Issue 06 · Print view
22 pages · 84 panels
Recap Splash · 1 panel
Layout — Recap splash
[art pending]
Inside The Dom. Stage lights. A four-piece band — LOU, MOE, NICO, SUNNY (introduced for real this issue) — mid-song. Cigarette smoke. A crowd of mods, beats, college kids, painters. Jesse and Dev in the crowd, near the front, looking up at the stage. Jesse with his mouth slightly open. Dev's eyes locked on Sunny shaking a tambourine in the front row of the band, daisy on her denim jacket.
Page · 6 panels
Layout — 5 panels
[art pending]
The band finishes a song — long ringing chord, drummer's roll, the crowd applauding. Lou — bored cool, sunglasses indoors, wry — leans into the mic.
[art pending]
Jesse, very small in his chest:
[art pending]
Lou, scanning the room. His eyes find Jesse's green guitar over Jesse's shoulder. He squints.
[art pending]
Jesse, deer-in-headlights.
[art pending]
Jesse, propelled forward, stumbling out of the crowd and onto the small raised stage. Lou steps back from the mic, amused. Hands Jesse a worn 1960s tube amp's instrument cable.
[art pending]
Jesse, plugging the green guitar into the 1960s amp. The pickup covers begin to glow faintly green. The amp's tubes light up — also faintly green. Allred — small moment, no big deal. The room doesn't notice. We do.
Page · 4 panels
Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
Dev pushes through the crowd and onto the stage. The Dom's drum kit is set up — a real 1960s kit, four-piece, well-loved. Dev sits behind it. He has not sat behind a real drum kit in his entire life. Allred — the moment a man who has been hitting industrial garbage for ten years sits behind real drums. Slow it. Let his hand find the snare. Let him not breathe.
No copy.
[art pending]
Close on Dev's hand on the snare. It is shaking, just a little.
[art pending]
Jesse at the mic. The green guitar in his hands. The crowd waiting. Lou off to one side, leaning on a pillar, watching.
[art pending]
Jesse looks back at Dev. Dev counts off with a click of his sticks.
Splash · 1 panel
Layout — Splash
[art pending]
Scouter, first show. A full-page splash of the band mid-song on the stage at The Dom. Jesse hammering the chord, head down, body angled into the riff. Dev behind a real kit, hitting it with the precision of a man who has been simulating this his whole life. The crowd — the 1966 East Village crowd — responding. Heads moving. Hips moving. A girl in the front row mouthing along to a melody she has never heard before. Lou against the pillar, sunglasses off, looking interested for the first time in the issue. The musical-staff motif in the margin: the staff is dense with a notated melody. The melody is fully scored. Real music is being played and the comic is showing you the notes. Allred — Romantic register at max. This is your band-on-stage panel. The reason we hired you.
Page · 4 panels
Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
End of the song. The crowd erupts. Not polite applause — erupt. A real-music crowd hearing a great song for the first time. Allred — show us six different faces in the crowd reacting differently. One girl is crying. One guy is laughing.
No copy.
[art pending]
Lou is suddenly at the side of the stage. Hand on the lip.
[art pending]
The band — Moe, Nico, Sunny — converging on the stage. Sunny is looking at Dev. Dev is looking at Sunny. Allred — eye contact panel. Let it be a small thing and a big thing simultaneously. The daisy on her denim jacket.
No copy.
[art pending]
Sunny extending a hand to Dev across the kit.
Page · 4 panels
Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
Lou and Jesse at the side of the stage. Lou holds out a hand — Jesse shakes it.
[art pending]
Jesse, very carefully:
[art pending]
Lou, half-smiling.
[art pending]
Across the room — through the open front door of The Dom — the silhouette of the fedora-DeciBot enters. Backlit by the street. Allred — slow zoom-in over four panels starting now. Brutal register kicks in.
No copy.
Page · 5 panels
Layout — 5 panels
[art pending]
The DeciBot in the doorway of The Dom. The bouncer — a big man with a shaved head — looks up. Sees the matte-white robot in a fedora. Pauses.
[art pending]
The DeciBot's optical band flickers once across the bouncer's face. The bouncer goes slack. His Beat Pad doesn't exist. The DeciBot doesn't have a Beat Pad to override. So instead, the DeciBot tilts its head and projects a thin sonic pulse from a port in its palm. The bouncer's knees buckle. He drops into the corner, asleep.
[art pending]
The DeciBot, walking past the unconscious bouncer, into the bar. The fedora. The matte-white shell. Heads in the crowd turning.
[art pending]
Jesse, still onstage with Lou. He looks across the room. He sees the DeciBot. He goes very still.
[art pending]
Close on the DeciBot's arm screen as it scans the room. The screen reads: TARGETS ACQUIRED. RANGE 11 METERS. RECOVERY PROTOCOL ENGAGED.
No copy.
Page · 4 panels
Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
Jesse, urgently, to Lou.
[art pending]
Lou looks across the room. Sees the DeciBot moving steadily toward the stage. Sees its hand opening at its side — the same sonic-pulse port it used on the bouncer extending an aperture.
[art pending]
The band moves. Lou grabs Jesse. Sunny grabs Dev. They bolt off the back of the stage. Allred — Brutal register, motion lines, the band scrambling.
No copy.
[art pending]
The DeciBot — calmly, unhurried — vaults onto the stage. Its hand fires a sonic pulse — vvvvvvvvvv — into the now-empty stage. The mic stand detonates. The fronts of the amps blow outward.
Page · 4 panels
Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
Back kitchen of The Dom. Pots and pans, a confused cook with a cigarette in his mouth, steam everywhere. Lou shoves Jesse through the throng. Sunny pulls Dev. Moe and Nico bringing up the rear.
[art pending]
Cookie throws open the alley door. The brothers and the band pour out into the back alley. The DeciBot's sonic pulse detonating something in the dining room behind them.
No copy.
[art pending]
The alley. Lou shoving everyone toward a parked van — a panel van with a faded peace symbol on the side. MOE'S VAN. Moe already at the driver's door, fishing for keys.
[art pending]
Dev — astonishingly — has the green guitar slung across his back, the strap snagged in the chaos. He vaults into the van. Jesse after him. Lou, Nico, Sunny last. Moe peels out.
Page · 5 panels
Layout — 5 panels
[art pending]
The van, careening through 1966 East Village streets. Honks. A pedestrian shaking a fist. Moe driving like a getaway driver. Lou in the passenger seat, calm.
[art pending]
In the back of the van. The brothers, Sunny, Nico. The green guitar across Jesse's knees. Jesse breathing hard.
[art pending]
Dev and Jesse exchange a look. Dev shrugs.
[art pending]
Sunny, beside Dev. Quiet.
[art pending]
Jesse, looking out the back window. Far behind them — three blocks back — the fedora-DeciBot is walking down the middle of the street, unhurried, head turning side to side. Tracking.
Page · 4 panels
Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
The van pulls up outside the Chelsea Hotel. 1966. The marquee. The wrought-iron balconies. The desk clerk visible through the front window, smoking. Moe parks half on the curb.
[art pending]
The band and the brothers hustle into the lobby. Lou strides to the desk like he owns the place. Pulls a wad of cash from his jacket.
[art pending]
The clerk slides a key across the counter. Lou tosses cash. The group bolts for the stairs.
No copy.
[art pending]
The hallway, top floor. The group at a door. Lou keys it open. They pile inside.
No copy.
Page · 5 panels
Layout — 5 panels
[art pending]
The room. A faded velvet armchair. A bed with a chenille cover. A window onto the rooftops of Chelsea. The radio on the dresser playing softly. Everyone breathing hard. Lou closes the door. Locks it. Slides a chair under the knob. Leans against it.
[art pending]
Jesse, sinking onto the bed, green guitar across his lap.
[art pending]
Jesse, holding up the green guitar.
[art pending]
Long beat. The band processing.
[art pending]
Jesse, looking up at him.
Page · 4 panels
Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
Nico, sitting on the windowsill. Looking out at the rooftops. Calm.
[art pending]
Dev, who has been quiet, looking at his hands.
[art pending]
Jesse, finishing for him.
[art pending]
Long silence. The band sits with it. Lou pulls a cigarette out of his jacket and lights it.
Page · 4 panels
Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
Dev looks up. Hope, for the first time in the issue.
[art pending]
Moe, standing in the corner, sticks in his belt. He looks at Dev for a long beat. He extends one stick across the room. Dev takes it.
[art pending]
Sunny, leaning forward, looking at Jesse.
[art pending]
Lou, leaning against the wall, taking a drag.
Page · 4 panels
Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
The room. The plan settling. Dev going to the radio on the dresser and beginning to take it apart with a coin from his pocket as a screwdriver.
No copy.
[art pending]
Sunny crossing to Dev. Sitting on the bed beside him. Watching him work. Her hand finding his sleeve, lightly. Allred — small. Important. The hippie girl and the futurist.
No copy.
[art pending]
Lou and Jesse at the window. Jesse looking out at the rooftops.
[art pending]
Nico, calmly, from the windowsill.
Page · 5 panels
Layout — 5 panels
[art pending]
View from the window — down twelve floors to the street. The fedora-DeciBot at the front desk of the Chelsea. The clerk, Mort, behind the desk, looking up at it with the polite blank of a man who has seen everything. Allred — high angle.
No copy.
[art pending]
Lou, calm but moving fast.
[art pending]
The group, bolting out the window onto the fire escape. The green guitar over Jesse's shoulder. Sunny pulling Dev. Moe last, locking the window behind them.
No copy.
[art pending]
Down the fire escape. Allred — vertical panel, multiple levels, lots of motion. The group descending in single file, hitting the alley below.
No copy.
[art pending]
Alley level. Moe leading them toward the van still parked half on the curb at the end of the block. The DeciBot has not yet emerged from the hotel. Yet.
No copy.
Page · 4 panels
Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
The van peels out of Chelsea heading south. Moe driving, Lou shotgun, the brothers and Sunny and Nico in the back.
No copy.
[art pending]
Behind them — the DeciBot exits the Chelsea lobby, looks up at the disappearing van's taillights, calmly reaches into its leather folio, produces a small device, and presses a button. A blue-green tracer signal lights up its arm screen. The DeciBot is tracking them by something other than the chord. DECIBOT'S ARM SCREEN: HARMONIC TRAIL: DETECTED. ACTIVE. SOURCE: GUITAR PICKUPS — RESIDUAL EMISSION. RANGE: 1.4 KM. CLOSING.
[art pending]
In the van. Dev looking back through the rear window. Sees the DeciBot far behind, walking calmly, not running.
[art pending]
Jesse, looking at the green guitar in his lap. He puts his hand on the pickup cover. The cover is faintly warm. Faintly glowing.
Page · 4 panels
Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
Moe in the front:
[art pending]
The van crossing the Manhattan Bridge. Brooklyn ahead. Dawn beginning to show — pink at the horizon over the warehouses. Allred — beautiful establishing of period Brooklyn.
No copy.
[art pending]
Lou, half-turning from the front seat to look at Jesse.
[art pending]
Long beat. Jesse, very honest.
Page · 3 panels
Layout — 3 panels — widescreens
[art pending]
Lou, looking at Jesse. He has not put the cigarette to his mouth since the question. Now he does. Takes a long drag.
[art pending]
Nico, calmly, beside Jesse:
[art pending]
The van crossing into Brooklyn. The 1966 industrial waterfront. The sun rising. The brothers and the band heading to the basement that will, in the next issue, become their workshop and their school.
No copy.
Page · 4 panels
Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
A warehouse on the Brooklyn waterfront. Loading dock, brick, broken windows. Moe pulls the van around back. Stops at a battered freight door.
[art pending]
The group climbing out. Sunny stretching. Nico immediately lighting a cigarette. Lou unlocking the freight door with a key off his belt.
No copy.
[art pending]
Inside — the band's basement. A converted warehouse interior. Real drum kits, multiple. Tube amps stacked five high. Speaker cabinets the size of refrigerators. Workbenches with soldering irons. Broken radios. Half-disassembled tape decks. A wall of vinyl records. An old Coca-Cola cooler. Christmas lights strung across the rafters. Allred — paradise. Pull the Romantic register hard.
[art pending]
Dev walking through the space slowly, hand brushing across a wall of tube amps. His face is the face of a kid in a candy store who has just been told he can have it.
Page · 4 panels
Layout — 4 panels
[art pending]
The brothers in the middle of the workshop. Jesse setting the green guitar carefully against a wall. Dev pulling the USB out of his pocket and holding it up to the light.
[art pending]
Lou crossing to the wall of vinyl records. He pulls one out — a 1950s blues record, Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters era. He drops it onto a turntable.
[art pending]
Sunny sitting on the edge of a drum riser. Tambourine across her knee. Looking up at Dev.
[art pending]
Allred — composition. A two-shot. Lou and Jesse at the turntable. Sunny and Dev at the kit. The brothers being claimed by two different teachers in two different corners of the workshop. The green guitar leaning against the wall. The USB on the bench. The DeciBot, somewhere out there, still walking.
No copy.
Splash · 1 panel
Layout — Splash — final page
[art pending]
The exterior of the Brooklyn warehouse. The freight door closed. Dawn light on the bricks. A pigeon on the roof. The Manhattan skyline across the river. Quiet. Beautiful. The wave-symbol stencil, again — this time in pink chalk on the freight door. Whoever the Wave were in 1966, they were here. They have always been here. In the deep distance — many blocks away, just a smudge on the horizon — the fedora-DeciBot walks. Calm. Unhurried.