Post by shaxper on Sept 12, 2015 23:15:04 GMT -5
By far my favorite thing I've ever written, I'm sure I could have gotten this published if I'd actually had the discipline to get it done. Set in my Thought Universe, this story idea came about when I was attending a lecture on the Japanese Internment a decade back and was informed by experts in the room that the Bush Administration had already contracted the construction of new internment camp sites to be used in the event of another 9/11. There were plans in place to round up all the Muslims in NY.
Appalled, I decided that someone needed to tell a story from a Muslim point of view -- capture what an average, everyday American Muslim is like, and also show that our own overreactions to terrorism can be the greatest trigger for radicalization of otherwise normal people. Both since this is set in another universe and because I didn't want to push the boundaries TOO far, I never refer to Islam, Muslims, or Mohammed. This is a different religion, worshipping a different god, that just happens to bear an uncanny resemblance to something in our own world.
As a teacher, I also wanted to tell the story of an average teenage girl, as I felt that had never been done in comics.
Looking back now, Kamala Khan has gone on to do roughly two thirds of what I was trying to accomplish here, but her story is generally light and inoffensive. This one was intended to shock and stir the pot.
As with a lot of my stuff, there's only about a fourth of an actual finished script here, followed by my notes on where the story would have gone:
______________________________________________________________________________________
PAGE ONE: Three small panels running across the top row, in front of panel 4. The entire page (behind) is panel 4.
Panel 1
Camouflaged arms of a soldier climbing/crawling up a steep hill of rock and sand
Panel 2
Camouflaged legs finding their balance as the arms begin to lift up into walking position and the soldier nears the summit of the hill
Panel 3
Balanced legs at a standstill at top of hill. We cannot see what the soldier has stopped to look at beyond the hill.
Soldier (off panel): What the…?
Panel 4
What the soldier has discovered. Female figure shrouded in plain white jilbab and hijab. Face is largely eclipsed by Hijab and shadow, but an unmistakably young, yet feminine mouth is visible. The figure is sitting on a rock, looking still and unalarmed by her discovery.
Soldier (off panel): What are you doing here?
Peli: Waiting for you.
Can I tell you about my boyfriend?
Q’NAL
The Avenging Prophet
“About My Boyfriend”
PAGE TWO: Panels 1-3 run across the top. Panel 4 runs the entire middle row. Panels 5 and 6 share the bottom row.
Panel 1
Peli up close. Head and mouth are quite animated across panels, but the rest of the face is never visible.
Peli: Sorry. That was kinda’ abrupt of me.
Panel 2
More Peli up close
Peli: I get anxious around soldiers.
But really, this is important.
Panel 3
More Peli up close
Peli: About my boyfriend, I mean.
Panel 4
Peli in flashback. In the halls of a school, walking/talking with friends. Still wearing the same kind of attire, but her face is fully visible and vibrant. No one else is dressed like her.
Peli (off panel): You see, not too long ago, I was a pretty normal twelve year old girl.
And like any pretty normal twelve year old, I didn’t like my life all that much.
Panel 5
Same image, but a zoom in on Peli’s face. She’s smiling, but it’s a tad forced.
Peli (off panel): Some days I could just scream, and I didn’t really know why.
Panel 6
Closer, tighter zoom. Focus on the eyes behind the smile.
Peli (off panel): I guess I hated my family, my friends, and almost definitely myself.
PAGE 3: Panel 1-3 are all widescreen and span entire rows.
Panel 1: Far Zoom out of same shot. Flashback continues. Bird’s eye view of Peli and friends in a hallway amidst a sea of empty life.
Peli (off panel): More than that, though, I hated the empty feeling that followed me everywhere.
Panel 2: Back to Peli, still sitting. Soldier is still suspiciously off-panel.
Peli: My life was missing something – something big.
A boyfriend.
Panel 3: Peli from profile. Still talking.
Peli: Not just some cute boy, but a soul mate.
Someone to love and accept me fully.
To give my life purpose.
To lend meaning to every waking moment of my everyday.
Page 4: Again, three widescreen panels taking up their entire rows.
Panel 1: Flashback. Peli in Mosque. Ceremony centered in far background. Peli, sitting in pew and looking away, off to right in foreground. Possibly looking at her phone/texting?
Preacher: Praise to Aedea, planter of the seed, sower of life.
Peli (off panel): There were other things that should have mattered to me.
Panel 2: Flashback. Peli walking past graffiti on wall – “Go home, turbanheads!” She is unaware/unconcerned.
Peli (off panel): Things that really should have mattered to me.
But they didn’t.
Panel 3: Flashback. Peli and friends to far right in background; Peli is watching silhouetted couple holding hands in foreground.
Peli (off panel): I had my phone and my friends.
All that was missing was a boy.
Page 5: First two panels are most of top row. Panel 3 is small. Panels 4 and 5 are widescreen, taking up full rows.
Panels 1 and 2: Split widescreen image. Peli entering apartment on left, father sitting reading paper, watching skeptically toward center/right. Peli’s world and father’s world are divided into separate panels.
Peli (off panel): Not that my father would ever understand.
He knew my obsession with boys, and I knew his obsession
with a god that didn’t like girls obsessing over boys.
Panel 2: Small panel tight close-up of Peli’s face as she walks past her father, uncomfortable.
Peli (off panel): Our battles were fought silently and with sideways glances.
Panel 3: Widescreen. The lower third of a woman in a purple jilbab walking down a street, an army truck coming up on her left from the distant background.
Peli (off panel): Things had been tenser than usual since my mother had vanished.
A few weeks earlier, she went out for groceries and never returned.
It was happening a lot with us Aedeans lately.
Panel 4: Closeup of the army truck from the previous panel. A somewhat nondescript soldier is sitting shotgun, readying a rifle and about to step out.
Peli (off panel): I imagined she’d just gotten sick of my father’s rules and ran off to
Vegas with a sultry white lover.
Page 6: Panels 1 and 2 are widescreen. Panels 3 and 4 share the bottom row.
Panel 1: Black. Just the words “Boom, Boom”
Panel 2: Peli and father, washed over in grays, huddled in the dark, absolute terror on their faces.
Soldier (off panel): Open up.
Peli (off panel): Of course, we tabled all the hostility when the soldiers came.
Panel 3: Two hands holding one another in near darkness.
Peli (off panel): We held hands on the truck
Panel 4: Rear of the same kind of truck on the previous page as it drives off into the empty distance
Peli (off panel): All the way to the processing camp.
Page 7: Panel 1 takes up two thirds of row. Panel two fills remainder. Panel 3 is widescreen, taking up entire row. Panels 4 and 5 share third row.
Panel 1: Interior of truck from above. Many figures sit, some cowering, most tired and defeated, in near darkness.
Father: Peolin…
Panel 2: Peli from below, hunched, listening, but too defeated to move her head in father’s direction. Obviously, she still holds his hand.
Peli: Yeah, dad.
Panel 3: The two sitting together
Father: Promise me, Peolin, if something should happen to me…
…you will keep the word of Aedea in your heart.
You will fulfill his commandments.
Panel 4: Peli again.
Peli: Are you kidding me?
Panel 5: Peli, but she has turned her head and looks far more alive. A spark has been lit.
Peli: It’s your stupid god’s fault that this is happening to us in the first place!
Page 8: Panel 1 takes up the entire top row. Panels 2, 3, and 4 are row 2. Panels 5, 6, and 7 are row 3.
Panel 1: Widescreen. Interior of truck from above again. Everyone is now looking directly at Peli, and her figure is surprised by this.
Panel 2: Close up of Peli again. This time, she looks ashamed.
Father (off panel): It is times like this when we need our faith the most.
Panel 3: Same shot, but zoomed in tighter on Peli’s face.
Father (off panel): It brings light to the darkness.
Meaning to the emptiness.
Panel 4: Father’s face, looking away in the distance, as if glimpsing the face of Aedea, himself.
Father: When the world kicks and hates, Aedea is always there to love you.
He never forsakes your heart, even when others seek to destroy it.
Panel 5: Father’s face, this time turned to Peli
Father: He is not my god.
He is our god; our meaning and purpose.
Panel 6: Peli again, looking at the ground, thoughtful.
Father (off panel): And he will be your destiny.
Panel 7: Distant shot of truck still driving into the distance. It is later in the evening.
Page 9: Panels are all widescreen, filling entire rows.
Panel 1: Soldiers with vague features oversee Aedeans being processed as they enter the internment camp.
Peli (narrating again): I guess I understood what was happening at the time, but I didn’t really get it.
Soldier (standing, showing no physical indication of compassion): It’s just until the terrorist attacks stop.
Panel 2: Assortment of lined up Aedeans, some confused, others defeated, a few weeping, one seething with quiet anger.
Peli (narrating): We were in a camp because they were afraid we were terrorists.
It kinda’ almost made sense.
Panel 3: The processing line with the soldier again. He is speaking to a different group of new detainees.
Peli (narrating): But the hatred that was barely hidden in their faces and voices.
Soldier: It’s only until the terrorists give up.
Peli (narrating): I couldn’t understand that.
(script ends here)
Appalled, I decided that someone needed to tell a story from a Muslim point of view -- capture what an average, everyday American Muslim is like, and also show that our own overreactions to terrorism can be the greatest trigger for radicalization of otherwise normal people. Both since this is set in another universe and because I didn't want to push the boundaries TOO far, I never refer to Islam, Muslims, or Mohammed. This is a different religion, worshipping a different god, that just happens to bear an uncanny resemblance to something in our own world.
As a teacher, I also wanted to tell the story of an average teenage girl, as I felt that had never been done in comics.
Looking back now, Kamala Khan has gone on to do roughly two thirds of what I was trying to accomplish here, but her story is generally light and inoffensive. This one was intended to shock and stir the pot.
As with a lot of my stuff, there's only about a fourth of an actual finished script here, followed by my notes on where the story would have gone:
______________________________________________________________________________________
PAGE ONE: Three small panels running across the top row, in front of panel 4. The entire page (behind) is panel 4.
Panel 1
Camouflaged arms of a soldier climbing/crawling up a steep hill of rock and sand
Panel 2
Camouflaged legs finding their balance as the arms begin to lift up into walking position and the soldier nears the summit of the hill
Panel 3
Balanced legs at a standstill at top of hill. We cannot see what the soldier has stopped to look at beyond the hill.
Soldier (off panel): What the…?
Panel 4
What the soldier has discovered. Female figure shrouded in plain white jilbab and hijab. Face is largely eclipsed by Hijab and shadow, but an unmistakably young, yet feminine mouth is visible. The figure is sitting on a rock, looking still and unalarmed by her discovery.
Soldier (off panel): What are you doing here?
Peli: Waiting for you.
Can I tell you about my boyfriend?
Q’NAL
The Avenging Prophet
“About My Boyfriend”
PAGE TWO: Panels 1-3 run across the top. Panel 4 runs the entire middle row. Panels 5 and 6 share the bottom row.
Panel 1
Peli up close. Head and mouth are quite animated across panels, but the rest of the face is never visible.
Peli: Sorry. That was kinda’ abrupt of me.
Panel 2
More Peli up close
Peli: I get anxious around soldiers.
But really, this is important.
Panel 3
More Peli up close
Peli: About my boyfriend, I mean.
Panel 4
Peli in flashback. In the halls of a school, walking/talking with friends. Still wearing the same kind of attire, but her face is fully visible and vibrant. No one else is dressed like her.
Peli (off panel): You see, not too long ago, I was a pretty normal twelve year old girl.
And like any pretty normal twelve year old, I didn’t like my life all that much.
Panel 5
Same image, but a zoom in on Peli’s face. She’s smiling, but it’s a tad forced.
Peli (off panel): Some days I could just scream, and I didn’t really know why.
Panel 6
Closer, tighter zoom. Focus on the eyes behind the smile.
Peli (off panel): I guess I hated my family, my friends, and almost definitely myself.
PAGE 3: Panel 1-3 are all widescreen and span entire rows.
Panel 1: Far Zoom out of same shot. Flashback continues. Bird’s eye view of Peli and friends in a hallway amidst a sea of empty life.
Peli (off panel): More than that, though, I hated the empty feeling that followed me everywhere.
Panel 2: Back to Peli, still sitting. Soldier is still suspiciously off-panel.
Peli: My life was missing something – something big.
A boyfriend.
Panel 3: Peli from profile. Still talking.
Peli: Not just some cute boy, but a soul mate.
Someone to love and accept me fully.
To give my life purpose.
To lend meaning to every waking moment of my everyday.
Page 4: Again, three widescreen panels taking up their entire rows.
Panel 1: Flashback. Peli in Mosque. Ceremony centered in far background. Peli, sitting in pew and looking away, off to right in foreground. Possibly looking at her phone/texting?
Preacher: Praise to Aedea, planter of the seed, sower of life.
Peli (off panel): There were other things that should have mattered to me.
Panel 2: Flashback. Peli walking past graffiti on wall – “Go home, turbanheads!” She is unaware/unconcerned.
Peli (off panel): Things that really should have mattered to me.
But they didn’t.
Panel 3: Flashback. Peli and friends to far right in background; Peli is watching silhouetted couple holding hands in foreground.
Peli (off panel): I had my phone and my friends.
All that was missing was a boy.
Page 5: First two panels are most of top row. Panel 3 is small. Panels 4 and 5 are widescreen, taking up full rows.
Panels 1 and 2: Split widescreen image. Peli entering apartment on left, father sitting reading paper, watching skeptically toward center/right. Peli’s world and father’s world are divided into separate panels.
Peli (off panel): Not that my father would ever understand.
He knew my obsession with boys, and I knew his obsession
with a god that didn’t like girls obsessing over boys.
Panel 2: Small panel tight close-up of Peli’s face as she walks past her father, uncomfortable.
Peli (off panel): Our battles were fought silently and with sideways glances.
Panel 3: Widescreen. The lower third of a woman in a purple jilbab walking down a street, an army truck coming up on her left from the distant background.
Peli (off panel): Things had been tenser than usual since my mother had vanished.
A few weeks earlier, she went out for groceries and never returned.
It was happening a lot with us Aedeans lately.
Panel 4: Closeup of the army truck from the previous panel. A somewhat nondescript soldier is sitting shotgun, readying a rifle and about to step out.
Peli (off panel): I imagined she’d just gotten sick of my father’s rules and ran off to
Vegas with a sultry white lover.
Page 6: Panels 1 and 2 are widescreen. Panels 3 and 4 share the bottom row.
Panel 1: Black. Just the words “Boom, Boom”
Panel 2: Peli and father, washed over in grays, huddled in the dark, absolute terror on their faces.
Soldier (off panel): Open up.
Peli (off panel): Of course, we tabled all the hostility when the soldiers came.
Panel 3: Two hands holding one another in near darkness.
Peli (off panel): We held hands on the truck
Panel 4: Rear of the same kind of truck on the previous page as it drives off into the empty distance
Peli (off panel): All the way to the processing camp.
Page 7: Panel 1 takes up two thirds of row. Panel two fills remainder. Panel 3 is widescreen, taking up entire row. Panels 4 and 5 share third row.
Panel 1: Interior of truck from above. Many figures sit, some cowering, most tired and defeated, in near darkness.
Father: Peolin…
Panel 2: Peli from below, hunched, listening, but too defeated to move her head in father’s direction. Obviously, she still holds his hand.
Peli: Yeah, dad.
Panel 3: The two sitting together
Father: Promise me, Peolin, if something should happen to me…
…you will keep the word of Aedea in your heart.
You will fulfill his commandments.
Panel 4: Peli again.
Peli: Are you kidding me?
Panel 5: Peli, but she has turned her head and looks far more alive. A spark has been lit.
Peli: It’s your stupid god’s fault that this is happening to us in the first place!
Page 8: Panel 1 takes up the entire top row. Panels 2, 3, and 4 are row 2. Panels 5, 6, and 7 are row 3.
Panel 1: Widescreen. Interior of truck from above again. Everyone is now looking directly at Peli, and her figure is surprised by this.
Panel 2: Close up of Peli again. This time, she looks ashamed.
Father (off panel): It is times like this when we need our faith the most.
Panel 3: Same shot, but zoomed in tighter on Peli’s face.
Father (off panel): It brings light to the darkness.
Meaning to the emptiness.
Panel 4: Father’s face, looking away in the distance, as if glimpsing the face of Aedea, himself.
Father: When the world kicks and hates, Aedea is always there to love you.
He never forsakes your heart, even when others seek to destroy it.
Panel 5: Father’s face, this time turned to Peli
Father: He is not my god.
He is our god; our meaning and purpose.
Panel 6: Peli again, looking at the ground, thoughtful.
Father (off panel): And he will be your destiny.
Panel 7: Distant shot of truck still driving into the distance. It is later in the evening.
Page 9: Panels are all widescreen, filling entire rows.
Panel 1: Soldiers with vague features oversee Aedeans being processed as they enter the internment camp.
Peli (narrating again): I guess I understood what was happening at the time, but I didn’t really get it.
Soldier (standing, showing no physical indication of compassion): It’s just until the terrorist attacks stop.
Panel 2: Assortment of lined up Aedeans, some confused, others defeated, a few weeping, one seething with quiet anger.
Peli (narrating): We were in a camp because they were afraid we were terrorists.
It kinda’ almost made sense.
Panel 3: The processing line with the soldier again. He is speaking to a different group of new detainees.
Peli (narrating): But the hatred that was barely hidden in their faces and voices.
Soldier: It’s only until the terrorists give up.
Peli (narrating): I couldn’t understand that.
(script ends here)
