Green Wake - Running With The World - Matt Duarte

Green Wake in “Running With The World” by Matt Duarte

Panel 1

Description: A man running through a field at night. The moon shines over his head, the only source of light that can be seen anywhere else. He is running along a path going uphill, with rocks scattered all over it and grass on the sides.

CAPTION: I remember running one night. I'm sure I had a purpose and a direction once but it has since escaped my mind.

Panel 2

Description: The man is still running, though we can see him better now. He is a young mid 20´s man with black short hair. He is wearing normal clothes, not designed for running.

CAPTION: I remember a moment of clarity and confusion. Of surrealism and realization.

CAPTION: I saw myself running, in my store bought clothes, and I saw a long dead ancestor, running along the same mountains and breathing the same air in tattered rags.

CAPTION: I think it was thousands of years ago. Or perhaps thousands of years into the future.

Panel 3

Description: A close up of the man's head.

CAPTION: I remember there was something feral in that moment. Something natural. Whatever destination I had for running, was, for the briefest of moments, gone.

Panel 4

Description: A completely black panel.

CAPTION: Then nothing.

CAPTION: And then...

Panel 5

Description: Seen from behind the man, who has just arrived to a city seemingly in the middle of nowhere. There are not mountains to be seen anywhere close, nor a single hint of the path he was previously in. He is just walking through some tall grass on the outskirts of a town.

CAPTION: Then there was just Green Wake.

The End.

Green Wake - Coming Down - Danial Carroll

PANEL ONE
Morley sits at a table in a dark room. The only light is coming through a nearby window from a street-lamp outside. There is a bottle of whiskey and a full glass of it in front of him. He is staring at the glass, deep in thought.

CAPTION: Love is an addiction.

CAPTION: A drug.


PANEL TWO
Morley and Anna are laying in bed together, both staring happily and lovingly into each other's eyes.

CAPTION: When you're on it, it is the most amazing high.


PANEL THREE
Anna is on the telephone, curled up on a sofa. A small lamp feebly lights the otherwise dark room.

CAPTION: When you're not, you sure feel the cravings.

ANNA: Come home soon, Baby. I miss you.


PANEL FOUR
Flashback scene of Morley, screaming as he holds Anna's lifeless body in his arms.

CAPTION: And when you go cold turkey...

CAPTION: Well, the withdrawal symptoms are instantaneous.

Green Wake - Summer Dreaming - Sime McDonald

PANEL ONE

Tobias (new character, no reference) is gazing upwards, at the sky, though the shot is angled so we can’t see it. He’s clad in tattered clothes, maybe, once, ages ago, fashionable garb, now reduced to rags.

CAPTION (1)

Once, when the clouds dissipated,

I would look to the sky in search of the first hint of sunshine.

CAPTION (2)

I would just stare.

Just watch as the sunlight pierced through its cocoon.

PANEL TWO
A slight smile curves Tobias’ lips.

CAPTION

My mother called it Summer Dreaming.

PANEL THREE
At another time, in another place, this might be a snapshot of tranquillity, of a man at peace with himself and the world, looking up to the sky, to the heavens. But not here. This is Green Wake. We’ve pulled back from the first panel. Now, we can see the sky. It’s coated in black paint, not even the faintest hint of a glimmer of light. It’s unnatural. Unnerving.

CAPTION (1)

Now, even when the sky clears,

the outlook is no less obscure.

CAPTION (2)

There is just darkness. Blackness.

Stretching on for eternity.

PANEL FOUR
Pull back farther. Tobias is standing on the edge of a cliff. The world stretches out before him, never-ending in its blackness.

CAPTION

In Green Wake, there are no dreams.

PANEL FIVE
Tobias has one foot dangling off the edge.

CAPTION

Just one, everlasting nightmare.

PANEL SIX

Tobias, falling, in darkness, into blackness.

CAPTION (1)

God.

CAPTION (2)

I miss my mother.

PANEL SEVEN

Black.



Green Wake - Ouroboros Closing - Rol Hirst

Panel One.

Small panel, inset in the top left of panel two. Close on an old-fashioned analogue clock with roman numerals. The second hand is just ticking up to 9 o’clock.

CAP (Phil): 9 to 5, 9 to 5, sometimes it seems my whole life is 9 to 5…

Panel Two.

A small and shabby open plan office in a faceless business. The furniture is worn, the papers on the noticeboard are yellowing, the carpet is threadbare. On the desks, bulky old computers sit next to overflowing in-boxes. One desk even has an old typewriter. The clock we saw in panel one is central, on the wall above long rectangular windows which look out on a dark, grey morning. Rain pelts the glass, we can't see anything beyond. The clock reads just after 9.

The office workers are taking off their wet coats, shuffling to their desks. In the foreground is our narrator, Phil (new character – 30s, dishevelled, a worn-down office drone like the rest of them). He watches his colleagues arrive for another day at the treadmill.

CAP (Phil): This friend of mine, Barney, he quit this place and tried to get out of town. Said he wanted to go somewhere you can tell the difference between day and night, the job and your life.

CAP (Phil): He didn’t know no better.

Panel Three.

The edge of town. Dark and gloomy. A weary figure staggers down a road towards old burnt-out farm buildings.

CAP (Phil): Most people here, we learnt a long time ago – the road out just leads straight back in.

Panel Four.

Back in the office. The clock on the wall read 12-30. Everybody is working, head down, halfway through another dreary day. It’s no lighter outside, the rain is still pelting the windows. In the foreground, Phil glances across at the clock.

CAP (Phil): You accept that and you get on with it.

CAP (Phil): Get up, go to work, do the 9 to 5, go home and drink yourself to sleep.

Panel Five.

The edge of town. The weary figure stumbles to his knees.

CAP (Phil): Barney kept walking till his feet were hamburger.

CAP (Phil): Eventually he just lay down in the road...

CAP (Phil): He was no further away than when he started out.

Panel Six.

Back in the office. Not as wide a panel as the others, all we really need to see is Phil in the foreground, a couple of heads working at desks beyond him, and the clock on the wall in the background. Phil stands, putting on his coat, preparing to leave. The clock on the wall reads 4-59 and the second hand is ticking up to five. Nobody else moves from their desk.

CAP (Phil): I thought what happened to Barney was the worst Green Wake had to offer…

Panel Seven.

Small panel. Close on the clock, the second hand is one second away from five o’clock.

Panel Eight.

Small panel. Close on the clock. But now it reads reads 9-00 and the second hand is just ticking past the twelve.

Panel Nine.

Same as panel 6 except the clock reads just after 9, as in the previous small panel. Resigned to his fate, Phil takes off his coat.

CAP (Phil): Then one day, we didn’t even get to go home anymore…

Green Wake - Out - Ben Rosenthal

Although I do like to give the artist freedom with my scripts, I am going to have to specify a layout for this one. The panels are grouped in pairs of two, so that 1 and 2 appear next to each other, as do 3 and 4, and so on. Panel 7 spans the width of the page, so it looks as if the panels are merging.

Colours are important here. May I suggest using yellows for Carl’s panels, and purple/black for Ariels. Similar colours can be used for the caption boxes, however Carl’s must be a different colour to that of Ariels.


1. A panel showing Carl’s head, looking down at something. There is kindness in his eyes.

CAPTION (CARL)
I’ve lost count of how long I’ve been here, but I think I’ve finally figured it out.

2. This panel is framed the same as Panel 1, but with Ariel’s head in the place of Carl’s. She is also looking down, however her eyes are emotionless. Blood covers her mouth and chin.

CAPTION (ARIEL)
I know a secret.

3. A man is lying in his bed. Carl is out of panel, however we can see his hand holding the man’s. The man in the bed is taking in his last breaths. His eyes are full of fear.

CAPTION (CARL)
I can’t stop you from going, but I make getting there easier.

4. Again, the panel mimics the previous. A woman is lying on her back in the street. She is covered with blood, with stab wounds visible on her abdomen. Ariel’s bloody hands can be seen in panel.

CAPTION (ARIEL)
I’m helping you. Setting you free. You would thank me.

5. Carl’s hand is shutting the eyelids of the elderly man.

CAPTION (CARL)
This isn’t Heaven. It isn’t Hell.

6. Ariel’s spidery fingers are close to the dead woman’s open eyes. It looks as if she is going to gouge them out with her bloody fingers.

CAPTION (ARIEL)
This is the place in between. I don’t like it.

7. This panel spans the width of the page, with Carl’s head on the left of the panel. His eyes are bright. On the right hand side is Ariel’s head, her eyes dark, almost lifeless. In between the two is a meshing of the different coloured backgrounds, showing that although they are in the same panel, they are in different places.

CAPTION (Both CARL and ARIEL. Perhaps have the caption box look similar to the warping background)
And I know how to get out.

Green Wake – The First – Ryan K Lindsay

  

1. A boat floats towards the shore of Green Wake. A woman’s feet are visible protruding into the bleak sky up one end. We cannot see her head.

Caption: I’ll never see him again.

2. We see the woman walking up over rocks from the shoreline. She has a green glass bottle in her hands. The wind blows strong around her.

Caption: I want to think it’s for the best but anyone honest with themselves cannot be that selfless.

3. The woman stands in the middle of one of the streets of Green Wake. She is all alone, her hair is now flat against her head and shoulders.

Caption: This situation, this place, might mean everything to me but it’s nothing to everyone else.
Caption: So am I important anymore?

4. The woman sits on some steps, bottle standing at her feet, her head down.

Caption: It’s hard to feel when you know the world moves on without you.

5.1 – 5.6. These six panels are all small and tile across between panels 3-4 and the final panel 6. The six words of the caption line tile across, one word per panel. In the six panels tiling we see;
the girl’s eye and ear,
a foot on a cracked brick piece of pavement,
a lone tree on a hill,
the girl’s hand on the bottle,
smoke leaving a chimney,
and a sliver of moon in the daytime sky.

Caption: The abyss swirls within and without.

6. The woman is in the same position as panel 4 but we have changed view. We look straight at her with the building behind her. The building is leering down at her, windows for eyes, dual chimneys on the roof like horns slowly pluming smoke, and the door has a large green X painted around it, but not actually on the door.

Caption: Life goes on…and so does death.

Why Green Wake?

Sometimes you just have to lift your game. I find I write my best articles about the best comics. I play my best sport against the stronger opponents. And I write my best scripts about the best content. You rise to the challenge, that’s how you get better at the game of life. That’s why I chose what I deem the best new comic of 2011, Green Wake.

Green Wake is a new comic from Image written by Kurtis Wiebe and illustrated by Riley Rossmo. It’s a five star comic all about love, loss, and regret sieved through a Cronenberg filter and touched up with some Jeunet/Templesmith paint. It’s gorgeous but most importantly the words are haunting. This book is smart. It’s brilliant. It’s more than you can want or expect. This comic is all about soul.

It’s also about a town, Green Wake, where the inhabitants have no idea how they got there and they cannot leave. They generally keep to themselves and not much ever happens. Until a string of grisly murders brings an element of noir into this horrific landscape.

I chose Green Wake because I truly wanted the opportunity to write in this world. I wanted to see if I could lift my game up to this level. I also chose Green Wake because I wanted to expose as many people as possible to this comic. It is genius and more people need to be reading it. If you have to pick up a copy in order to write your script, or truly appreciate ours, then so be it. I can handle that, I hope you can. And the first issue has sold out, so at the start of May you'll have an opportunity to buy the reprint. You should do that.

This book looks amazing, just gaze over those covers above and below. Rossmo knows how to make art catch your eye, especially in such a truly horrific way. But it's the words in the comic. Man, the words. Wiebe brings emotion and thunder through the captions in a way I haven't seen in a while. This comic resonates. It's all about the worst within us. Not the worst of us, but the worst IN us, the worst we carry around.

This town has many possibilities, and a multitude of characters, and the only constant is the emotion present; pure and unadultered fate.

If you want more information on the title go to the following links:

Green Wake site

Green Wake blog

And then get your best horror-noir hat on and swirl down the hole of frogs with me. All the way to the bottom.