Andrew Bennett - The Madding Crowd, Part 2 - R.A. Wonsowski

Previously, reporter JACK RYDER was given a lead on a conspiracy surrounding a new pharmaceutical company, chaired by two doctors who had hands in creating the CREEPER, and thought to be dead until now. RYDER's research is cut short when a deranged SHADE, THE CHANGING MAN, possibly sensing the reporter's own split sanity, separates the CREEPER from JACK, with the wrong mind in the wrong body.

Set-up: JACK, with the CREEPER's mind inside, chases SHADE up a fire escape and over Gotham's rooftops. The CREEPER, however, now inhabited by JACK's sane mind, balks at the first tenement ledge. He's considering going back down when a voice behind him tells him to stop, and that he is needed...

PAGE 4

Layout:
1122
1133
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Panel 1- We are looking over the CREEPER's shoulder at ANDREW BENNETT, who is standing on a rooftop steam pipe, the steam billowing about his feet. He is dressed in a duster coat, t-shirt, and jeans, hands in his jeans pockets and barefoot. He has a pair of military grade night-vision binoculars slung around his neck. Gotham's skyline is in view, the crescent moon has risen on a starless night and frames BENNETT's head like a broken halo.

BENNETT: My name is Andrew. I've been following the Changing Man, for far too long.

CREEPER: You mean the wacko in the technicolor dreamcoat? What's his story? Who's Kathy?

Panel 2- Profile, BENNETT looks through the binoculars into the distance, considering his quarry.

BENNETT: His "story" is that Shade is an interdimensional poet who can physically manifest madness through a vest he stole from another world.

BENNETT: Kathy is the woman he loves.

Panel 3- BENNETT steps down from the steam pipe to the roof, reaching into an inside pocket of his coat. The CREEPER stands arms folded as his skeptic-journalist self would, listening.

BENNETT: He believes that certain parties can help him access certain energies in the M-Zone to bring her back.

CREEPER: From where? Jersey?

BENNETT: The dead.

Panel 4- BENNETT holds the photos of Dr. Yatz and Dr. Skolos in front of his face. They are recognizable, bit the bits about the eyes and mouths are warped.

BENNETT: I'm not sure what these two are, really. But I've heard them called "necrologists". Supposedly they have mastered the clockwork of death and rebirth.

CREEPER (off-panel): And you know this how?

Panel 5- BENNETT smiles wide, his fangs bared, his eyes open, blank,  and glassy. We see the nervous face of the CREEPER reflected in his eyes, as JACK realizes he's over his head...

BENNETT: Because I've been dead. And reborn.

BENNETT: And I myself have been torn in two directions too often to count.

...to be continued...

Andrew Bennett - Into the Woods - Travis M. Holyfield

Panel 1: A forest in winter. Andrew Bennett surveys a scene of carnage. A body lies before him, twisted and broken, discarded carelessly. There is blood, bright against the snow. Bennett is wearing an overcoat, the collar turned up.

Panel 2: Bennett's POV. Two sets of human (vampire, anyway) footprints lead away from the body, into the darkness of the forest, and the swirling snow.

ANDREW BENNETT (Caption): Two of them. The snow is starting to fill in their tracks. That means a good head start.

ANDREW BENNETT (Caption): I'll never catch them on foot.

Panel 3: Bennett shrugs his overcoat off. He is bare-chested underneath. (For the ladies. And some of the fellas.)

ANDREW BENNETT (Caption): Not on two feet, anyway.

Panel 4: Bennett crouches down on all fours, his form beginning to blur and shift.

ANDREW BENNETT (Caption): Changing shape is painless. There's no rending or twisting. No tortured gnashing of bones reknitting.

Panel 5: The blurring form resolves itself as a huge wolf. The markings on the wolf's fur match the colors of Bennett's hair.

ANDREW BENNETT (Caption): It's like having a word on the tip of your tongue and the sweet relief of recalling it.

 Panel 6: Wolf-Bennett runs off into the forest, pursuing his prey.

ANDREW BENNETT (Caption): You aren't a man becoming a wolf.

ANDREW BENNETT (Caption): You're a wolf remembering that it isn't a man.

END OF PAGE

Andrew Bennett - To Catch a Thief - J.D. Coughlan

Panel 1: A dark bedroom. It is night outside the open window, with the curtains flowing in the breeze. There is a body in the bed, under the sheets. In the dark corner, a face is half-illuminated. It is Skinner Sweet (from American Vampire). His eyes are cruel and he bares his fangs in a grin.

SWEET: (small) Never smile at a crocodile...

Panel 2: Skinner walks out of the dark corner, towards the bed, still grinning wickedly.

SWEET: (small) Don't be taken in by his welcome grin...

Panel 3: Over Skinner's shoulder as he looms over the bed, reaching out a hand to the sheet. We cannot see who is in the bed in the darkness.

SWEET: (small) He's imagining you inside his skin...

SWEET: (small) No, you nev...er...

Panel 4: The sheet thrown back to reveal Andrew Bennett. He grins and points a revolver (loaded with gold bullets, of course) at Skinner.

BENNETT: Smile.

END OF PAGE

Andrew Bennett – Vamp Runner – MK Stangeland Jr.

(6 Panels)

Panel 1: ANDREW BENNETT is in a nightclub, dressed in dark colors and wearing a pair of shades as he tried to remain inconspicuous. This is for naught, however, as there is a perky and excited looking woman – ALICE - poking her head out from the other side of the short wall that BENNETT’s otherwise empty booth is attached to.

Panel 2: ANDREW BENNETT reacts with surprise as ALICE speaks up.

ALICE: You’re a vampire, aren’t you!?

ANDREW BENNETT: !

Panel 3: ALICE leaps over the wall to get into the booth next to BENNETT. BENNETT, on the other hand, looks at ALICE with a WTF look on his face.

ALICE (1): FANGS!

ALICE (2): I see vampire fangs!

Panel 4: ALICE leans in on BENNETT, practically throwing herself at him. BENNETT looks like he’s trying to say something, but is speechless.

ALICE (1): Take me!

ALICE (2): Make me yours!

Panel 5: BENNETT, still not sure how to react to this situation, scoots away from ALICE.

BENNETT: …

ALICE: Is something wrong? I can go clean up first if you’d like.

Panel 6: BENNETT plants his face against the table in front of him. ALICE looks confused.

ANDREW BENNETT: (Mumbling) This is why I hate romantic vampire stories.

(END PAGE)

Andrew Bennett - Would You Ever? - Ben Rosenthal

1.  A vast ocean.  There is no land in sight.  in the middle of it is a small raft.  It has been pieced together by wreckage.  It has a sail erected, but it is joined to the main raft area - it is acting as shade, not as a sail.

CAPTION (Andrew)
This is why we don't travel.


2.  A reveal of  the person on the raft - it is Andrew Bennett looking gaunt.  Scorch marks can be seen on his face and naked torso from where the sun has pierced through the sail during the heat of the day.

CAPTION (Andrew)
When I was young, I remember playing a game of 'Would you ever' with classmates.

"Would you ever kiss a teacher?  Would you ever drink your own pee?" Stuff like that.


3.  Andrew is looking at his hand.  He is weakened.

CAPTION (Andrew)
Right now....


4.  Andrew is biting his ring finger off.


5.  A wide panel, with Andrew drinking his own blood from his severed finger.

CAPTION (Andrew)
...I'd kiss Mrs 'Moleface' Maquire.

Andrew Bennett - I, Last - Arby Moay

PAGE 1

Panel 1
Day. We are in a forest. While the trees and grass are still green, there are now signs of rot in some places. We look over the entrance of a big cave, dark on the inside. Andrew Bennett is walking towards the cave with a dead rat in his hands. No other animal should be seen anywhere else.

CAPTION: Before all this...


Panel 2
Inside the cave, Andrew Bennett drops the rat and sits down, half of his body consumed in the shadow of the cave. He looks solemn, and a little gaunt.

CAPTION: The world's most heinous criminals, outside of Gotham and Metropolis, sentenced with the capital punishment often get to request what their last meal is.


Panel 3
Andrew Bennett picks up the dead rat and dangles it in front of himself. He shows his fangs, ready to eat.

CAPTION: I murdered the entire planet, including the masks and aliens that run and fly around it.


Panel 4
Close tight on Andrew Bennett's mouth as he bites the rat's head of.

CAPTION: And this is all I get before I starve to death...

Why Andrew Bennett?

...because FANGS, BLOOD and VAMPIRES!

Created by J.M. DeMatteis and Tom Sutton, Andrew Bennett is a 400 year-old vampire who hunts down his own kind. He is also unique in his ability to resist the urge to feed on human blood. Most of his vampiric life is dedicated to hunting down Mary, the Queen of Blood, who, sadly, also happens to be his ex-lover. And still kinda is. Tragic.

2011 was a bad time for the vampire genre, what with a certain "saga" running its rounds and making it synonymous to romance novels. And that "saga" was also actually pretty successful, money-making-wise, and so DC, being a business that wants to make money, tried to bank on that. When the New 52 came around, I, Vampire was relaunched with Andrew and Mary being younger, and more... naked. Fortunately, they hired Joshua Hale Fialkov and Andrea Sorrentino to write and art the book, and they made the book look good. They gave us blood and lots of it and they gave us a well-written, and beutifully rendered romantic and tragic story. Did I cry while reading the thing? Well, I can neither confirm nor deny that.

So what is up with Andrew Bennett?

Well, he's a vampire who hunts down vampires, but only the bad kind of vampires. The ones that can't be saved. The ones who are unable to resist the urge to feed on human blood, unlike himself. Thing is, he's the only one who can resist. He met another dude who he thought could, but that was a mistake. Oh, have I mentioned that his ex-lover, Mary Queen of Blood, is the "mother" of all the bad vampires? Yeah, there's that.

What can he do?

He can do whatever vampires can do.

He is immortal, so long as he continues to consume blood, animal blood or bottled human blood in his case,

He is invulnerable to most forms of injury, and if he does get injured, he can regenerate through drinking blood.

He has superhuman strength and stamina.

He possesses the ability to transform into a bat, a wolf, and even into mist.

He also has some form of psychokinesis, which kinda allows him to influence people into doing what he wants them to do.

He can also turn people into vampires.

He's also good with the sword, the wooden stake, and the axe.