The Orient Express - The Finer Things - Perry Kent

Panel One:
Europe, 1930s. Jacques carries the bags of some well-dressed older patrons onto a stately and high class train car. The train station around them is large and there are a few well-dress patrons milling around. Jacques is outfitted in a uniform.

Jacques (caption): I knew working on the Orient Express would be glamorous.

Old man: Scuff that luggage and I'll have your job.

Panel Two:
Jacques holding a small tray with a placid look on his face as a young well-dressed woman holding a martini glass berates him.

Jacques (caption): I got to rub elbows with the moneyed elite.

Well-dress woman: This tastes of swill. Make a better one!

Panel Three:Jacques holding a small bag for a well-dressed young man as the young man vomits violently into the bag.

Jacques (caption): But I was never made to feel lesser than them.

Vomiting man: Huuuuuurrrrph!

Panel Four:
Jacques staring into a bathroom/water closet. He has rags and a bucket in his hands and look of incredulous disgust.

Jacques (caption): And, yes, the job had its downsides.

Panel Five:
Jacques standing on the outside back railing of the last car of train, a cigarette in hand/mouth, looking out and admiring something unseen with a wide smile of contentment.

Jacques (caption): But I got to experience the most wonderful luxuries.

Panel Six:
Reveal the stunning beauty of the European countryside which is what Jacques was admiring in the previous panel.

Jacques (caption): Some that even the guests could not enjoy.

The Orient Express – FORMAL WEAR – Derek Adnams

Page 1 – (6 Panels)

1.1:  Interior, day, the opulent dining car of the Orient Express.  Two young male Backpackers, early 20’s, sit facing each other, about to clink tea cups.  They are dirty, weather beaten, their hair tangled and their clothes grimy and dusty.  Both have large beards and sun burned faces.  They have been on the road for quite some time, backpacking through Europe, and are now enjoying this respite.

Backpacker 1:  I can’t believe we’re actually on the Orient Express!

Backpacker 2:  Yeah.  We may have spent half our backpacking money on the tickets, but it’s so worth it.

1.2:  The entire dining car, all chandeliers and linen tablecloths.  It is full of passengers in 1890’s finery, having stepped out of pictures of the past back onto the same train car they travelled in 125 years ago.  The Backpackers are clearly out of place, and are looking around, tea cups still raised, not a sip taken.  Approaching down the center aisle is the Tuxedo Man in black coat and tails, white gloved and immaculate.

Backpacker 2:  Did it say anything about this being a “costume trip” of something?

Backpacker 1:  No.  I guess most people just get really into the vibe.

Backpacker 2:  I feel a little out of place.

1.3:  Exterior, the rushing Orient Express approaching a tunnel carved through a European mountain range, steam billowing from the smokestack that caps the engine.

Backpacker 1 (from inside the dining car):  Who cares!  Let’s just enjoy the experience.

1.4:  The Tuxedo Man from Panel 1.2 standing before the Backpackers, who are staring at him in stunned silence.  Backpacker 1’s jaw is dropping while Backpacker 2 looks incredulous.

Tuxedo Man:  You don’t belong here.

1.5:  All black panel representing the Orient Express going through the tunnel from Panel 1.3.

Silent Panel

1.6:  Interior of the train, the Tuxedo Man standing before the now vacated seats where the Backpackers had been sitting.  The tea cups are suspended in mid-air, gravity not yet taking them from the spot the now vanished hands of the Backpackers had been holding them.

Silent Panel

 

 

The Orient Express - featuring Dan Hill's Unknown Soldier - by Ray Wonsowski

I still maintain, one of the greatest characters created on this website, was Dan Hill's take on the Unknown Soldier. See here, here, and here...

Layout:
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Panel 1- wide shot, a luxury private car of the Orient Express barrelling through a meadowed valley, surrounded by a backdrop of snow-capped mountains amidst a blue sky. Above a window, a small female figure, all white except for her long black hair, crouches on the roof, clutching the side of the car by the ornate trim. Her hair and loose white pants and blouse are being blown to the side, whipped by the wind.

CAPTION: One of the minor princelings in the House of Saud has been financing jihadi terror cells through child trafficking money laundered through his bank.

Panel 2- Interior of the luxury car. Foreground, the woman, the UNKNOWN SOLDIER, crashes in through the window. Background, a SAUDI BANKER (headdress still on, but half undressed) and a caucasian WOMAN (early 20's, swimsuit model's build, curly brown shoulder length hair, freckled skin, dressed only in her underwear), both on an enormous pile of tasseled cushions and pillows, are taken completely by surprise by the SOLDIER'S entrance. An ornamented scimitar hangs on the wall behind them.

CAPTION: Hate the sinning infidel, but love the sin.

BANKER: AAH!

Panel 3- close-up, the face of the BANKER, smiling as if sure that he has the upper hand here. Behind him, the WOMAN, still only in her underwear, pulls the scimitar from the wall in a fighting stance.

BANKER: You whore! Do you know who I am?!?

Panel 4- same POV as Panel 3, except the WOMAN has run the BANKER through with the sword from behind, only the bloody tip of the scimitar is visible in the panel. The BANKER looks at the tip in shock.

BANKER: *t*

WOMAN: Yes. But do we care?

Panel 5- zoom out, the WOMAN lops the BANKER's head in a baseball bat-like swing of the scimitar. Foreground, the white linen pant leg of the SOLDIER.

WOMAN: Well, this won't end well. Carlyle'll have a fit...

Panel 6- zoom out, the WOMAN, background, tosses the sword aside and steps off the cushion pile. Foreground, the SOLDIER soccer kicks the BANKER's head out the broken window.

WOMAN: Seen you on the interwebs. Nice to meet you in person...

Panel 7- long wide shot, the Orient Express still barrelling through the countryside...

CAPTION (WOMAN): Military deep cover agent. Sergeant Francine Rock.

CAPTION (WOMAN): Friends call me Frankie.

The Orient Express – When the Trains Run on Time – MK Stangeland Jr.

(4 Panels)

Panel 1: A Private Investigator – DETECTIVE DANIELS – is standing in a busy train station.

TEXT BOX (1): Detective Daniels has a riddle to solve.

TEXT BOX (2): His gut tells him that there is a connection between a new train system and a mysterious increase in deaths among the elderly.

TEXT BOX (3): Deaths that are officially recorded as being of natural causes.

Panel 2: A TRAIN CONDUCTOR beside the train – he looks to be mostly minding his own business but is glancing over his shoulder for just that moment. He should have a minor hint of an aura of death about him, shown in such a way as to make it unclear if it’s actually there or if DANIELS is just imagining it.

TEXT BOX (1): Detective Daniels believes the new conductors are somehow connected.

TEXT BOX (2): Conductors who are touted as having an uncanny ability to ‘make the trains run on time’.

Panel 3: DETECTIVE DANIELS is in his office. He is hard at work examining a stereotypical-style clue wall full of pictures and written clues about the mystery he’s investigating.

TEXT BOX (1): His greatest deductive reasoning failed to piece together any possible explanation.

TEXT BOX (2): Until he began to consider the supernatural.

Panel 4: DETECTIVE DANIELS looks towards a clock that’s posted up on the wall.

TEXT BOX: And realized that perhaps the trains really do run…on time.

(END PAGE)

The Orient Express - Somewhere New - Grant McLaughlin

1 – A big ol' train station, with a big ol' train not unlike the one in P.A.'s Why post taking up a good portion of our panel space. The main difference is that we're focused on the platform, where a line of people are boarding. Our protagonist, Penelope, stands out, a young woman dressed in darker colours than the rest of the travelers. If we can see it, she holds a ticket and a sad expression.

CAPTION (PENELOPE) (1): My mother said the city would change me.

CAPTION (PENELOPE) (2): I laughed at the idea.

2 – Penelope walks down the aisle, looking for her seat.

CAPTION (PENELOPE) (1): She was right, of course.

CAPTION (PENELOPE) (2): We're always changing.

COACHMAN (off-panel): Tickets! Tickets!

3 – Penelope hands her ticket to the coachman and sits down.

CAPTION (PENELOPE) (1): But sometimes a place will change you into something you don't expect.

CAPTION (PENELOPE) (2): Something you don't want to be.

COACHMAN: Any baggage, ma'am?

4 – Penelope looks away towards the window, her sad expression softening.

CAPTION (PENELOPE): Fortunately.

PENELOPE (1): ...

PENELOPE (2): No.

5 – Outside of the train as it pulls out of the station, looking at Penelope looking out the window. She wears a small smile.

CAPTION (PENELOPE): There's always somewhere new.

PENELOPE: Not anymore.

The Orient Express - Gang Aft Agley - P. A. Nolte

1/ An outdoor cafe in a well-populated European city.  The streets are idly busy with mid-afternoon pedestrians and traffic.  A slender man man with spectacles sits alone, drinking coffee and reading the newspaper.

2/ Having picked up and shuffled the paper to the desired page, the man is about to take a sip from his cup when a voice draws his attention.  He glances up with nary a hint of interest.

Pike (OP): I see that you have received my telegram.

3/ Taking a seat across from him is another man, slightly more rotund than his companion and brandishing a prominent mustache.

Pike: I must admit, I was wary of the endeavor at first, but it seems to have all worked out in the end, eh?  Little Jacques fulfilled his end of the bargain.  Now all that I ask is that you fulfill yours.

4/ Far overhead, a large train passes by on a suspended bridge.  From our view on the surface of the water below, we can just make out a glinting bag falling in a graceful arc.  Someone has just thrown a bag out the window of the train.

Victim (OP): STOP!  THIEF!

5/ The bespectacled man finally gets a sip of his coffee.

Geoffries: Very well.

6/ Beneath the water, maybe even a continued shot of the scene set in 4/, a third man with indiscernible features is clutching a bag with at least one strand of pearls about to fall from it.  He is wearing rudimentary scuba diving equipment.  What we would now definitively identify as antique.

Geoffries: For conspiracy, extortion, and attempted murder--

7/ Pike.  A look of abject terror on his face.  Behind him stand two appropriately-uniformed officers.

Geoffries (OP): Llewellyn Pike, you are under arrest.

Why The Orient Express?

Care of P.A., who is having some computer difficulties at the moment.

About 130 years ago, this little train company started up. You might have heard of it. Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits? ... Okay, maybe not. But I'll bet you've heard about their little train(s) that could: The Orient Express.

Yeah. Thought so.

Setting off for Giurgiu, Romania, le Express d'Orient left Paris on October 4, 1883, and even though the first train didn't exactly provide the most luxurious travel, that is exactly what The Orient Express and CIWL have become synonymous with.

The train itself features prominently in Bram Stoker's Dracula, Ian Fleming's From Russia, with Love, and, well, Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express. But, if literature isn't your thing, you still might have heard about it from Doctor Who, Chuck, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or every piece of fiction with a train in it produced after October 4, 1883. Roughly.

Having said all of that, know that our theme for this week does not need to be taken entirely literally. If you don't want to write about a historic train, don't. Put it in space, or underwater, or through the center of the earth. Snowpierce it up. Just make it fancy!

And, as always, if you're one of those people still standing on the platform, gazing longingly down the track, it's time to get that ticket punched.