELS
PANEL
ONE
Trefethan
has sat back down, still gazing into his drink.
1. TREFETHAN: Women
looked at me then; and turned their heads to look a second time. Strange that I
never married. But the girl. That's what I started to tell you about. I met her
a thousand miles from anywhere, and then some. And she quoted to me those very
words of Thoreau that Bardwell quoted a moment ago--the ones about the day-born
gods and the night-born.
PANEL
TWO
A
scene of the Rockies
1. TREFETHAN-OP: It
was after I had made my locations on Goldstead that I made that trip east over
the Rockies, angling across to the Great Up North there the Rockies are
something more than a back-bone. They are a boundary, a dividing line, a wall
unscalable. There is no intercourse across them, though, on occasion, from the
early days, wandering trappers have crossed them, though more were lost by the
way than ever came through. And that was why I tackled the job. It was a
traverse any man would be proud to make. I am prouder of it right now than
anything else I have ever done.
It
is an unknown land. Great stretches of it have never been explored. There are
big valleys there where the white man has never set foot, and Indian tribes as
primitive as ten thousand years ... almost, for they have had some contact with
the whites. Parties of them come out once in a while to trade, and that is all.
Even the Hudson Bay Company failed to find them and farm them.
PAGE FOUR – FOUR PANELS
PANEL
ONE
We
see the girl for the first time. She stands with dogs behind her, in a canyon.
1. TREFETHAN-OP: And
now the girl…
PANEL
TWO
Trefethan
is working his way into the camp of Native Americans. He is smoking.
PANEL
THREE
Trefethan’s
eyes lift in surprise.
PANEL
FOUR
Trefethan
is shown signing with Lucy.
1. TREFETHAN-OP: Lucy.
That was her name. Sign language--that was all we could talk with, till they
led me to a big fly--you know, half a tent, open on the one side where a
campfire burned.
PANEL
FOUR
Trefethan
and Lucy are in his tent, sitting across from one-another.
1. TREFETHAN-OP: Her
eyes--blue, not China blue, but deep blue, like the sea and sky all melted into
one, and very wise. More than that, they had laughter in them--warm laughter,
sun-warm and human, very human, and . . . shall I say feminine? They were. They
were a woman's eyes, a proper woman's eyes. You know what that means. Can I say
more?
PAGE FIVE – FIVE PANELS
PANEL
ONE
We
are back in the room with Trefethan and Milner. Trefethan is enthusiastically
and a bit frantically waving his drink.
1. TREFETHAN: You
fellows think I am screwed. I'm not. This is only my fifth since dinner. I am
dead sober.
PANEL
TWO
Cut
back to the valleys of the Rockies. Trefethan and Lucy are still in Trefethan’s
tent. Lucy puts out her hand towards Trefethan.
PANEL
TWO
A
close up on Lucy.
1. Lucy: Stranger.
I'm real glad to see you.
PANEL
THREE
Lucy
commands the people.
1. TREFETHAN-OP: She
dismissed them. And, by Jove, they went. They took her orders and followed her
blind. She told them to make a camp for me and to take care of my dogs. And
they did, too. She was a regular She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, and it chilled me to
the marrow.
PANEL
FOUR
We
see Trefethan’s dogs have been re-equipped. He has much more strewn across his
tent.
1. TREFETHAN-OP: I
stayed there a week. It was on her invitation. She promised to fit me out.
PANEL
FIVE
Trefethan
and Lucy standing and conversing intently.
1. TREFETHAN-OP: We
talked and talked, while the first snow fell and continued to fall. And this
was her story.
PAGE SIX – FOUR PANELS
PANEL
ONE
A
younger Lucy is shown working hard in the frontier fields.
1. TREFETHAN-OP: She
was frontier-born, of poor settlers.
PANEL
TWO
Younger
Lucy is running across a wide field.
1. TREFETHAN-OP: She
said some nights she wanted to run like a wild thing, through the moonshine and
under the stars, and to run and run and keep on running.
PANEL
THREE
Younger
Lucy is standing with her father. He is handing her a couple pills as she
worriedly talks to him.
1. TREFETHAN-OP: She
told her father one day and he said to just go to bed.
PANEL
FOUR
Younger
Lucy lies in bed, eyes still very much open.
1. TREFETHAN-OP: But
she still had her dreams.
PAGE SEVEN – FOUR PANELS
PANEL
ONE
Younger
Lucy sticks her head out of the kitchen window with a dreamy look in her eyes.
PANEL
TWO
Somewhat
merging with the previous panel, making it clean this is a day dream, we see
young Lucy running down a country road, populated by lambs and flowers.
PANEL
THREE
Younger
Lucy’s husband is shown pulling her back out from the window, looking angry and
yelling at her.
PANEL
FOUR
Younger
Lucy is seen packing her bags and her husband is angrily storming in.
PAGE EIGHT – THREE PANELS
PANEL
ONE
Her
husband raises his hands towards Lucy.
PANEL
TWO
Lucy
raises a Colt .44 at him
PANEL
THREE
She
walks out of the house, to her husband’s dismay.
PAGE NINE – SEVEN PANELS
PANEL
ONE
Lucy
exchanges money with a Canoe-rider. The canoe is about 60 feet long. Many other
people are behind and around her to board the canoe as well.
PANEL
TWO
Lucy
is very happy to be on the canoe. She feels free in the silence of nature.
PANEL
THREE
Lucy
has reached the island camp. This is a large panel, and shows young boys
spearing for fish, and young men hunting deer. There is tall grass, and beach.
It looks much like a paradise.
PANEL
FOUR
She
goes to sleep in her tent, very content.
PANEL
FIVE
She
and others are readying to leave again on the Canoe. They are embarking towards
the ocean.
PANEL
SIX
The
canoe is in scraps, dead bodies surround Lucy. She is grasping onto a dog’s
tail caught on the shore.
PANEL
SEVEN
She
gets up, weakened but determined.
PAGE TEN – FIVE PANELS
PANEL
ONE
She
stumbles towards an old cabin, part-rotted.
PANEL
TWO
We
see Lucy inside the cabin, rummaging around.
PANEL
THREE
She
has opened a moosehide sack in the corner, shocked at its contents.
PANEL
FOUR
All
the moosehide sacks are filled up with gold.
1. LUCY-OP: Gold.
PANEL
FIVE
All
the moosehide sacks are filled up with gold.
1. TREFETHAN-OP: She
cached the gold, saving out thirty pounds, which she carried back to the coast.
Then she signaled a passing canoe, made her way to Pat Healy’s trading post as
Dyea, outfitted, and went over Chilcoot Pass.
PAGE ELEVEN – TWO PANELS
PANEL
ONE
Back
to Trefethan and Lucy sitting together.
1. TREFETHAN: Are
you happy… satisfied? With a quarter of a million you wouldn’t have to work
down in the States.”
2. LUCY: I
wouldn’t swap places with any woman down in the States.
PANEL
TWO
Back
to Trefethan and Lucy sitting together.
1. LUCY: These
are my people; this is where I belong.
PAGE TWELVE – TWO PANELS
PANEL
ONE
We
return to the room in present-time once more, where Trefethan is rounding up
his story to his friends.
1. TREFETHAN: By
God! I wish I weren’t a coward! I could go back to her. She’s there, now. I
could shape up and live many a long year… with her… up there.
PANEL
TWO
He
falls more into his sadness.
1. TREFETHAN: But
I am an old man- look at me. I am soft and tender. The thought of the long
day’s travel with the dogs appalls me; the thought of the keen frost in the
morning and of the frozen sled-lashings frightens me-
PANEL
THREE
He
looks down into his drink one last time.
PANEL
FOUR
We
see him and his friends all at the table, the full room showcased to pull us
out of the scene.
1. TREFETHAN: Well,
here’s to the Night-Born. She WAS a wonder.”
Template provided by
Created by Paul Allor, based on
courses taught by Andy
Schmidt
No comments:
Post a Comment