Concert Posters - Evelyn - P. A. Nolte

1/ On the doorstep of a small row house sleeps a young man in his early 20's.  His shaggy hair and denim jacket doing little to protect him from the cold.  A 1964 Valiant Barracuda is parked on the street.

2/ Closer, his unconscious form takes up most of a panel.

3/ As a shadow falls over him, he cautiously and groggily opens an eye.

4/ Silhouetted by the sun, a young girl still dressed for clubbing stands over him.

5/ He stands unsteadily.

6/ And meets her face to face.  She's a blank wall.  He's anything but.

7/ Having proved what he needed to prove, he passes right by her.

8/ She jumps slightly at the sound of his car door slamming but she won't turn around.

SFX: SLAM!

9/ The Barracuda pulls away from the house.  The girl has yet to move.  On the bumper is a sticker of a pirate ship/dirigible/phonograph.

Concert Posters - Steampowered Concert - Perry Kent

Panel 1

Exterior, dusk, meadow. TRISH, a young woman dressed in a short steampunk dress with glow stick necklaces and small LED lights woven in her hair, stands in a meadow looking around. Spread throughout the meadow are people in similar steampunk attire with LEDs and glowsticks. On the edge of the meadow are tall trees. The sky is orange with the setting sun.

1. TRISH: The poster said "MEADOWLANDS: DUSK". Where are they...

2. TRISH (caption): I've never done anything like this. But I felt pulled, compelled almost, to see them.

Panel 2

A man in a bowler cap and three-piece suit with glowsticks and LEDs worked into the outfit points as he shouts to the others.

3. MAN: I see them! They're here!

4. TRISH (caption): I was worried it had been a trick. Some sick joke.

Panel 3

An wooden ship, held aloft by large airship style balloons and propelled by large propellers, flies into view above the trees. The wooden ship has speakers and large lights attached around the edges.

5. TRISH (caption): This was no joke.

Panel 4

TRISH looks up as the airship passes overhead. She is in complete awe of the ship.

6. TRISH (caption): I can feel the thrum of the propellers in my body. Or is it bass?

Panel 5

The crowd of steampunk-and-lit dressed people gather around the airship as a musician stands against the railing of the ship's deck. The musician has a guitar strapped on and a microphone in hand. He speaks into a microphone and out through the speakers.

7. MUSICIAN: Hello, Meadowlands! You ready to rock?

Panel 6

TRISH, packed in tightly around people shouts up at the man with total elation on her face.

8. TRISH: Wooo!

9. TRISH (caption): The electric thrill of the crowd sweeps me and the night dissolves.

-END-

Concert Posters (The Tragically Hip) – Epic Sendoff – MK Stangeland, Jr.

(As I was thinking of a script for this week, I remembered the time we had a week for that thing called “Phonogram”, and decided to write a script set in said world.)

(5 Panels)

Panel 1: Final concert for THE TRAGICALLY HIP – the members a loading onto a ship in the background of the stage that resembles the one from the CONCERT POSTER from this weeks prompt.

CROWD (Off-panel): Encore! Encore! Encore!

Panel 2: Lined up on the ship, the band begins to play.

SFX: (Music Notes)

Panel 3: Back of the ship – the part that looks like it came from a record player – starts playing music notes.

SFX: (Music Notes)

Panel 4: Bottom of the ship, where the parts of the stage keeping it in place pull away.

SFX: (Music Notes)

Panel 5: The ship flies up and over the crowds, who go absolutely wild.

SFX: (Lots and lots of Music Notes)

SFX: (Cheering)

(END PAGE)

Concert Posters - Now for Plan A - Grant McLaughlin

1 - We are back in the early days of North American colonialism.  It is winter.  Close on a group of aboriginal men standing at a clearing and looking onto a beach.  They wear serious, curious expressions.  Frame so they're visible form the shoulders up.  On the beach in the background are some extremely ill and weak looking Europeans who have just rowed onto shore - few, if any of them, have the energy to stand.  Their rowboats are forgotten behind them.  If it doesn't overfill the panel, maybe the ship (or ships) they crossed the sea in are visible in the far background (but that isn't integral).

CAPTION: The locals found us weak and malnourished.

2 - The group of aboriginals have come onto the beach and are helping these poor Europeans.  They offer food, help them stand, and all that good stuff.  The aboriginals are empathetic and caring; the Europeans could not be more thankful.

CAPTION: They reached out and welcomed us as friends.

3 - Springtime.  Early evening.  The Europeans are bidding farewell as a group of aboriginal men and women leave their tiny settlement.  Maybe have some handshakes / hugs.  Try to show they just shared a meal or whatever.  Everyone looks pleased and happy.  And healthy

CAPTION: We would not have survived without their help.

4 - On the Europeans standing in a clearing and looking onto the aboriginal settlement, obviously mirroring the first panel.  The Europeans look serious and pained expressions.  Again, shoulders-up framing.  It is night time, but there is plenty of activity in the settlement in the background - maybe some fires, conversations, and general life.

CAPTION: Theirs is a kindness so great it breaks the heart.

5 - On the bodies / torsos of the Europeans.  They are all holding guns.  This could either be a new panel or potentially the continuation of panel 4, simply broken by the gutter.

CAPTION: Particularly considering ours was never a mission of peace.

Why Concert Posters?

Because it's been too long since I've written a script from my all-time favourite type of prompt.

But I figured I'd sweeten the pot a bit, too.

Stop me if you've heard this before, but The Tragically Hip - a major band in the Canadian pantheon - have recently wrapped their final tour. Gord Downie, the group's lead singer, was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumour earlier this year so they used their already planned tour for their latest album to have a big send-off to the country they call home. It culminated with a concert in Kingston, Ontario (their hometown) that was broadcast ad-free on our national broadcaster. It had an audience of 11 million throughout the evening, which is one-third of Canada's population. As you can see, it was kind of a big deal up here.

For my part, I'm not actually too familiar with the band and their music (only a few tracks here and there), but so many of my friends have been talking The Hip of late that it just felt right to dive into their concert poster back catalogue to pick something that caught my eye, so here we are.

As always, I'd encourage you to take the prompt in any direction you so choose.  If you've been big into The Hip for way too long, see where that takes you.  If this post and poster is the first you've heard of them, go with that.  And should you find yourself somewhere in between, that's just fine as well.

Tenures, play-at-homers, what matters is that you think on it, make a decision, and follow it through fully completely.

Cheers.

Concert Posters - Quarantine - P. A. Nolte

1/ In silhouette, a man with a shovel stands under a tree. Beside him is a small cross.

Caption: I buried my dog under the tree in my backyard.

Caption: He got sick so fast... I didn't know what else to do.

2/ From the back of a van, men in hazard suits pour onto the main thoroughfare of a small town.  The citizens make various attempts to avoid the men, or at least get out of their way.

Caption: When Mr. Friedman got sick, the men in suits came.

3/ A crowd on the edge of town.  At the border, more men in hazard suits, and several nondescript men in nondescript black suits.

Caption: They told us we couldn't leave.  That we were quarantined.

4/ Rioting.  The same peaceful citizens from before have turned their home into a war zone.  Hiding with his back pressed up against the wall of an alley is the man with the shovel.

Caption: There was no going back after that.

5/ A wall of shipping crates erected on the perimeter of the town.  Train tracks still pass alongside the wall, but it's clear that nothing penetrates it.

Caption: I just miss my dog.

CONCERT POSTER – Derek Adnams

Page 1 – (6 Panels)

1.1:  Exterior, sunset, a row of boxcars crawling through a field of tall grass.  Our protagonist, Hobo Blues Guy, is jumping out of a moving boxcar, a slightly obscured package right in front of where he is about to land.  One of his hands is on the derby-style hat perched on his head.

Hobo Blues Guy (caption):  It doesn’t take a lot to write a good song.  The best are the simplest.

Hobo Blues Guy (caption):  Some E, a little A, add some D and slide down to B for the chorus.  Maybe throw a seventh in before verse two.

1.2:  Hobo Blues Guy bending over to pick-up the package, which is a beat-to-hell guitar case.  This is the only thing he carries and that he owns.

Hobo Blues Guy (caption):  I like to stay low, really pound out some open chords as loud as I can.

1.3:  Hobo Blues Guy crossing an old-timey “Bridges of Madison County” looking wooden bridge.  In the foreground is a sign “Greensboro 11 Miles”.

Hobo Blues Guy (caption):  Until I get to the bridge.

Hobo Blues Guy (caption):  And realize how minor I can become.

1.4:  Hobo Blues Guy, now on a busy Main Street, placing his hat on the ground, ready to collect spare change and small bills.

Hobo Blues Guy (caption):  But then the song comes back - - keeps coming back, always and forever - - to the verse.

1.5:  Hobo Blues Guy sitting on a step, playing his guitar as a small crowd of smiling onlookers stands around.

Hobo Blues Guy (caption):  Whether it’s a sad blues jam or a happy pop tune, all I want as the guy behind the guitar is for the audience to feel.

1.6:  Hobo Blues Guy, alone in the panel, eyes closed, head pointed to Heaven, strumming his guitar and singing his lungs out, smiling.

Hobo Blues Guy (caption):  And know that I feel too.

 

Concert Posters - Prog 7 - Ray Wonsowski

Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends... Continuing the prog-rock-fueled adventures of the Wonder Twins, Zan and Jayna...

Previous progs: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6

Today's chapter is inspired by Rush's 2112. 

Panel 1- Night on a high mountain top, in front of the mouth of a cave, APACHE CHIEF, ZAN, and JAYNA sit around a campfire. All are looking into the starlit sky, the CHIEF pointing up into it, as if saying, Look.

CAPTION, APACHE CHIEF: They left the planet long ago...Their power grows with purpose strong...

Panel 2- The CHIEF's finger traces the constellations; one is By-Tor, the fighter, the other is the Snow Dog, the protector. One star gleams brightest, the Snow Dog's eye; JAYNA's hand gestures to it (New Exor).

CAPTION, APACHE CHIEF: ...To claim the home where they belong. Home to tear the Temples down. Home to change!

Panel 3- one of Mongul's fighter skiffs levitates at the cave ledge; JAYNA at the stick. ZAN steps on the wing, and gratefully shakes APACHE CHIEF's hand.

CAPTION, APACHE CHIEF: ...I have not left this cave for days now, it has become my last refuge in my total despair.

Panel 4 - POV from behind APACHE CHIEF. He looks up in the sky, the starcraft already disappearing into the starry sky. To the left, a waterfall cascades down a mountainside. The CHIEF sits cross legged, head low, silhouetted by the dying fire.

CAPTION, APACHE CHIEF: I have only the music of the waterfall to comfort me now...

...until next time, space cowboy...

Concert Posters - Atomic Robo and the Mirrors of the Impossible: Broken Mirror Match Up – MK Stangeland Jr.

(Previously, DR.DINOSUAR inadvertently ‘invited’ an evil version of Atomic Robo from a mirror alternate universe, DR. ROBO, to visit the ‘real’ ATOMIC ROBO universe.

Things have, of course, escalated from there.)

(5 Panels)

Panel 1: A smaller panel, designed to match the design of the prompt CONCERT POSTER, focusing on the shipping containers.

Panel 2: A large robot is thrown through the wall of shipping containers – it’s DR. ROBO, wearing an exo-suit. It’s not an oversized, giant mecha-type machine, but more along the lines of if ATOMIC ROBO decided to build a WAR MACHINE-type suit to wear designed to enhance his power. It shows signs of battle damage, its main cannon already having taken significant damage.

The SHIPPING CONTAINERS are thrown about from the impact, though the actual effect should be significantly subdued – these are still immensely heavy shipping containers, they don’t fly about easily.

SFX: ThUmmn!

DR. ROBO: [CENSORED]

SFX: klumn!

Panel 3: DR. ROBO picks himself up as he throws a shipping container aside.

DR. ROBO: I must admit, Doctor. I admire the ease with which you seem to break every law of science known to man.

Panel 4: DR. DINOSAUR from the other side of the now fallen wall of containers. He rides atop his ROBOSAURUS REX, a cybernetically enhanced and heavily armored T-REX. The easiest way to think of it would probably be as an ‘upgraded’, ‘refined’, more ‘controlled’ version of the FUTURSAURUS REX from the 2012 Atomic Robo Free Comic Book Day issue.

DR. DINOSAUR himself is riding upon the ROBOSAURUS REX like a knight riding upon his loyal steed, complete with a protective suit that’s reminiscent of a ye old fashion knight.

DR. DINOSAUR (1): BAH! I have broken no laws of science!

DR. DINOSAUR (2): Your feeble inferior mind is merely incapable of comprehending the incomprehendible!

Panel 5: DR. ROBO grabs a shipping container and prepares to use it as an improvised weapon.

DR. ROBO: But then you keep opening your stupid mouth and the admiration ends.

(END PAGE)

Concert Posters - “Lord, it done rose everywhere”* - Colin Cheney

Panel 1 – A collection of shipping containers are stacked, three-high, by the side of a rural train track. It’s getting on toward dusk.

Panel 2—A massive flash flood of sand-colored water (as high as second stack of containers) hits the containers, setting them free in the fast moving, roiling water. Other debris is visible in the water: tree branches, deck chairs, etc.

SFX: KRASTSH!

Panel 3—The containers (some pitched at an angle, others more-or-less righted) float through a flooded town on the fast-moving, white-brown water.

SFX: WSSH
SFX: WSRUSH

Panel 4—Medium shot of a teenage boy clinging, precariously, to a high branch of a tree above the floodwaters. He is watching the containers coming toward his tenuous refuge.

Panel 5—Boy jumps onto the container as it passes on the floodwaters beneath his tree.

Panel 6—Night has fallen. Boy rides container—now separated from the others—through a flooded landscape of rooftops and treetops. Upended cars, a dog on a rooftop, mailboxes, etc can be seen in the dark waters.

Panel 7—Boy sees glaring halogen lights of rescue boats surrounding a levee off in the distance.

Panel 8—Boy yells toward the too-distant-to-hear rescue boats—his shipping container is moving by too fast, carrying him away from safety.

BOY: Hey! Over here! Help!

BOY: No, no! Wait, I’m here!

Panel 9—Medium-to-long shot of boy on shipping container as it is carried out into a flat, endless sea of water. Stars shining above.

* Lyric from Charlie Patton, “High Water Everywhere, Part 1”  

Concert Posters - Always Greener - Grant McLaughlin

1 - Establishing shot.  We're in a train yard filled with shipping containers.  A stacks of old containers on the left goes off into the distance (like in the poster), scripts from all over the world written along their sides.  A train with new containers is pulling into the freight yard.  Some workers are about, directing traffic or readying machinery.

CAPTION (SARA) (1): They say the boxes are killing this town.

CAPTION (SARA) (2): Moving goods halfway around the world for pennies.

CAPTION (SARA) (3): Our factories can't compete.

2 - Close-up of the driver of a forklift-esque vehicle next to the train.  The driver is middle-aged, mustached, and balding (although that last point may not be visible depending on hat / helmet he might be wearing).  He scowls.  While he is the focus of the panel, behind him on the right of the panel we can see the yard's fence.  A figure stands outside the fence, looking in (see inset panel).

CAPTION (SARA): So most everyone curses as they pass through.

DRIVER (quietly): Great.  More god damn containers.

3 - Inset panel around the figure standing outside the fence.  It's a young woman - the Sara who has been speaking in the captions throughout the page.  It's hard to make out all the details at this distance, but she seems to be wearing some punk rock clothing (ripped jeans, combat boots, hoodie, etc) and has dyed hair.

CAPTION (SARA): Not me.

4 - Close-up on Sara on the other side of the fence.  It's chain link, but it would be great if we could get a "trapped" feeling as she hangs onto the fence and looks longingly at the trains within the yard.  At this distance, we can see the full extent of her punk rock aesthetic: dyed hair cut short on the side and long on the top (kinda like Natalie Dormer), pierced septum, gauged ears, maybe some tattoos.  You get the idea - she isn't your typical small-town girl.

CAPTION (SARA): I wish I could go with them.

Why Concert Posters?

I don't know how long it's been, but I feel like I've always been inspired by concert posters.  The images that people will come up with to advertise a gig or tour is endlessly fascinating to me.  I love seeing how different artists will interpret different bands, coming up with beautiful landscapes, horrifying scenes, incomprehensible non sequiturs, and pretty much everything in between.

I'm also enraptured by the idea of putting so much work and effort into a beautiful piece of art whose primary goal is to promote a one-time event, after which point it kind of hits its best before date.  The image is obviously as beautiful as ever, but part of its purpose is done, never again to be accomplished.

Of late, they've been one of my favourite sources of inspiration.  I'll pick a poster and spend one hour writing up a comic book script based on the things a poster will make me think of or feel.  And that's what I want to do this week with the following concert poster:

I am not overly picky when it comes to particular concert poster creators.  Perhaps my sensibilities could use some more molding, but if it resonates in my mind, that's good enough for me.  That being said, I've been quite taken with the posters of graphic design company Landland of late.  I find an amazing mixture of the simple and complex and have been taken by nearly every single one I've seen.  Unsurprisingly, that's where my selection comes from.

It took me a while to narrow down the focus to a single poster, but this one stuck with me.  As the original page will tell you (as you can read from the poster), this image was created by Dan Black for an Eric Church concert that happened February 18th, 2012 in Greensboro, North Carolina.  However, none of that is important - unless you want it to be.

What matters is that I want you to consider this poster, think about what it means to you, and take those thoughts to write a comic script inspired by them.  Obviously, you can take as long as you want no need to stick to my aforementioned one hour time limit - unless you want to, of course!

Either way, I look forward to seeing what you all come up with.  As always, if you want to play-at-home, please don't hesitate to post your scripts below in the comments.  We're always happy to see what others are coming up with and this week is no exception!