Fading Out

Rocket Raccoon & Groot - Stakeout

I’m a big fan of the Thought Balloons blog. Over there in that little corner of the web, a bunch of writers write one page comic book scripts for a different character each week. It’s a fun little exercise and ultimately, one that I’ve found to be a valuable resource just by reading .

Well, now I’ve decided to play along at home. The set of characters that got me were Rocket Raccoon and Groot, two of my favorite Guardians. Here I decided to riff on Ryan K. Lindsay’s stakeout idea. 

Technically, I broke the rules but I couldn’t not keep going with this one. REad it after the jump.

PAGE 1

1-Rocket Raccoon leans back in the driver’s seat of his and Groot’s “borrowed” space caddy. There are dice in the mirror and an alien hula girl on the dash. Wrappers from fast food joint, Inhuman Burger, litter the inside of the car. Rocket is bored. 

 ROCKET CAPTION: I hate stakeouts. Especially little ones.

 ROCKET RACCOON: What’s he doing now, Groot?

2-Groot is leaning out the passenger side window with some space binoculars. Around the car in the background, there are what looks like giant beer bottles, underwear and a half-full ash tray.

    GROOT: I am Groot!

 ROCKET RACCOON: I hear ya, buddy.

3-Through a door that is ajar, we see a grotesque looking alien sitting on a space couch in a dark room, basking in the glow of a space TV and surrounded by space junk food.

ROCKET RACCOON: Watching a Flurbellian flark off to “Space Age Space Babes of the 24th Century” isn’t exactly my idea of guarding the galaxy either.

4- Rocket munches on an Inhuman Burger. It has the little antennae (like Black Bolt and Lockjaw) for a toothpick in the middle.

ROCKET RACCOON: But if this guy has been impersonating our dearly departed pal, Star Lord, then we need to know his next move.

GROOT: I am Groot!

5-Rocket perks up, mid-bite. He hears the door bell ring.

SFX: DING DONG

ROCKET RACCOON: The doorbell! Finally, some action!

PAGE 2

1-Rocket hangs out the driver’s side window and over the top of the car. He’s got space binoculars on his face. In the lenses, we see the alien leave the couch.

GROOT: Groot?

ROCKET RACCOON: No. We wait. He’s on the move but his lack of pants tells me that he’s coming right back.

2-All black.

SFX: CLK!

GROOT: Groot!

ROCKET RACCOON: Yeah, buddy. I’m well aware the lights went out. Switch to night vision.

3-In night vision, we see the two aliens but they almost look like one. Things are getting hot and heavy between the Flurbellian and a smaller lady-Raccoon-shaped being in the living room near where the Flurbellian was sitting earlier. We can’t see details in night vision. Just shapes of things.

ROCKET RACCON: Blech. Looks like we’re privy to some sorta intergalactic booty call. Gross. Maybe we should go.

ALIENS: mmph mmph I…mmph I missed you…mmph….oh

ROCKET CAPTION: That voice!

4-Groot and Rocket are holding onto the shaking space caddy for dear life.

ROCKET RACCOON: Gr-Gr-Gr-Gr-oo-oo-oo-t-t-t? Wah-wah-wah-why ar-rr- rr-rre w-w-w-we sh-sh-shak-k-king?

GROOT: I-I-I-I-I am-m-m-m-m Gr-Gr-Gr-oo-oo-oo-t-t-t!

ROCKET RACCOON: WHATDOYOUMEANTHESHRINKRAYISWEARINGOFF?!

5-We are positioned behind the two aliens. They are looking through the doorway into the room where Rocket and Groot were positioned. Some light from the TV lights the panel.

SFX: KRRTT-TSSSHHH! CRASH!

ROCKET RACCOON: AHHHHHHHHHH!!!

GROOT: GROOOOOOOT!

FLURBELLIAN: Ahhh! What the flark?!

OTHER ALIEN: Oh dear!

PAGE 3

1-The Flurbellian and small lady raccoon (we finally see her full-on and it’s Rocket’s Mom!) enter the room that Rocket and Groot were in with trepidation. The LFurbellian is flipping on the light. The room is wrecked. The car has smashed a dresser and a mirror. There are clothes and bottles and magazines and debris everywhere. Groot knocked out slumped out the passenger side window. Rocket is slumped over the roof of the car with his head down, eyes closed.

ROCKET RACCOON: Unnngh…

ROCKET’S MOM: Rocket? Is that you?

2-Rocket looks up. His eyes wide with surprise.

ROCKET RACCOON: Wha..? MOM?!

3-Rocket’s eyes roll back in his head. He faints.

SFX: Faint.

The end is near. 

Tomorrow, I exit fast-paced dining hell forever.

Of course, I’m not cutting the cord all that quickly. I will continue to do what I guess you’d consider freelance social media directing for a nominal fee. What ever it takes to get me out of the proverbial frying pan. 

About 10 days ago, I met Grant Morrison, writer of many fictions, practitioner of chaos magic and champion of bald-headed creatives and those whose wisps of keratin suggestion are rapidly retreating. He is without a doubt my favorite comic book writer and his new book Supergods, a study of how superheroes can teach us a little bit about being human, continues to solidify that fact. While at this book signing/guided discussion, one idea he shared (that he explores in more detail in the book) resonated above all else.

To paraphrase, he said that when great things happen in comics (not just in individual issues, he means whole movements) they are usually punctuated in some by lightning or lightning bolts. For instance, the first issue of the Fantastic Four started with the caption “With the sound and fury of a bolt of lightning” and catapulted the Marvel Age of heroes. Even the cover of Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Return,” a lightning bolt punctuates an era of “grim and gritty” super hero stories. The idea that lightning sparks a new beginning and my recent upheaval of my own personal status quo do not seem coincidental. 

On the future front, the 5 issue outline for the first arc of the Cosmo Memory comic is done! Time to plot out the first issue then get to scripting. It has been really great working with the Pronto Comics team especially my editor Josh Cabrera, a true gentleman. 

Next week, I begin work on the planning stages of a top secret project with best friend and partner-in-crime Anthony “Chewbanza” Chanza and Over Fresh Dreams owner Carlos J. Easybake. This thing could be huge but it’s going to take a lot of work.

Put out some feelers on freelancing, too. We’ll see what comes of it. Hopefully, some good.

Alright time to get some comics. ASM #666 came out this week and I’m dying to read it.

Remember kids, comics just take all the fucked up crazy weird shit you’re into and make it “okay.” 

-P.E. Lightning

As for all this talk I keep hearing about how ‘ordinary people’ can’t handle the weird layouts in comics - well, time for another micro-rant, but that’s like your granddad saying he can’t handle all the scary, fast-moving information on Top of the Pops and there’s really only one answer. Fuck off, granddad. If you’re too stupid to read a comic page, you shouldn’t be trying to read comic books and probably don’t. - Grant Morrison

It’s hard quitting a job when your boss is really and truly one of the best people you know. Not an hour and a half after I told him that August 1 would be my last day did he try to convince me to stay on a more open schedule. 

The truth of the matter is I don’t want to be a 28-year-old restaurant manager. Hell, I don’t even want to be a 22-year-old restaurant manager but that is where I find myself. 

Fortunately, my schedule worked out this week and, in addition to sending some e-mails about freelance community journalism, I got to head down to my first Pronto Comics general meeting. In a mere two hours, I had made friends, gotten advice and been told to send along scripts. Suddenly, I was more in the comic book industry than out of it.

There is something to be said for a group of people bandied together by a common passion. It’s what got me through college (here’s looking at you Oracle and Ghost Mall) and it looks like I’ve found a new group of passionate misfits and freethinkers.

I called 2011 the “year of being real” once. Until now, I haven’t felt like it has been. I feel real when my fingers are hitting the keyboard and the results aren’t the stats and figures of a restaurant in the shitter or the disingenuous groveling of a store manager trying to not lose a customer who swore that the pound of meat that she shoveled into her trough of a foodhole (not sure you can call it a mouth) didn’t satisfy her craving to make her husband regret marrying her. 

Today is my 30th day of work in a row. The next time I work for a month straight it will be on my terms.

-P.E.Lightning

Today everything changes and this blog chronicles my rise to glory, my fight against fading out forever, a farewell and fuck you to being overworked, underpaid and getting a good talking to for not smiling enough on the job.

Tomorrow, I’m quitting. For almost 4 years, I’ve worked hard to make sure that my 1940s-themed hamburger and malt shop was the best darn tootin’ 1940s-themed hamburger and malt shop. I have gotten relatively little in return except the general disdain of the overweight, child-rearing public, a few dance moves to use at weddings and a hatred of the Bee Gees that courses through my body like shit flies through a bulimic that mixed muscle relaxers and laxatives.

It’s time to actually do something. I want to do journalism so I’m going to actually go and DO it.

FADING OUT is just a soapbox. I’ll review comics and books and write columns and blog about my reporting. Love it. Ignore it. I don’t care. I don’t do this for you.

-P.E. Lightning

My favorite exchange from Warren Ellis’ Transmetropolitan:(which I really have to thank for giving me the kick in the ass I needed)

Spider: The point is, the only real tools we have are our eyes and our heads. It’s not the act of seeing with our own eyes alone; it’s correctly comprehending what we see.

Channon: Treating life as an autopsy.

Spider: Got it. Laying open the guts of the world and sniffing the entrails, that’s what we do.