Comic relief

The first episode of my hoping-to-be-drawn soon webcomic

First Log is slightly too big so I'm posting the final few pages in the comments section.


Trials of Abner Maris v1 – Looking In

Log 1

Page 1

Log Overview: Nightmare sequence (first four pages) of baby Abner being abandoned by his parents who launch him into space. Then we learn that Abner can actually survive in space without a suit or any accroutements.


Summary: First page to act as an introduction to the docking bay which will be a central location to the story.

1. Medium shot. Tier. A man and woman (Abner’s imaginary parents) in one piece, futuristic suits are walking down the bulkhead corridor to the docking bay and airlocks. This corridor and the others linked to the docking bay are a buffer incase one of the airlocks breaches so it's just a bare, functional corridor.
The woman is holding a young baby boy wearing his own little one piece suit and wrapped in a light blue shawl. She’s holding the baby strangely, as far from her body as she can manage. This is because there’s something wrong with the baby, his features seem too small and he’s oddly wrinkled.

2. Wide shot. Tier. They enter a large docking bay style area that has eight, octagonal airlocks spaced evenly across the right hand wall (the external wall of the ship for obvious reasons). The furthest four airlocks are large, clearly designed for big craft to drop off a lot of equipment/materiel/people in one go. The four airlocks nearest the couple are smaller, about the same size as a set of double doors, for your average Star Trek/Stargate space shuttle. The docking bay is absolutely empty apart from the couple and the baby.


Page 2

Summary: The couple put baby Abner in the airlock.

1. The couple are in front of the nearest octagonal airlock (the smaller type), their backs to us. The airlocks have two separate sets of doors, one set connected to the ship and then at the other end of the room a set exposed to space. The internal doors for the airlock operate by sliding open from the middle to the edges and each of the two segments has a small viewing window to see what is inside the airlock.
The man, on the left, is pressing a green button on a control panel next to the doorway that has six buttons in two rows of three (the green one is the first button on the top row) and the internal doors are opening. The inside of the airlock, which is partially visible through the gap between the opening doors, has on the ceiling one of those red warning lights like an upside down police siren. The light is flashing.

2. Zoom in a bit. The doors are now completely open. The airlock is a small octagonal space with only the external set of doors at the far end between them and the void of space. The couple share a meaningful look. The warning light isn’t flashing in this panel.

3. Tier. The woman is in the airlock, placing the baby on his back on the floor just in front of the external doors. Her body language is that of a person who wants to be as far from the baby as possible, whilst the baby is getting fussy and reaching for the woman with one small hand. The warning light is flashing.


Page 3

Summary: Baby Abner shot out the airlock.

1. The viewpoint for this panel is ground level and as if our back is to the external doors in the airlock, looking directly at the baby in the foreground with the man and woman peering through the window pieces of the now closed internal airlock doors. The red warning light is flashing.

2. Close-up. The man’s finger, shaking above a red button on the control panel (the first button on the second row on the panel)

3. Same shot except the woman’s finger is on top of his, forcing him to press the button.

4. Tier. Looking at baby Abner as the airlock doors to space have started to open. Baby Abner should be starting to float as gravity is lost.


Page 4

Summary: The end of the nightmare, baby Abner abandoned in space.

1. Splash panel, try no borders, full bleed, medium shot. Classical space backdrop, all black with stars and other bodies like pin pricks of light and dead centre in the panel the baby, no shawl (perhaps have it drifting off below him) crying his eyes out.


Page 5

Summary: This is our introduction to Abner.

1. I want to juxtapose the last page with this one (baby Abner with grown-up Abner as it were) so same set-up - splash page, no borders but a wide shot. Also see if you can echo the body positions in the two pages.

We’re looking at the whole of Abner’s little broom closet room on the ark ship. He's basically hidden away in the bowels of the ship with limited access to only a small part of the ship. We're looking at Abner just sitting up in his small cot bed, having been scared awake by the nightmare we’ve just shown The bed is situated on the far wall of the room in the top right hand corner as we look at it, the head of the bed fitting exactly into the right angle of the two walls. The door to the room is in the bottom right hand corner of the shot.

The room is a barebones little pit, grimy metal panels on the walls, ceiling and what little we can see of the floor. There’s a small amount of white light coming from a light panel in the ceiling which we can’t see but that makes the room gloomy yet streaked with light. Above his bed is a small red light which flashes to indicate when his assistance is required, it’s flashing on in this panel (like the warning in the nightmare, blurring the dream and reality)
An ipad style device (it’s what they use for reading/learning aboard the ship - almost no paper on the ship except a highly restricted library) is falling off the threadbare green blanket, which covers Abner’s bed, because he fell asleep reading.

The room’s contents are a mess like his sense of identity. There’s a tool bag full of tools open on the floor by the foot of his bed, along with a semi-full tool belt and more tools sprinkled around the room. There’s a pair of grey work boots (they have little thrusters on the bottom of them for limited propulsion in space so can you make the boots quite big, clunky things which the readers will then understand when they get to see them working) next to the tool bag, with ‘This way down’ in white paint hand written low along the side of the boot. There’s a dusty shelf, Abner's handy work with scavenged materials so make it look roughly constructed, above his bed with various rock samples from the asteroids and planets he’s been on.

Down beyond the bed, almost in the left hand corner of the room as we look at it, a wall panel has been removed leaving a rectangular hole. The panel itself is resting on the floor against the wall just to the right of the hole. In the hole various pipes are visible with the few clothes Abner owns hung up on wire hangers using one of the pipes as a rail. It’s a needs-must wardrobe. He has a desk on the left hand wall with plates, mugs, glasses, cutlery and half-eaten food on. He is not domesticated.

Although we’re showing the entirety of his room and I've included a lot of detail, I really want it to seem small and cramped, to give off a strong claustrophobic feeling. And I want that each time we see it, no matter what angle we come at it from.


Page 6

Summary: Abner getting ready to go to work.

1. Medium shot. Abner sitting on the edge of his bed, in a one piece suit that he fell asleep in so make it look wrinkled and slightly ill-fitting. The green threadbare blanket is strewn across his bed because he just threw it off him as he got up and he’s rubbing the sleep from his face with his hands. His work boots and the tool bag are visible at the end of the bed. The little red light is not flashing in this panel.

Abner: Yeah, yeah. I see you.

2. Same shot except Abner has one of his work boots on and is forcing the other one on with difficulty (maybe with the sole facing us so we can see the thrusters in them). The tool belt is now on the bed next to Abner’s right leg. The red light is flashing on in this panel.

3. Abner standing up facing the door of his room. The ceiling, just above his head, we now realise is low. He has on his tool belt and boots, ready to leave but sparing enough time to give the little red light the finger. It isn’t flashing in this panel.