Something to Say.

I'm quite serious about the idea of rules. They have their uses. Here's one: never jump out of a plane without a parachute. The thing about rules is that they can become shortcuts to getting things done efficiently. If the parachute was invented once, we can use it over and over until we think of a better idea, like when we invent anti-gravity powders. I always liked to invent rules. Even at the beginning, because there's nobody likes teaching other people more than those who have just learned themselves. So I was something of a sloganeer right at the start. In June '83 in one of my multifarious hand lettered essays that appeared in various small press newsletters (blogging hadn't been thought of yet) I declared that 'It's not enough to just want to draw comics, you must have something to say'. the following month the Man at the Crossroads wrote in an Escape editorial, 'Cartoonists don't start by being able to draw, they start by having something to say.' Rephrased like that it suited Paul's post-punk philosophy of putting the art in the hands of the energetic novice. A month later again, the phrase turned up in a cartoon Hunt Emerson drew for the Radio Times (the BBC's official 'what's on' guide and one of the country's top selling weeklies. Well it was back then; I considered it high irony that the best selling magazines in Britain were the two television guides). Called upon to draw a cartoon announcing the show That's Life which this week boasted a talking dog among its assorted novelties, Hunt had a poodle being interviewed and saying: 'Most of us can talk, we just don't have anything to say.' (Scanned and shown above right, copyright Hunt Emerson) Hunt said he never read my piece or took much notice of Paul's either, so it's just a coincidence. But I've never been one to let the facts spoil an anecdote.

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Here we go again: Dirk at Journalista wrote: "Your lazy funnybook plagiarist for the week: Mike Choi, the artist behind this Witchblade: First Born cover, who shamelessly ripped off Annie Leibovitz’ cover to the August, 1991 issue of Vanity Fair magazine." I beg to differ. That's a good piece. If your purpose is to quote a the original but introduce an adjustment (like the assorted variations on American Gothic)), then you should quote it exactly, and this original was famous enough that it "spawned parodies and imitators.". Choi's quotation gets the Campbell thumbs up, and I refer Dirk to my own long quotation from RG Collingwood.

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We should all be following the Gordon Lee case. (via Neil Gaiman). Of tangential interest is another piece by the artist Nick Bertozzi, the extract from whose upcoming book The Salon started the row. he mentions it briefly in this interview, but not by name: "James Sturm and I were working on a proposal for a Hollywood producer; we did a 10-pager together, and it just wasn't going to work out schedule-wise for us to do the book, but we really had a good time working together..." He is in fact referring to an early attempt at making a graphic novel of the Black Diamond Detective Agency for 'Hollywood producer' Bill Horberg. Sturm and Bertozzi took an entirely different approach from the one I went with. I guess they produced the ten pages as a sample to use to sell he project with the intention of finishing it when a deal was made. By that time both had taken on other obligations, Sturm with his newly set up Center for Cartoon Studies, and Bertozzi with The Salon. It would interesting to talk to them about their version of Diamond and show a panel or two (since I guess it will only be seen in the context of interviews and such, as one of the interesting unfinished projects of our times). But I'm saving that for later after the book has found its place in the world and we have time for alternate world contemplations.

Oh no!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wee Cal is watching the recent special features DVD that comes with the first Batman movie out of the box set. It's got all these DC people and other experts taking comic books very seriously... there's big smug Harlan Ellison... I suddenly feel a nausea creeping over me at the thought that I have become one of these people. Quick! Change the subject! There's a gecko running across my window!

BIG HANDS & little geezers (rule #2)

When I handed out my 'rule #1' yesterday I heard a murmur of discontent go around. Hey, it was my gift to you. If you have no use for it, put it at the back of the cupboard. Just remember to serve the drinks out of it whenever I'm visiting.

The matter was briefly mentioned on the Comics Journal forum where one Ben Towie noted that all I meant was that your choices should not be arbitrary. The next guy felt that much was to be lost by making the reader an observer rather than a participant. Well, if you want your reader to identify with either a woman who is about to be murdered, or her murderer, then obviously you need to stick with the 'pictorial language of melodrama' and have nothing to do with my antidote*. The same writer also appears to think I'm arguing for comics as an autonomous artform (i.e. which therefore owes nothing to cinema). Where did you get that one? I don't have any use for the idea of comics as an art form let alone an autonomous one (I'll explain this statement further down the track). I was just arguing for good taste.

Now, today I'm talking about SCALE. That's right, scale. When I arrived in Manhattan in June 2003 for the MOCCA show, the building around the corner from the hotel in which I was staying had a huge poster for the Hulk movie on the side of it. I mean a colossal building-sized image of the Hulk, and an image that was perfectly idiomatic, though I don't know whom we should credit for it or whether it was made by anyone close to the comics biz. I went out the next day to get a photo but it was gone. Look at this other building and just try to conjure it in your head. It was a wonderful feeling looking up at it, because I have always thought of New York as belonging to Stan Lee, while at the same time knowing that's not quite right. Here I was in the big strange far away foreign city, and my childhood pal was on the side of a building welcoming me.
It's a perfect scaling up (I used this term wrongly a few days back... let's differentiate between scaling up and blowing up, as in enlarging) of a classic Kirby-model Hulk. By Kirby I mean the big-hand-reaching-toward-the-reader formula. The classic style of this kind of image requires that the hand, in extremely exaggerated forshortening, cross behind or even break the line of the frame. It's an expanding frame of infinite possibility. It's like a recurring fraction producing infinitesmal subdivisions. It didn't even surprise me to see fingerprints on his mighty hands.
I paid my own homage to the icon of the big hand in this full page from a 1990 Eyeball KId, (art by Ed Hillyer), reprinted recently in Italy. The guy on the ground is saying "Look out! IT's Hermes, and he's got the BIG GLOVE! (that's the plug by which I justify spending today's time here-see Italy in the sidebar, volume 4))

In contrast, Ivan Brunetti was interviewed by the Comics Journal last year and in there he said something to the effect that for his characters to continue being real to him, they must live out their existences on the same small scale, with little variation. I don't still have the issue, so this is from memory, and I'm spinning it off into my own words. It's as though they are actually living inside these tiny boxes that form the frames, never touching or reaching beyond the delimited rectangle, for to do so would be to break their fragile contract with the world.

To summarize:
CAMPBELL's RULE #2:
The frame ain't random either.

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p.s. *speaking of antidotes, this is the spider that tried to eat my pal Best a few days ago. The poor bloke's still suffering.

labels

I did some house cleaning and filing in the middle of the night on account of I got up to relieve a cramp in my foot and all the jumping up and down thoroughly woke me up. So should you wish to do some backtracking and find out, say, where the hell 'thanks for roning' comes from, here at Campbell blogspot we now have LABELS, including but not limited to these:

In thrall to the cinematic principle. (rule #1)

A couple of days back I promised to explain my reasoning behind my reconfiguration of Alan Moore’s 'camera angles' in Chapter 5 page 26 of FROM HELL.
Back in ’84 I had my first in-print encounter with Alan Moore, in a ‘chat’ set up and taped by Escape magazine editor Paul Gravett (it's in issue 5). I confess I went in with the intention of sparking a printworthy argument by describing a ‘pictorial language of melodrama’, which was dominating the art of the comic book and maintaining it in a retrograde state. I then cheekily located Alan on one side of it and me on the other. Four years later Alan engaged me to work on From Hell, and there at the very top of the proposal was printed: ‘Being a melodrama in sixteen parts.’ I thought he was having a dig at my earlier theoretical position, but no, he’d forgotten all about that and this was to be the official subtitle of the book.

The essence of my thinking was, or is, since I haven’t reneged on it, that if we are seeking to use the comic strip form to tell a more sophisticated kind of story, the first thing we needed to do was to reassess the assortment of devices that we were inheriting. They may have been suited to the pictorialising of SUPERhuman drama, but were lacking when it came to examining the small but infinitely interesting business of everyday people. The first problem to be addressed was what I have usually called ‘the cinematic principle’, and if you can name it better, be my guest. It’s the idea that we’re always looking through a camera. In a comic book script it shows itself in ways that we have long stopped being conscious of. For instance, we will tend to automatically describe a view as being in long-shot or close-up. We have forgotten that these are movie terms. They have entered into everyday usage. But let’s look further. If we place a long shot beside a close up, we’ve introduced another cinematic technique, that of ‘cutting’.
And here’s another: ‘tracking’, (from Alan’s script, page 24): “SAME SHOT, WITH US TRACKING ALONG IN FRONT OF POLLY, KEEPING HER THE SAME DISTANCE AWAY FROM US EVEN THOUGH SHE IS STUMBLING FORWARD…”
And I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with it, and most certainly not in the hands of a master such as our Mr Moore, but I have often looked at samples in aspiring artist portfolios where all the technical issues have not been understood.

My idea was to take ‘cutting’ away and replace it with a keen observation of body language. In order to see subtle interactions between two bodies, the leanings toward, the leanings away, the slight turnings, superior straightenings, lookings down, lookings away, while not necessarily leaning the same way, lookings inwards, subtle changes in the emotional temperature, but instinctively dealing with it and not categorizing it like this, etc, etc… then the two bodies need to be seen in each and all of the pictures. My thoughts along these lines developed further after reading an interview with Bernard Krigstein a long time ago (the one from Squa Tront*, probably reprinted elsewhere since then) where he complained that the fragmentation you get in comics goes against pictorial logic and usually works against the drama that the artist is supposed to be expressing. I formulated a rule from this:
CAMPBELL's RULE #1: The entire drama of a given situation must be contained within each panel of the sequence of that situation.
Thus, if you take Krigstein’s masterpiece, the short story Master Race, and look at the second last page (above), you will observe that in eleven panels ten of them show both the chaser and the chased. Add five at the foot of the previous page, and one at the top of the next one, and you get a run of seventeen panels showing both characters (with only one break). The subject of the drama is the relationship between them, and there isn’t a single panel where you could say that we lose sight of that simple essence.
So, given a situation such as the one in From Hell Chapter 5 page 26, I grabbed the opportunity to dwell on the subtleties that Alan wanted to focus upon in the scene, the strange undercurrents and suggestions of a different kind of relationship from the one that was being played out. Get all those cameramen and equipment, and the director and the sound engineer and the continuity girl and the boy with the clapperboard, out of that tight space and focus on the humanity.

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* interestingly, there's a Dave Sim interview where he says this same issue of that magazine is one of his most important possessions and quotes a long extract from the Krigstein interview.

Best foot forward.

Joann Sfar will be interviewed by the man at the Crossroads at The Royal National Hotel, in London next Sun 25th. I wonder if he’ll bring his banjo? -“Two young and brilliant graphic artists discuss with Paul Gravett the importance of their Jewish roots. Funny, irreverent and bold, Joann Sfar pays homage to both his Ashkenazi mother and his Sephardi father, with Klezmer following the difficult life of musicians in Eastern Europe and The Rabbi’s Cat set in Algeria at a time when Jews and Arabs lived peacefully together. JT Waldman brought two dreams together: do a graphic novel and understand his religion better. Seven years later, having learnt Hebrew, studied the rabbinic texts and explored oriental art, he produced Megillat Esther, a stunning graphic novel with a twist, incorporating both Hebrew and English and engaging in a new form of Midrash.”

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Roz Chast interview at nerve.com! “Humor is so subjective. I could watch the same episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm or The Office over and over rather than watch most sitcoms, which make me want to lie down and not get up again." (via Journalista). For my money Chast is the most original and funniest magazine cartoonist of the last thirty years. She devises the most unusual constructions for her pieces. Here's a favourite of mine, Your Family Tree from her 1988 collection from Harper & Row, The Four Elements.
(click to enlarge)

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My pal mr j draws my attention to the work of Ben Redlich, a local young children's book illustrator with an individual style, who has been picked up by the Australian publisher who gives us Shaun Tan, author of The Arrival, which I discussed here. This guy's work is first rate.

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In his post of 16 feb my good friend John Coulthart traces the evolution of a single pose in the work of French neoclassical painter Jean Hippolyte Flandrin (1809-1864) through six examples as it becomes a popular icon. Norman Hathaway responds to the post with a couple more, and John himself comes back with another on the 19th. I've always wondered what Paul Gulacy was referencing (duh!) on this old Miracleman cover (sorry to bring the tone down).

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In comments yesterday Mike linked me to the above photo. "I was reading through January and saw the photo you posted of your work as "low-brow art" - this links to a picture of From Hell in the main Freemason's library in Washington, DC, which incidentally is open to the public and a magnificent collection."

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waitamiinit. telephone.
it's my pal Best... you want me to come in for lunch? sure.
you've been on your back all week... yes, I know... antibiotics, yeh.
a bad case of necrotic flesh in your foot? Wha?
On account of you put your shoe on while a lethal spider was living in it?
Jesus Christ!
What kind of spider?
"I don't bloody know, Campbell... I feel as useless as a one-legged man in an arse-kicking contest!"
uh, okay, Dan. See you in an hour...
And thanks for roning.

FROM HELL: 5/26

I don't usually reveal FROM HELL pages and their scripts for three days running, but I've been in a stew trying to get my annual tax scraps together. It was all wrapped up this morning and I was off to see the accountant, the illustrious Mr Tucker, last seen in his sarong and bare feet, his normal working attire, in The Fate of the Artist. As usual I'm four thousand bucks over in one part, one thousand under in another part, and another part has disappeared altogether. My only excuse is that I was in Chicago in 1899 at the time, working on The Black Diamond Detective Agency.
The upshot of it all is that I don't have time to do much here. This one is the next in sequence as we move inexorably toward the first of the Whitechapel murders. You'll notice however that my pictures for it do not in any way whatsoever follow the framing instructions in Alan Moore's script. I will explain at length my reasons for this in an essay of some length and the product of some serious consideration over many years, hopefully to run in tomorrow's post, titled 'The cinematic principle'.

CHAPTER 5 PAGE 26 ( 1,130 WORDS)
PANEL 1
NOW WE HAVE A NINE PANEL GRID, THE BETTTER TO REPRODUCE THE SLIGHTLY CLAUSTROPHOBIC ATMOSPHERE WITHIN THE COACH. IN THIS FIRST PANEL WE ARE LOOKING THROUGH GULL’S EYES, SO THAT ALL WE CAN SEE OF HIM ARE HIS HANDS AS THEY HOLD OUT THE OPEN BAG OF GRAPES TOWARDS POLLY. LOOKING BEYOND GULL’S HANDS AND THE BAG OF GRAPES WE SEE POLLY AS SHE SITS ON THE SEAT BESIDE US, TURNING TOWARDS US AND REACHING OUT ONE HAND TO DIP INTO THE BAG AND TAKE A GRAPE. SHE SMILES WITH DELIGHT, ALMOST DISBELIEVINGLY.
POLLY: oh, sir, I loves ‘em. Never can afford ‘em, though.
POLLY: Oh, can I really ‘ave one?

PANEL 2
NOW WE REVERSE ANGLES SO THAT IN THE FOREGROUND WE CAN SEE POLLY, SITTING IN PROFILE TO US. SHE HAS HER HEAD TILTED BACK SLIGHTLY AND IS NOT LOOKING AT GULL AS SHE TIPS A COUPLE OF GRAPES INTO HER MOUTH FROM HER UPLIFTED HAND. SHE LOOKS TO BE IN A STATE OF BLISS AT BEING ALLOWED SUCH LUXURY. IMMEDIATELY BEYOND HER GULL SITS TURNED SO THAT HE FACES DIRECTLY AT POLLY AND US. (I SHOULD HAVE MENTIONED, INCIDENTALLY, THAT HE HAS TAKEN OFF HIS HAT ON ENTERING THE COACH.) HE SMILES QUIETLY AND WARMLY AT POLLY AS HE SPEAKS TO HER.
GULL: Dear Polly, have as many as you wish.
GULL: Now come, child. Tell me all about yourself. Where were you born?

PANEL 3
NOW A SHOT FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COACH, SO THAT WE ARE LOOKING FACE-ON AT POLLY AND GULL, BOTH FULL FIGURE, AS THEY SIT THERE SIDE BY SIDE ON THE SEAT OPPOSITE TO US. WIPING GRAPE JUICE FROM HER LIPS, POLLY LOOKS MOMENTARILY TAKEN ABACK, ALBEIT IN A PLEASANT WAY. SHE LOOKS AT GULL WITH A SURPRISED AND GRATEFUL SMILE THAT IS SOMEHOW POIGNANT. GULL RETURNS HER SMILE WITH A QUIET, GENUINELY WARM SMILE OF HIS OWN, GAZING INTO HER EYES. THE GLADSTONE BAG RESTS BY POLLY’S FEET.
POLLY: Well…nmg… excuse me…
POLLY: Well, sir, I hardly knows where I should start. It’s not often anybody shows an interest.
POLLY: I were born in Shoe lane.

PANEL 4
HERE WE CLOSE IN FROM OUR LAST PANEL. SO THAT WE CAN ONLY SEE POLLY SITTING CLOSE THERE WITH THE WINDOW BESIDE HER, THE DARKNESS OF WHITECHAPLE CRAWLING BY OUTSIDE. SHE IS LOOKING TOWARDS GULL, WHOSE HAND ENTERS THE PANEL FROM OFF TO ONE SIDE, HOLDING OUT THE BAG OF GRAPES. POLLY LOOKS INTO HIS OFF- PANEL EYES AS SHE REACHES OUT AND DIPS INTO THE BAG FOR ANOTHER GRAPE. AS SHE ROCKS UNSTEADILY FROM SIDE TO SIDE WITH THE MOTION OF THE COACH, HER BLACK BONNET HAS SLIPPED DOWN SLIGHTLY TO ONE SIDE, SO THAT IT RESTS AT A SLIGHTLY ODD ANGLE, BUT IT IS STILL FASTENED WITH A BOW BENEATH HER CHIN. AS SHE REACHES FOR A GRAPE, HER WEDDING RING GLEAMS DULLY UPON HER FINGER.
POLLY: That’s off Fleet Street. 1851 it was, ‘cause I remember bein’ took to see the exhibition.
POLLY: Another grape? Ooh, can I really, sir?

PANEL 5
NOW POLLY IS IN PROFILE IN THE FOREGROUND AS SHE PUTS THE GRAPES INTO HE STARVING MOUTH, NOT LOOKING AT GULL AS SHE DOES SO. POLLY IS ROUGHLY HEAD AND SHOULDERS TO HALF FIGURE AS WE SEE HER HERE. LOOKING BEYOND HER WE SEE GULL AS HE SITS BESIDE HER, TURNED ROUND SO AS TO GAZE AT BOTH POLLY AND US. HIS FACE LOOKS GENUINELY PAINED AND SYMPATHETIC AS HE GAZES AT HER, HIS GRAPES STILL HELD IN ONE HAND. AS SHE RECOUNTS HER TALE, POLLY’S FACE IS MORE OR LESS EXPRESSIONLESS. SHE DOES NOT SEEM TO SEE IT AS AN OCCASION FOR SELF PITY.
POLLY: Anyway… mmp… me dad, ’e were a blacksmith. ’ad me married off by ’64.
GULL: When you were… let me see… Good Lord! When you were but thirteen?

PANEL 6
NOW WE REVERSE ANGLES SO THAT WE ARE LOOKING AT POLLY THROUGH GULL’S EYES, AND ALL WE CAN SEE OF GULL HIMSELF ARE HIS HANDS, HOLDING THE BAG OF GRAPES. MOSTLY, WE ARE LOOKING JUST PAST THIS TO FOCUS ON POLLY AS SHE SITS THERE IN PROFILE TO US, NOT LOOKING AT US AS SHE SPEAKS. SHE STARES INTO SPACE, TOYING ABSENTMINDEDLY WITH HER WEDDING RING AS SHE DOES SO, SEEMINGLY UNAWARE OF THE GESTURE. IF WE CAN SEE THEM, HER PUPILS ARE VERY TINY, AND HER GENERAL MANNER IS ONE OF ENTRANCEMENT. THE LAUDANUNM IS STARTING TO TAKE EFFECT. POLLY SWAYS SLIGHTLY, A CHILDLIKE EXPRESSION SUFFUSING HER FACE AS SHE REMEMBERS THE SNOW FALLING SLOWLY DURING HER WEDDING AT THE PRINTERS’ CHAPEL. SHE SPEAKS SOFTLY, AS IF IN A DREAM.
POLLY: Aye. To a printer, Billy Nicholls. We was married in the printers’ church, St. Bride’s
POLLY: …an it were winter. Snowin’. Little flakes, caught in me ‘air.

PANEL 7
NOW WE HAVE A SIMILAR SHPOT TO THAT IN PANEL THREE, IN THAT WE ARE LOOKING ACROSS THE CARRIAGE AT GULL AND POLLY AS THEY SIT SIDE BY SIDE ON THE OPPOSITE SEAT, BOTH SEEN THREE QUARTER TO FULL FIGURE HERE. POLLY IS NOT LOOKING AT GULL, BUT JUST GAZING DAZEDLY INTO SPACE, LOOKING IN OUR GENERAL DIRECTION, BUT CLEARLY NOT FOCUSSED ON ANYTHING. BESIDE HER, GULL IS STILL SITTING HALF TURNED TO FACE TOWARDS HER. HE HOLDS OUT HIS BAG OF GRAPES TOWARDS HER WITH AN EXPRESSION OF DEEP AND HEARTFELT SYMPATHY THAT SEEMS TO BE SINCERE.
POLLY: we went to live in Stamford street. Two children. Second one, my Billy, ‘e runs off like, with the midwife.
POLLY: Just runs off.
GULL: Poor child. Do have another grape.

PANEL 8
NOW WE ARE LOOKING THROUGH GULL’S EYES AT THE DAZED –LOOKING POLLY AS SHE TURNS TOWARDS US AND TAKES ANOTHER DRUGGED GRAPE FORM THE BAG. HER EYELIDS ARE STARTING TO LOOK HEAVIER OVER HER PIN-PRICK PUPILS, AND HER EXPRESSION IS SORT OF SLACK AS SHE REACHES OUT AND TAKES ANOTHER GRAPE FROM THE BAG. ALL WE CAN SEE OF GULL IS ONE HAND, HOLDING OUT THE BAG TOWARDS POLLY. BEHIND HER, THROUGH THE WINDOW, THE WHITECHAPEL DARKNESS CRAWLS BY.
POLLY: Why… why., thank you, sIr. You’re…
POLLY: You’re very kind.
GULL: Think nothing of it, child. Come now, continue with your narrrative. Your husband left you…

PANEL 9
NOW A SHOT OF THE CLOSED GLADSTONE BAG AS IT RESTS THERE BETWEEN POLLY’S FEET AND THE CARRIAGE DOOR. BOTH POLLY AND GULL’S BALLOONS ISSUE FROM OFF PANEL IN THE APPROPRIATE DIRECTIONS. THE BLACK LEATHER BAG HAS A DULL GLEAM IN THE SICKLY LIGHT OF THE CARRIAGE.
POLLY: (OFF) : Yes,. Yes, ‘e did. I went to Lambeth Workhouse…
GULL (OFF): Lambeth, indeed? A famous poet lived there once, you know…

FROM HELL: 5/25

The tension mounts as we arrive at the first of the Whitechapel murders, as depicted in FROM HELL, this being from Alan Moore's scripts for the book. It wasn't the first incidence of serious crisis in the story, of course. Alan constructed the work so that each chapter climaxed with one. In Chapter One it was the the abduction in broad daylight of Annie Crook; in Two she was forced to undergo a lobotomy; in Three the blackmail letter to the royal family is delivered. In Four Gull's insane mission is launched and Netley vomits at the realzation of what it is probably going to entail. The narrative has been on a resolute march to Hell since page 1. Alan's script for the final panel on this page was possibly his shortest picture description in the entire book, but I knew what this low angle view of the carriage had to clearly say: this is where the horror begins.

CHAPTER 5. PAGE 25 ( 943 WORDS)
PANEL 1
ANOTHER SEVEN PANEL PAGE, AGAIN WITH THE BIG WIDE PANEL TAKING UP THE BOTTOM TIER AND THREE SMALLER PANELS ON EACH OF THE TIERS ABOVE THAT. IN THIS FIRST SMALL PANEL WE ARE CROUCHING BEHIND POLLY ON THE PAVEMENT, ABOUT WAIST HEIGHT, AND LOOKING UP PAST HER. ALL WE CAN SEE OF HER IS SOME OF HER MID-SECTION OVER TO THE RIGHT OF THE FOREGROUND, HER HANDS CLASPED NERVOUSLY IN FRONT OF HER AS SHE STANDS THERE LOOKING UP AT THE COACH. LOOKING UP PAST HER AT THE COACH, WE CAN SEE GULL AS HE TURNS TOWARDS US AND LOOKS DOWN WITH A FATHERLY SMILE AND A TWINKLE IN HIS EYES. HE TOUCHES THE BRIM OF HIS HAT IN GREETING. BEYOND HIM, NETLEY IS ONLY VISIBLE AS A DARK SHAPE, HUNCHED OVER THE REINS.
GULL: Good morning to you, my child.
GULL: Why, three o’clock’s no time for a young lady such as yourself to be out unescorted. Might I offer transport?

PANEL 2
NOW A SHOT LOOKING DOWN AT POLLY FROM GULL’S POINT OF VIEW AS SHE STANDS THERE IN THE STREET LOOKING UP AT US, A FORLORN AND ISOLATED FIGURE, LIT ONLY BY THE WEAK GLOW FROM THE CARRIAGE LAMP. IN THE FOREGROUND WE CAN PERHAPS SEE GULL’S HANDS, QUIETLY HOLDING HIS OPEN BAG OF GRAPES. POLLY LOOKS GRATEFUL AND RELIEVED AS SHE GAZES UP AT US, AND OFFERS US A WEAK SMILE BY WAY OF A THANK-YOU. SHE’S STILL WEARING HER BLACK BONNET, FASTENED UNDER HER CHIN IN A BOW, AND I SHOULD ALSO POINT OUT THAT DURING THIS ENTIRE EPISODE, WHENEVER WE SEE POLLY’S HANDS IN CLOSE UP, WE SHOULD MAKE SURE TO SHOW THE RING THAT WE FIRST SHOWED IN PANEL FOUR OF PAGE ELEVEN. JUST A SMALL CONTINUITY POINT WHICH YOU SHOULD APPLY WHERE APPROPRIATE, IF ANYWHERE. HERE, POLLY LOOKS UP AT US AND GIVES US A WAN SMILE. THE BREEZE RUSTLES THE PAPER BAG IN GULL’S LAP. THE GRAPES HAVE A PALE AND SICKLY GLEAM.
POLLY: Why… why, thank you, sir. You’re very kind.
POLLY: I’d surely feel safer with you than out ‘ere in the street. You ‘ear so many stories.

PANEL 3
NOW WE PULL BACK A LITTLE FROM THE COACH, SO THAT WE SEE THE FRONT END OF IT, INCLUDING THE HORSES, IN THE MID-BACKGROUND HERE. AS WE SEE HIM HERE, GULL IS JUST CLIMBING DOWN FROM THE COACH, HEFTING HIS GLADSTONE BAG WITH HIM AS HE DOES SO. HE IS ALSO PRESUMABLY STILL HOLDING THE GRAPES, ASSUMING THAT CAN BE DONE IN SUCH A WAY TO LEAVE HIM A FREE HAND TO HOLD THE COACH AS HE DESCENDS. PERHAPS HE’S STUFFED THEM INTO HIS POCKET OR SOMETHING. POLLY STANDS RESPECTFULLY BY AS SHE WAITS FOR HIM TO CLIMB DOWN. NETLEY JUST SITS AND PAYS NO ATTENTION TO THE PROCEEDINGS, STARING AWAY INTO THE DARK ACROSS HIS REINS. GULL IS SMILING AS HE CLIMBS DOWN, A JOVIAL AND BURLY UNCLE. POLLY STIULL WEARS A FAINT SMILE DESPITE HERSELF, CHARMED BY THIS GENIAL OLD TOFF.
GULL: Splendid! Then let me just climb down, that we may ride together, both inside.
GULL: Tell me, what is your name?

PANEL 4
GULL IS NOW STANDING IN THE STEREET LEVEL BESIDE POLLY. POLLY HAS TAKEN THE LIBERTY OF OPENING THE COACH DOOR, READY FOR THEM. BUT LIKE A WELL BROUGHT UP YOUNG WOMAN, SHE IS RESPECTFUL OF HER ELDERS AND BETTERS. AND REACHES OUT WITH HER FREE HAND TO RELIEVE GULL OF HIS HEAVY GLADSTONE BAG. HE GIVES HER A WARM SMILE OF GRATITUDE AS HE LETS HER TAKE IT FROM HIM. SHE GIVES HIM A DAUGHTERLY AND AFFECTIONATE SMILE IN RETURN.
POLLY: It’s Mary, though they calls me Polly.
POLLY: Oh, do let me ‘elp you with that bag. It looks so ‘eavy.
GULL: Ah. Thank you. Set it by the door.

PANEL 5
NOW WE ARE WITHIN THE COACH WITH POLLY, WHO HAS CLIMBED INSIDE AND IS IN THE ACT OF SETTING DOWN THE HEAVY GLADSTONE BAG BY THE OPPOSITE DOOR. LIT BY THE SICK YELLOW GLOW OF THE CARRIAGE LAMP, AN INSECT IN AMBER. LOOKING BEYOND HER AND THROUGH THE OPEN DOOR BEHIND HER WE SEE GULL, ALSO FACING US, AS HE STARTS TO CLAMBER ABOARD THE COACH, HOLDING THE BAG OF GRAPES IN ONE HAND. HE SMILES WARMLY AT HER TURNED BACK, WITH NO GLINT OF THE SARDONIC IN HIS EYES. GULL GENUINELY SEEMS TO BE SHOWING NOTHING BUT FATHERLY AFFECTION TOWARDS THIS YOUNG WOMAN.
POLLY: There, there, that’s better.
POLLY: Now, let’s be introduced all proper, like. I’m Polly, sir, and you, you’re…?

PANEL 6
NOW WE ARE LOOKING AT GULL THROUGH POLLY’S EYES AS HE TAKES HIS SEAT BESIDE HER IN THE CARRIAGE. WE CANNOT SEE HER. ALL WE SEE IS HER VIEW OF HIM AS HE SITS THERE, THREE QUARTER FIGURE, AND TURNS TOWARDS US. HE SMILES, A SMILE OF ALMOST BOYISH PLEASURE AND SATISFACTION. HE’S NOT SIR WILLIAM NOW, OR EVEN DOCTOR GULL. HE’S JUST THE LITTLE BARGE BOY ONCE AGAIN, WHO PLAYED AMONGST THE FLOWERS THERE AT THE RECTORY; WHO MOVED THROUGH TUNNELS SLOWLY INTO LIGHT.
GULL: William.
GULL: My name’s William.

PANEL 7
IN THIS FINAL WIDE PANEL WE ARE LOOKING AT THE COACH. THE DOORS ARE CLOSED, AND AS NETLEY SNAPS THE REINS, IT RESUMES MOTION, TRUNDLING SLOWLY OVER THE COBBLES FROM A DEAD START. A PALE HOSPITAL LIGHT SEEPS FROM THE WINDOWS OF THE COACH, DIFFUSING INTO DARK. GULL’S BALLOON ISSUES FROM THE NEAREST WINDOW AS THE COACH TRUNDLES AWAY.
GULL (OFF, FROM WINDOW): Now, tell me, child…
GULL (OFF, FROM WINDOW): Do you like grapes?